99F-15 "Surprises"

I worried about sand. I worried about the construction. I felt trammelled by various imponderable factors, wondering if it'd even be worth my time to ride to the beach. The reality is far different. Good sand, no construction crew, thick overcast. The universe just handed me this one on a silver platter.

Build number:	99F-15 (lifetime start #171)
Title:	"Surprises"
Date:	September 24
Location:	Venice Breakwater, south side
Start:	1200; building time: 5 hours
Height:	3 feet (short form with free-pile extension)
Base:	1.6 feet (cylindric)
Photography:	one roll RA135-24 w/LX and 85mm

1. Forget Work Everyone has crises. Managers have even more, and their crises become mine. Everything has to be done now, no matter that, as with any other funnel, only so much can flow at once. What with all the noise, task switching and figuring out where I am becomes the major task. I'm beat but the skateboard helps with that. Lock the door, walk to the street and hop on. Work and everything else is left behind as my feet guide, with subtle tiltings, my progress down the gentle hill. The Breakwater area is thoroughly torn up, although the machines are idle right now. Tomorrow is anyone's guess. Only one thing trumps a bulldozer in sculpture-flattening power, but at least the tide is predictable. Big chunks of concrete litter the beach near the storm drain. Farther south rounded pebbles, mussel shells, tiny clams and pieces of Pismo shells cover the coarse sand. This is all grim. Life is hard for the maker of live sand sculpture; people on the boardwalk don't have to worry about these things. I roll north past their noisy environment and think that I'd rather work with coarse sand on the beach than good stuff here. The photo lab has four set of prints for me. I push on north to Ben and Jerry's. "You still have Southern Peach!" "Yes. We just got our shipment yesterday and they sent some." At a table in the courtyard I look through the prints and savor the ice cream. 2. Stage The machines haven't budged, and there are no people around except the lifeguard. There was a brief flash of sunlight just before I left the house but now the overcast is solid grey. A strong steady breeze bowls in off the ocean. Usually September brings clear hot dry days but today feels more like February. Not only is no construction work being done, but a perfect flat space has been left near the high-tide line. There's good sand not far away, and it's even cleaner than it was yesterday with just a few pebbles and clams. The first step is to launch a kite into that inviting wind. Or maybe more than one; the delta launches easily so the parafoil with its new polychrome tails joins it. "You have this down to a science." He's a lifeguard I've not met before. "The only thing missing is your truck. All the other lifeguards just hand me the keys so I can haul sand and water." "Well, I sort of need it." Slowly the pile builds. Wind builds with it so I take time out to launch the big kite with its spinning windsocks. This one had given trouble the last time out so I try different orientations of its crossmember and produce steady upright flight. With its windsocks it floats high and steady over the completed pile, making a bright spot against the leaden sky. To add one more dash of color I launch the box kite. "Hi, Rich. Look! It's a four-kite wind!" "Hi, Larry. Yes, I see." "I was hoping the message got through. I was not too coherent as I was talking with Lorna." "No problem." Two more buckets of sand, mixed with water in the plastic tub, make enough slurry to build a six inch free-piled extension. Now it's time to carve. 3. Exercise The first short-form sculptures were tests for technique and tools. I used it a couple of times for sculptures when there was no time for bigger pieces, but still treated it as a simple exercise. Serious sculptures got an extension up to about four feet or used the new sailcloth form. Then serious sculptures started taking ten hours or more and acquired more detail with smaller elements. Many of them looked like two or three feet of good sculpture on a decorated base. Rich said last week, of my first short-form in years, that it looked as if it just kept on going down into the beach. I agreed and felt satisfied. Today's experiment is a no-limits short form sculpture. I've already cheated a bit by added six inches but that was just to make the overall proportions more attractive. The design idea is to continue to develop the round-end elements that I've been using sometimes. I like the way they look, especially the more complicated multi-lobed undulant pieces. So this sculpture starts with a four-lobe surface that enwraps the whole top. 4. Time "It's 1:30." "So late? Where'd the time go?" Well, I was launching kites and clearing the area of concrete chunks. I outline the top piece with the little knife, curves going this way and that and finally meeting down on the south side to make a closed figure. This is quick. Development takes longer, using the Steel Finger and #4 Loop to dig inside. Holding up the west lobes of the top is another lobe that extends upward from a complicated surface whose lower edge floats over a leg that bends into the sculpture. Occasional big waves boom against the breakwater. There's only one surfer out there. The wind is strong, steady, damp and cool. No one else is in the water, and few are walking the sand. "Oh, you're slow today, Larry. You were mine." I just saw the big yellow truck out of the corner of my eye as I dug inside. Fortunately Jim is feeling merciful today and didn't run over me. "Hi, Jim. You have a new partner." This makes me wonder what happened to Dave. "Yes. This is Brent." "You guys must be bored. Did you get the headquarters all cleaned up to the supervisor's satisfaction?" "Yes, we got that done. Now we have to deliver the Chief's mail." We both salute and sing "Mail to the Chief." "Say, I was looking at your Web site the other day. It's neat." "You have a computer?" "No, I was at a friend's. He brought it up and I looked through it. After three or four hours they told me I was out of time. I enjoyed it." He must have, to stay that long. Conversation goes on as I lean against his truck, enjoying heat from its engine warming the wind. "It's a quarter of three." "I thought it was later than that." The day is dark. This allows me to turn back the speed control and reconsider the cuts I'd just made. Sculptural moves tend to go in familiar directions unless I consciously work them out. I'm working near the bottom on the north side and was starting to make a big hollow between two legs. Instead of following that plan I cut the eastern leg back to make a projecting knob. Below that the sand sweeps over and up onto the western leg, with the intent of a space cut through beneath it. The upper space is bigger and easier, going through upward into the sculpture's growing hollow heart. On the west is another big space, but this one belongs. I refine the curve on the north, which goes up and then crosses over about halfway up, then coming down. How to continue this is a question I'll deal with later. I punch the space through into the heart and enlarge it. "We aren't ready for this!" A woman and boy are looking at what I'm doing. He's in a tank top, she's in a light shirt with some sort of diaphanous sweater over it. "It's ninty degrees in Glendale right now." "Well, I saw the sun for a couple of minutes around noon today." We laugh. "We'll come back to look again later." The south side needs work. I refine the original slot opening in the top, giving it a more interesting shape so it will do more than just separate the hard parts. Below that is a solid panel that springs outward and then tucks into the base; on the west it merges with the arched continuation of the long western leg. It's becoming delicate. "I think I'm about out of places to put holes." "Don't tell me that. Can't you find room for a small one someplace?" "I'll try, Rich." Finally I work my way around to the east. "It's a little after four." "I'm almost finished." This is a good thing; the cold is digging in more deeply. I cut out a narrow space, connect it to the sculpture's heart, then shape it with the Steel Finger. Something about the sculpture bothers me but I can't quite touch it. It's interesting, has some beautiful elements, but still there's that tickle in my mind. I work my way around, cleaning it up. 5. Finish This turns out to be quite a task. For a small sculpture it has a lot of parts, and they all fit in complex ways which make many areas hard to reach. Incipient shivers don't help. I cut here, trim there, shaping various elements more elegantly. "That's it, Rich." "It's a good piece. One of your better ones. What's even more interesting is that you only spent five hours on it." 6. Time 2 Five hours. That used to be the norm, even when the sculptures used three times the sand. Even when they took longer they weren't this complex. "Weightless," state of the art for 1996, took four or five hours. The sand was unfiltered, but carried to the building site. 97F-18, state of the new art in 1997, ran about ten hours and left me reeling. I thought it was unusual rather than a harbinger. Today the ten hour sculpture is normal on days that are long enough. The difference is that today's ten hour, ten-cubic-foot sculpture isn't finished. 97F-18 may be the last piece I really finished. Now I have this little one and even it isn't finished. I could probably spend ten hours on one this size. 7. Wind Moving air has become a solid, steady force. The big kite's windsocks spin madly and its line sings. The box is flying higher than I've ever seen it. "I'm cold." "So am I. I think it's time to write this file." Wanting my hands to dry before picking up the camera I start to pull kites down. The little parafoil tugs hard but cooperates. The big delta-Conyne is pulling much to hard for me to reel it in so I walk it down, hand over hand on the humming line. "I just finished!" The woman and boy are back. "Really? We'll take a look." The boy is soon back, watching me walk the reluctant kite down. I'm rather reluctant myself; it's an ideal kite-flying wind. It gets bigger and bigger and his eyes match. Finally we ground it. "I was hoping my hands would dry, but no luck." Wind blows spume from breaking waves and everything is damp. I turn my back to it and load the camera. Sculptor's palsy makes photography difficult, but for a short one I can sit down and brace my arms on my knees. Focusing is difficult with wind making my eyes water and blur but I've been through this enough to know when to blink. The last frame clicks off. "Time to go." "It's about six o'clock." "Feels like about eight." Recalibrating to shorter days is always confusing. We drag the trailer back to the bike path and I head home past die-hard vendors on the boardwalk. I've always said a cloudy, cool day was perfect for sand sculpture. This one was just a little bit too perfect. The ride home warms me. 8. Thoughts At night the message finally gets through. Modelling the sculpture in my mind I see its panels and spaces. What's missing is continuation inside; the heart is just there with no strong design mission. The round-end pods and elements need to go inside. Outward continuity is good but not enough. Yes, the day of the ten-hour short sculpture is approaching.

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