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www.sandhands.com/ Home / Library / Sculpture Catalog / 1999 Sculptures / 99F-3 Report |
99F-3 "Dixie Flyer" |
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| Calvin Trillin writes about artists stealing each other's ideas, saying "The immature artist imitates; the mature artist steals." John Barnes says he's not that interested in making something new; after all, there are only so many new things around and he'll settle for doing something old better. |
| Build number: | 99F-3 (lifetime start #159) |
| Title: | "Dixie Flyer" |
| Date: | May 8 |
| Location: | Venice Breakwater, south side |
| Start: | 0830; building time 9 hours |
| Height: | 4.1 feet |
| Base: | 1.75 feet (cylindric) |
| Photography: | half a roll RA w/XA2; one roll RA w/LX and 85mm |
"Got on the Dixie Flyer bound for New Orleans The morning is cool, with cat's paws of breeze and solid overcast. The sea has been calm and that, with the low tidal differential, should allow fine sand to collect. Reality is far from theory. The little fine sand is layered with coarser, but at least the coarser material isn't all that bad. I pick what seems to be the best place for my strip mine and go to work. A little plateau left behind by the last tide is just perfect for a sculpture. I hope it's high enough. I've been thinking about what to make for a week, building models in my mind, rotating them, choosing elements. Design choices are something I don't make easily, and in the last several sculptures I've allowed the sand and feelings to make the design. The resulting sculptures have been too similar to each other, seemingly not completely formed. Loath as I am to take any bull by the horns and tell it what to do, this may be the time for it. I've also been thinking about the newness problem. Sometimes I look at a sculpture and think there are enough ideas in it to give me things to work on for the rest of my life. Other times I look at it and wonder why I bother; there's nothing new in it, just a repackaging of old stuff. I expect myself to come up with something new each time and am disappointed when the same old curves come out. Maybe that's unreasonable. Maybe the first idea, that of working on things already made but making them better, is the way to go. It'd certainly be less frustrating. By the time the pile is built it has quite a lean to the north. It was plumb when I started, but if the base settled it causes no problems. Carve a series of narrow arches in it and it'd be an Italian campanile. My starting idea is for two legs curving up from the bottom enclosing a more delicate structure. I want the inner part to hang out over the taller leg. Carving the basic parts goes well. The taller leg, on the east, tucks in behind the shorter west one at the sculpture's base. I rub the tall one into a graceful undulation, leaving the shorter one just a sketch on the pile. A block of sand projects over the top of the taller leg. Suddenly I get this image of a strong bow curving down and toward me. No sooner thought than carved. Any decision has ramifications. With the southward overhang, this new curved part makes demands for support. This starts the process of losing the delicacy I wanted; the bow itself is big and heavy and the planned space beneath it means support will be obvious. Still, I like the growing design at the top enough that I'll continue it and figure out the engineering later. Rather than just leave the projecting end of the bow square, I curve it and mate it to the tall leg with concave surfaces. This makes a hollow that cries out for more separation, so I cut all the way through and shape the hole to its surroundings. This is something else I want to work on. Rather than just having a hole, I want the hole's design to relate to that of the sand around it. The bow needs something more. There's some sand left north of it; I carve it into a sloping block with many concave surfaces. A short leg transfers the load to the top of the original short western leg. I carve that to suit, bringing it in but leaving a line at its top. Beneath the bow a gulf opens up. The tall leg becomes the edge of a concave panel, smoothed with the little ceramic scraper and my fingers, spanning the sculpture, ending at the short support leg. Beneath that I cut downward and through to the north, making an interesting space.
The woman from the group home comes by. As the sculpture takes shape I like it more and more. The one remaining major design element, a big space at the bottom that separates the tall eastern leg from the rest, makes me nervous. Rich isn 't here, so I get out the Baggiemat and shoot a round of contingency photos.
"You have some real nice air in this one." An energetic wave aims for Rich's shoe and overacheives, just touching the sculpture's base before giving up. "Two hours to high tide," Rich says. He's the official timekeeper. I make a quick seawall and go back to carving. The lowest separation goes through without bringing the sculpture onto my head. I shape it to fit the surrounding sand, then reshape the sand, working back and forth until the space looks as if it belongs. "It feels almost illegal to be nearly finished with a sculpture, and have this much daylight left." Bystanders laugh and Rich gives me a knowing look. What's amazing is how rapidly the sun descends as I clean up the sculpture. For the most part it works. There are remnants of the original idea; that has guided the rest of the sculpture while leaving room for impovisation. The result is a strong piece that looks bigger than it is. Most parts are definite, rather than tentative and half-formed. I clean up the base within the half-ring seawall and sign it. I munch on a Force Primeval Bar and watch the water. "There haven't been any big waves for some time. I'm going to knock down the seawall." "That sounds like hubris." That's Rich for you, the man who wears shoes the ocean just can't resist trying to fill. "Well, what is sand sculpture if not hubris? And the seawall looks bad in photographs." I shovel the sand away and smooth it out with my foot.
Pearly light surrounds the sculpture, filtered through the remaining overcast. Its planes and hollows make very interesting patterns, inviting detail photography. Tired hands make it difficult, but it's fun moving the camera to find interesting compositions within the sculpture's many parts. There's still daylight but I'm done. Building time was short by modern standards, but that time was intense with a lot of sand removed. Rich talks about the Johnson number, but I've never been able to figure out what it means. I think about replacing it with the Waste Sand Ratio: the amount of waste sand compared to what's left. In this case, it approaches unity. Ambling around, I look at the sculpture as the sun slides toward the ocean. Force Primeval Bar polished off, I look and think. On the south side that leg holding up the bow's end just doesn't look right. Grabbing a tool and the brush, I rework it to a more graceful curve; now there's a smooth curve from the opening on the west, up the leg to the bow. I give the east side of the support leg similar treatment and its clumsy angularity is gone. It fits now, adding to the sculpture instead of just being there to hold something else up. I ask Rich to shoot some pictures because I'm too tired to load my camera, and then we leave before I see more parts that need help. I like it. The sculpture glows in my mind as I ride slowly away. The sun descends into a fogbank. Sleep is far away; I've not been this jazzed by a sculpture in a long time. It had nothing radically new, strongly resembling 97F-18, but the various design elements were done better than they have in some time. Yes, I like it. |
All contents copyright 1999 by
Larry Nelson Quotation by Calvin Trillin is from an article by David Hurn and Bill Jay in Photo Techniques Magazine.
Written 99 May 9 | ||||||||||
99f03rpt.htm 99 May 15
