00F-21   "Routine Impossibilities"

Coals to Newcastle The situation contains some irony. Larry, who chides me for hauling sand across the beach to my building site, has just finished swiping 850 pounds of sand from Far Rockaway and hauling it to Amagansett. The trip is three-quarters the length of Long Island. I'd razz him hard except he's too tired.
Build number:	00F-21 (lifetime start #206)
Title:	"Routine Impossibilities"
Date:	August 5
Location:	Venice Breakwater, on the flat
Helper:	George Ollen
Start:	06:40:41; building time: 11 hours, 8 minutes, 23 seconds
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. Patches on the Patches I'd intended to make a new form last weekend but work interfered. Tears in my usual tall form caused soft spots in the last sculpture so it needs some serious work. After drying it, I cut big patches to cover all the splits and stick them down with various kinds of silicone caulk. Part of the objective is to patch the form. The other part is to test the caulking materials to see which holds up best under the rather extreme conditions in a sand sculpture form. The no longer pristine white sailcloth now has one uniform ugly color of patch to replace the old polychrome ones, but I compensated by using various colors of caulking. Poor old tired thing. Looks like it'll hit its fourth birthday after all. 2. Living With Faults Work has been nutty, chaotic, busy. I'm already tired. When George walks up and takes the cartload of water from me I gladly surrender. He hauls the rest of the materials while Shaunnah and friends cheer us on from one small zone of hilarity. The sand is very good. I'd expected different, what with the huge surf and tides of the week but I guess there has been time for the sand to settle down in the last two days' calm surf. Peeling the pile shows news good and bad. Good news is that there are no soft spots; all of the new patches held although those stuck with DAP caulking are a little less secure. The bad news is cracks. As my cylindric form fills, it stretches slightly as compacted sand exerts strong pressure on the form's fabric. Unclamping the form's ends allows it to relax, the ends pulling apart. If the form were smooth inside the fabric would simply slide along the sand, but there are lines of stitching for the batten tunnels and I've had problems in the past with cracks propagating as chords into the pile where the sideways motion of the form takes the brittle sand with it briefly. Today the problem is much worse. Every patch near the clamp has moved the sand and I can see dozens of cracks large and small separating sand that has tried to follow the form from the solid pile. Well, I hope it's solid in there. Carving will tell. 3. Balancing Act Every sculpture is a compromise between airiness and solidity. The real key, I think, is to separate interesting hard parts with interesting spaces, and working this out in sand has been an interesting project over the last couple of years. Thanks to George's help I have enough mental capacity to really think about this. Prior plans for overlapping sloping rings go out the window as I carve a sharp set of flukes at the top. Of course, having lots of sand at the top requires more sand at the bottom to hold it up, but this sand is good enough that I feel like pushing. I like the top as it takes shape with a broad panel below and east of the flukes. "Lifeguard, help! Help!" "Haiiii-YAH! Yow!" "Help! This maniac is out of control!" After that I can't contain the laughter any more. "Ah, Jim, you're in rare form today." He's still dancing around the sculpture. His karate moves are graceful. Jaro waves from the tower as Jim hops over the rope and continues his workout, bounding away northward. Small spaces are no longer a real problem, what with Matt's tools for carving inside them. Uncle Bullnose does well in a narrow slot; the harder part is seeing what I'm doing. I almost have to lie down on the beach. This being a summer Saturday, and hot to boot, the beach fills rapidly. Fortunately most of them don't want to walk all the way out here and the expanded defensive cordon leaves me room to walk around. It takes everything I have to keep carving, and Rich takes over most of the PR, answering questions that I barely hear. The top looks good. Work as I might farther down there are problems. The cracked zone is large and the cracks go deep; every cut dislodges chunks of sand. I'd planned for some of this but I just can't go any deeper. Around on the east, the large panel tapers, then ends abruptly above an entry to the sculpture's central space. This would have been impossible a few years ago but is now routine. In fact I'm a little upset about the design; what's above it looks good but below are two legs. Common, ordinary legs. Surely I could do better. 4. City of Mystery The world is made of at least three dimensions. From a solid cylinder of sand spaces are removed, separating shapes of sand from other shapes. They relate to each other, curves in phase or out. Change angle of view by a few degrees and new vistas open up, deep into the glowing heart. For a time I live in a land where beauty matters, where gentleness is a powerful addition to strength and just being tough is far from enough. Here touch is a constructive kindness, not a punishment, and sensitivity is woven inseparably with endurance. No one laughs at the man's delicate visions hidden in intense physical work. Shape of hole, shape of space. Can space have a shape? It can be imagined but how does it get out of the neurons? Communication. A mental model is perfect, the sand a pale imitation but until we figure out telepathy communication requires some sort of physical manifestation. Oh, to shape space directly. Point a finger and place material. Imagine a viewpoint, a four-dimensional hand, hold the glowing image and MAKE it. And yet, and yet. . . the imagination is fuzzy. Possibilities, wonder-feeling, must become gritty reality and in coalescing gain detail and weight while losing potential. If time allowed, weighing and trading would be difficult. Fifteen degrees per hour, unchanging on my time scale, a fixed limit. The mystery has only this time to be made. I bring the only tools, nerves, muscles, bones moving to the model and carrying a crude construction of wood and steel. There is no other way, no other period, no other place. Here. Now. Contortions put the tool where it is required. Cut and compare the resulting surface to the model and then modify or be surprised when the physical improves upon the model. It could just be light. Darker here, lighter there, little mica sparkles on the subtle surfaces. I know different I feel it, the different way each tools cuts, the smooth abrasion under fingers that are more sensitive than eyes. I can smell its ocean origin, taste its salty grit mixed with the cookies Rich gives me. It's fantastic. From darkly invisible to solid under vibrant light, with secrets, and at this moment Larry is working out different visions in a similar process on the continent's far edge. 5. Quality Control In an Email message, Mirjam praised the finish of 00F-20. I just chose the angles to shoot, and video covers a multitude of sins. Her remark comes to me as I work. One response is to do some running clean-up; usually I'm in such a rush to get to the next idea that each new element is rough. Still, this one needs work. A new idea: pre-cleanup, or hole shape assessment. I look critically at each space, evaluating its relationship with neighboring parts and spaces, then rework and trim until the shapes fit. "Ten and a half hours, so far." "Thanks, Rich. It's about time to cut the silly-season stuff and finish it." Down on the south I get this nutty idea for some decoration; a last wisp of design energy goes into making this. "All right, let's clean it up." This is a problem. Small spaces, delicate parts, many subtle features. With brush and small tools I work away the rough spots, forgotten remnants of construction, and misdirected curves. There are places I just can't reach effectively but on the whole it looks pretty good. 6. Completion And we return to light. Now the object is real and I trap phantom photons, returning the sculpture to latent imagination. One more set of ideas, one more flying compromise. I don't like the bottom. It's too heavy, but there's nothing I can do about it. Gravity won't ignore just one little patch of Venice Beach. Still, the defaults are well shaped and carved, nearly disguised in some places, and quite dramatic. For once I've managed to align spaces with the setting sun so the sculpture's interior glows. "You're famous now. We've been showing the photo we took of your sculpture a few years ago to our friends in Russia." The accented soft voice is hard to understand over the surf noise. I vaguely remember them as I stand, waiting for them to move over so I can shoot the next angle. Soft light bathes this visitor from another place. Its little mysteries will disappear. From imagination to memory through 11 hours, a group of people and some sand. It has been a good day. Starting with Shaunnah's animated group, we've had a good bunch of people down here. Jim pulls my trailer off the beach and I wobble away northward. 7. A Balancing of Forces Like a person thinking they're ugly because of one small fault, this sculpture's failures loom large in memory. In fact they're not so bad; watching the tape with George, and then capturing stills, shows me the sculpture's features in a more balanced way. Yes, the bottom's parts are too heavy, but they are still pleasing. I look at the pictures and like what I've made. . . and think about the next one. Visitors: Shaunnah, who brought Kate, Diane, Peggy and Sandy Rich The Russians from two or three years ago Michael Jim, Jaro, and George (lifeguards)

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