00F-20   "Xanadu"

New Heights It's astounding. It's also just plain beautiful: root-like shapes rise and converge around great gulfs of air, growing into legs and arms supporting detailed bodies. The images are small but extraordinarily powerful. Fergus Mulvany, you've made a wonder. Everything else in the contest looks dead. And what of my sculpture?
Build number:	00F-20 (lifetime start #205)
Title:	"Xanadu"
Date:	July 22
Location:	Venice Breakwater, on the flat
Start:	0715; building time 10.5 hours
Height:	4.5 feet
Base:	1.75 feet, cylindric
Photography:	2 TMX120 w/67II and 165
Videography:	360 walkaround, stills, miscellaneous and detail stills w/XL1

1. Wear it Out! One scratch? It's no longer new. Replace it. Things have to be shiny, spotless, new regardless of how much life is really left in them. When I built my current sand filter to assist in the Small Sculpture Revolution I expected the screen material to wear out in a year. The first sign of distress, however, was a crack in one of the wooden legs after three years. One by one the rest of them broke. Now the "box" filter is just a bag of fiberglass screen holding bits of wood together. Economists talk about the economic life of things. I hate shopping. My house is full of elderly machines doddering on: I have to pull my CD player's drawer open, my VCR grumbles occasionally and my car's transmission makes funny noises. They all still work. The filter doesn't. 2. Thorin Oakenfilter "Larry, is there anything that would induce you to work this weekend? We need some camera..." "No, Wayne. I have to build a new filter. The old one is simply gone. I have to do it now because I'll need it in a week." There. Now he knows I'm not coming in on either weekend. "I see." Friday morning I ride over to the lumber yard. Walking between the stacks of golden wood immerses me in fragrant warm memories. I ride home with oak and pine balanced on a shoulder. After much thought and discussion with my co-designer Mauricio, I've decided to base the new filter upon the design of the old. Improvements include using oak rather than pine for the legs, lower spreaders that don't block water flow, and assembling it with stainless screws. The old filter broke at the joints, partly because the screws expanded with rust. Other improvements will come from better process control. I have all weekend to make it, and make it right. By Friday night the basic frame is complete, lacking only the handle and lower spreaders. I've videotaped each step of the process for Larry, who is always interested in how things are done. Saturday's first task is to make the handle. I rabbet the ends of a shaped piece of oak and screw it into place. When the aluminum lower spreaders are in place it's ready for covering. Following the shade across my outdoor workshop I take each step toward completion. As the air cools and the light slants down toward evening the filter is finished. Finished? Ahead of time, on budget. It is a pretty thing, aluminum and wood just so, solidly made, with my characteristic sloppy glue work. Its predecessor will enter in my museum of retired sculpture equipment while this one takes over the load. 3. Holiday Sunday comes up bright and sunny. And unplanned. My beautiful new filter is still there, no longer a figment of the imagination, but solid in real materials. I like it. "Hi, Jaro." "Good morning, Larry." Prominently displayed on his lifeguard jacket is the Izod logo. The shorts have racing stripes down the sides. "So, this is the new uniform?" "Yes. No one likes it." "I can see why. The red is too dark; you blend in with everyone else now." "Yes." I amble on up the beach, skateboard in hand. A man walks to intercept me from ahead; there's no way to avoid him without it being obvious. What now? "Would you like to be interviewed? We're working on a show about the beach." "Why not? I have no bus to catch." Clouds temper the sun, waves break, rush, recede. After the interview with David and Shaela I can no longer resist the water's call. One more good reason to wear shorts at all times. Eventually I arrive back home. My hands still itch for something to do. Well, Larry wants a #1 Loop Tool and here's a strip of aluminum just the right length. Near it, the Japan Woodworker catalog is open to the wood carving page, and shows a tool called a scorp. In my tool drawer is a strip of stainless steel. A few hours later I have a new tool, the #20 Loopfinger. Sorry, Larry. It's a cross between the #1 Loop and #2 Steel Finger. It also is quite pretty, nicely sanded and inviting to the touch. I can hardly wait to use it. After oiling it's even prettier. It's going to be a long week. 4. Another Patch on the Sailcloth I don't have time to make a new form so this one will have to be patched again. This time I cut a big piece of the Naugahyde left over from my 1984 flex-form and stick it down with silicone caulking over the six-inch split. Friday after work I gather all the new and repaired items and load the trailer. I feel as if I'm preparing for a major expedition or something. Finally! The day is almost here! Saturday morning I'm on my way, work forgotten, only one thing to do. At 0714, according to the watch I found in the surf, I start building the foundation. Filling the form shows a problem with the new filter: its handle is too big, requiring all of my minimal strength to hang onto it. This is exacerbated by very coarse grains of sand that plug the filter's spaces and force me to work much harder to get the fine sand through it. "Hi, Jaro." "Hi, Larry." He has the "Stay Off the Rocks" sign that everyone ignores. He's also wearing the old lifeguard trunks. "What's with the shorts?" He laughs. "The supervisors told us not to wear the new ones. The Fire Chief says they make us look like soccer players." "Oh, my. I'll bet Jim had fun with that one." "Yes. He changed shorts right there in front of everyone." Laughing, I go back to the form. At 0934 I have a completed pile, made with very good sand and a form that held together one more time. It might even handle another; the big Naugahyde patch is still sticking tightly. 5. Turn 'em loose! While the excess water drains I set up a defensive cordon that I hope is an improvement over the yellow plastic tape I used last time. This one is yellow rope with little flags of the tape tied on. After a snack I'm ready to carve. At last! I want to try a variation on 00F-16's repeated slanting elements, which seems to require a top-crossing arch. I carve the rough outline on the north with my #15 Super Slicer. I draw the outline with a fingertip and then pick up the #20 Loopfinger, still redolent with linseed oil. This thing really digs in. Quickly I have a hollow and the basic arch cut out. The angled blade puts my hand at a better angle and I can dig more strongly than with its closest relative, the #1C Loop. It also allows better guidance around the element's curves. Jim drives up to check things out. "I hear you've had a change in uniform." He almost explodes. "Yah. The supervisors have egg all over their faces on this one. Apparently the Fire Captain, as soon as he saw the new outfits, called my management and told them to get those things off, right now. What a riot. And the newspaper interviewed one of the guards up north. He said that when he was swimming with the new trunks they felt like a brick tied around his waist." "Lousy design, and not just in color." "You got that right. What a laugh. Now we'll probably be sued by Izod." His eyes, always in motion, catch something. "Rescue can in the water. Oh, he's after that boogie-boarder in the rip." I finally see what he's talking about, rip and all. He takes off to assist. The other, longer side of the arch I outline with shallow cuts. To make the surface I reach for Matt's Sand Hoe. One of a kit of six tools he sent me, this has a four-inch wide blade at the end of a handle. Although the blade is sharp, the handle flexes as I dig, causing chatter. Experimentation shows that it will handle light cuts, but I have a lot of sand to remove. When the time comes for delicate cuts and scraping, Matt's tools shine. I have nothing else like them; the narrow Mama Scraper fits into slots and gently removes sand with the edge of its blade, helping to solve a problem I've had for years: how to reach small spaces. I'd love to develop many of the sand's small suggestions into full details, but the sun won't slow for anyone but Joshua. "I'd call your new tool 'Bang, bang, you're a sculpture!'" I laugh out loud. "Yah, that fits, Rich." The new tool is rather gunlike in both power and shape. In the background some people are videotaping. One of the actors runs through the backwash and grabs my attention: he runs beautifully. Powerful, smooth, graceful, no gazelle has anything on him. I watch until the scene is shot. Later they're taping a scene of him with a girl on the rocks. The sets of big waves have been about twenty minutes apart, just long enough for them to get set up and then get knocked off by a real boomer. Jim patches them up and then gives them a ride off the beach. "What would you accept as a bribe for another hole?" "Oh, I don't know, Rich. What do you have?" "Cashews." "Good enough. Sold." He hands me some nuts and I keep carving. The sculpture has developed caverns. Digging is easy with the Loopfinger, except near the ground where its handle hits before I reach the bottom of the sculpture. Elements flow, then change course sharply and go elsewhere. "I still owe you two holes, Rich. Be patient. We're getting there." "I'll wait." On the west side is a particularly shapely cavern, its north wall a smooth curve with a hole smoothly blended in. Below its outlet is a curving channel that passes under a hollow extension from the top arch and around to the south. From an entry to the north I bore inward, hoping to come out just under the hollow extension. In late afternoon fatigue I forget to check guidance and the bore comes out two inches high, knocking out a piece of the inside corner of the curving lower end of the cavern's north wall. Now, instead of curving smoothly around the arch's extension, it has a kink and looks clumsy. Smoothing this out results in a common-looking ridge that goes into the cavern. It looks OK but is too familiar. Once the sand is gone there's nothing to do but make it part of the design, and remember the earlier version so I can try it again. Another cavern forms, tall and narrow, on the sculpture's south side. Its walls undulate and unite, gradually becoming the top-crossing arch. Other holes come in from the sides to join in this central space. "I think I've seen your challenge, and raised you a couple. Are you happy, Rich?" "Are you sure there's no place to put another?" "Well, I wanted to over here but the pile has a soft spot. I don't know how that happened. Anyway, I'm leaving it corrugated instead of ventilated." "Darn." "I haven't seen you in a long time!" I recognize her but don't remember her name. "Yah, it has been a few years. Did you move away?" "No. It's kind of silly, but I got a bike. Now I just ride past on my way to Redondo." "Well, that's about it." I start cleaning it up and realize the task is impossible. While working on that I find many places where I'd intended to cut some more sand away but simply forgot to do it. I need more daylight! And more energy. 6. Interview 2 While Sunday's beach interview was going on I mentioned sand sculpture, which got David's attention. "Yah, right over there, by the breakwater." "When will you be making another?" "Saturday." "Would you mind if we interviewed you then? Maybe even get some tape of you working?" "No problem. You might as well join all the others who will be there." But this being video production, I doubt they'll show up. "Hey, Larry!" "Wow. I gave up on you guys a long time ago." I wish I could remember their names. "This is my friend Rich." "We'll interview you too." This thrills Rich. "How much longer will you be photographing?" "Probably about half an hour. I have to get video, too." "Great." They wander off. For midsummer the beach is unpopulated. A fisherman stands on the storm drain valve box, a man and his son wander around. Apparently they're the next interview subject; the man has parked his homemade wagon and is being readied for the camera. I'm ambivalent about video. It can be magically informative, but the idea of trying to contain the beach in a tape is difficult for me to take seriously. And yet, I have a camcorder with me because it shows three dimensions better than a photograph can. I shoot a walkaround, detail stills, some moving details and then just can't resist the wonderful light's invitation to do site videography. The sun is nearly touching Castro Peak when the interview starts. I sit by the sculpture, feeling the usual wonder, and try to describe it. This would probably go better if I had a brain. They'd be better off interviewing the sculpture, but it does give me a different perspective: trying to talk about it from the outside. I don't know if it would impress Mr. Mulvany. Compared to his sculpture in France mine seems very tight. His explodes from the beach, unbound fluid sand. We all make compromises, however, and one of mine is to start with a tall formed cylinder. This dictates the erect stance; elegant tapers take space and with only 21 inches of diameter to work with even if the pile is cut to a point the sides will be very steep. So, I've decided to do the best I know how within that cylinder. But I miss the overall grace of free-pile sculpture and my earlier, wider, formed sculptures. The sun is gone when Jim comes back. He's had a very busy day, with his guards making many rescues, and looks as tired as I feel. I tie the trailer onto his truck. "Here. Sit on the tailgate." "Thank you. Maybe I'll get home now." He's breaking the rules, but I'm glad. So is Rich; we ride off the beach and the sculpture recedes against the rocks, glowing as the light fades from the sky. Interesting visitors: Rich, after early practice for Sunday's concert Jaro, on duty, with stories of the new uniform fiasco Tim, wondering if Terry was making pyramids Jim, very busy watching his guards rescue and patch up the injured Ken, who likes water even warmer than it was this day (name forgotten) a passerby we haven't seen in a few years Shaela and David, working on a beach video production

Top of Page Library Human Touch Museum 1999 Sculptures 1998 1997 1996 1995 All contents copyright 2000 by Larry Nelson lord_chaos@compuserve.com

00f20rpt.htm 2000 July 23
Full report added July 25
Edited July 30

Report written 2000 July 21, 23, rewritten and amended July 25