00F-12   "Natural Language 2: Dogpile!"

Build number:	00F-12 (lifetime start #197)
Title:	"Natural Language 2: Dogpile!"
Date:	April 29
Location:	Venice Breakwater, on the flat
Start:	0900; building time 8.5 hours (estimate, departed at sunset)
Height:	5 feet (4.4 feet formed, plus handbuilt balls)
Base:	1.75 feet, cylindric
Photography:	2 TMX120 w/67II and 165
Videography:	360 walkaround and stills w/XL1

General Notes: Color. Shape. Location. Axis orientation and curvature. Degree of opacity. Overlays of other colors. Neighboring elements and their directions. Size. Flat art is supposed to be simple. Sculpture has always seemed to me to be a more interesting way to express ideas. Full-round, with space and engineering. There are constraints, and now that I'm playing with oil pastel on paper I'm learning what they are. Paper can take anything! The only constraints are ideas and skill. Sand sculpture is beginning to look slightly dowdy by comparision.

Design Notes: With the pile built I realize I either have no ideas for this medium, or too many. What results, after an eight-hour collision of flat and round ideas, is confused. Lots of half-formed elements that never quite come together into a sculpture. After a day of wrestling with ideas I was very glad Jim could drag me off the beach. The sun set over Malibu as he towed my load to the bike path. What's happening? I guess it's time to work out a new balance; after five years of steady sand sculpture, there's a whole slew of new ideas. Part of the future is flat.

Afterword: Being too tired to think but too wound up to sleep, I called Maurice. "How was your date?" "Oh, we had a great time. Guess what?" "What?" "I went to an art store. Bought some canvas paper. And a sketch pad. And some oil pastels, colored pencils, pastels. "Well, rats. I was going to give you some oil pastels and paper." Too slow, Larry. "And Jenniffer. She got acrylic paints, some canvases and charcoal." "Who'd have thought one little mark with chalk on sidewalk would lead to this."

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