99P-22 "Glow"

Build number:	99P-22
Title:	"Glow"
Date:	December 26
Location:	Ocean Park
Start:	1430; building time: approx 1.25 hours
Height:	3 feet
Base:	1.25 X 2..5 feet, excluding beach embellishment and balls
Photography:	approx 14 exp on RA w/WR

I'd no sooner arrived home from San Diego and gotten the door open than the phone rang. It was Don asking what I had planned for the day. Well, the first thing was breakfast because I hadn't had anything to eat. This was around 0945. We chat about this and that, then agree that he'll call later to make arrangements to go to the beach. He hangs up. I manage to get the car partly unloaded. Good enough. Make a bowl of granola and fruit, sit down and fire up the computer. The phone rings. This time it's Barb. We have a great time talking as my granola becomes... plastic. Actually it wasn't bad, when I finally got a chance to eat it. Very easy to chew. Eventually we quit talking and I tell the computer to fetch my Email as I finally take that first, long-anticipated, bite. An old shoe would have tasted good; the soggy granola was pure heaven. Well, I get some peace for long enough to snag the mail and start writing a short report on Friday's failed sculpture on Silver Strand. Then Don shows up. No sooner do I get the door open than the phone rings. It's his sister. Suddenly everything is clear; of course he'd never come out here just to see me! His family is wandering around Santa Monica; we arrange to meet in a while on the beach. At least I've managed to finish breakfast. Don and I walk to the beach. I grab the big kite out of my car, hoping for wind. We walk briskly; Don is a Sierra Club hike leader and the only person I know who can keep up with me. The beach is quite nice. Tide dropping, gentle breeze just strong enough to launch the kite, and lots of warm sunshine. I reel out enough line to get the kite into the stable onshore flow, then hand the reel to Don. "Have you ever flown a kite before?" "Of course. My mom has 25 of them." "What? How come you never mentioned this?" His relationship with his family is strange, but then from the outside all family relationships are. There's good sand available. Good sand, sunshine, a falling tide. What do these add up to? Sand sculpture, of course! Don stands there, slowly unreeling kite line, as I dig and pile. A few overacheiving waves make this difficult, but eventually there's a blocky pile with a tall tower. For carving I have hands and my Swiss Army knife. I've done this before. Imperfect, yes, but better than not being here at all. The piled sand is soft, requiring a very gentle touch. Steadily I coax a pleasing design from it. Don has been watching for his family. "There's a wheelchair, but it's not her." It's well past the arranged meeting time. "There's another wheelchair, but again not them." Well, they'll get here sometime and even if they don't it's a good afternoon. "There they are!" He walks away. Charlie walks up and introduces himself; they came down for a sculpture some years ago and I vaguely remember him. Alice gets a ride with the lifeguard. Don comes back, empty-handed. His mother follows, slowly. A smile lights up her face as her glance follows the line to the bright kite. "I came down for a kite festival one day, but no one else showed up. So, I put up 10 or 11 kites of my own. Had a festival all by myself!" "Well, you should come down again. Bring yours and I'll fly all four of mine." The sculpture is pretty well finished. Exuberant waves, unable to resist getting my feet wet, have reduced its base before reluctantly following the moon westward, so it needs a little more. I start digging into the beach, bas-relief swoops and swings with big sand balls as punctuation marks. Eventually it spreads about ten feet along the beach, a stack of three graduated balls behind a curving low wall marking the north. The south is held down by a big ball sitting atop a short pedestal in a curving depression. As the shadows grow the whole thing looks very nice. I'll have to do more of this. The wind goes away. Don's mother can't reel the line in fast enough so I start pulling in hopes of bringing the kite to a controlled landing. Lacy clouds work southward in lenticular layers. The light turns golden and I photograph the sculpture and Don's people. Then the light fades, the sun a half-disk, a chord, a spark, gone. Cold leaps from the water. We adjourn to Alice's van; dinner is in the offing but I'm toast. "Just take me home, please, and tuck me into bed. Thank you."

Top of Page Library Human Touch Museum 1999 Sculptures 1998 1997 1996 1995 All contents copyright 1999, 2000 by Larry Nelson lord_chaos@compuserve.com Written 99 December 27 (originally a message to Barb and Larry) Editing and HTML conversion 2000 January 16

99p22rpt.htm 2000 January 16