02M-2   "Symphony number 1 in 3 Minor"

Gestation

Many people believe that size is a good way to judge things. If it's bigger, it must be better. Just look at Hollywood.

I don't agree. Size should be suited to the application; if it doesn't need to be big, why make it big?

In sand sculpture size is very expensive: double the sculpture's dimensions, and you've just forced yourself to pack eight times as much sand. I worked this in reverse, cut all dimensions by half and ended up with better sculptures through time spent in carving rather than packing.

When I decided to go to the World Championship contest in British Columbia, I was well into the Small Sculpture Revolution. Here, I would be flanked by many sculptors from around the world, and every sculpture there would be much bigger than mine. I talked about this with Virginia, an artist friend, and we came up with an idea: multiple small sculptures with some kind of unifying theme or plan.

It almost worked. When the main sculpture fell over just before judging, I was closed out. A friend got some photos just before the failure and I could see in them a sound idea executed with flaws. The worst flaw was the chaotic base area; I'd carved it into deep channels and high ridges, and this noise distracted from the simpler sculptures. So, the base area needs to add, without overwhelming. The sculptures themselves needed to be stronger, also.

A month later, when the pile collapsed at Santa Cruz, I had to try it again. I used the stump of the original, along with a second smaller pile, to make a sort of abstract Arizona-style mountain and ridge. I liked it, and still do, but it tanked with the crowd. Too low, too hard to figure out, especially as it was surrounded by bigger and better defined sculptures.

These two experiences, in 1996, were enough to show me that the multiple is a different kind of sculpture. One abstract is a sculpture, two make something else: each sculpture has to be good, and then they must be connected in some way that strengthens them. With only one day's worth of energy and light available, and monolithic sculptures taking every bit that was offered, a good multiple became apparently impossible.

The state of the art is never fixed. New tools are added, and new skills born from various pressures to perform. What was once difficult becomes easy, and what was beyond-the-horizon impossible forms part of the normal routine. I took an extra form with me a few times but that second sculpture was just too much to attempt.

Squeezed between tide and TV scheduling, I produced a sculpture for a production company in about four hours, start to finish. The sculpture was off the main sequence, but better than many. Carving faster is like doing smaller sculptures: you can do more. What suffers is contemplation, but sometimes I think too much about what I'm making and the sculpture itself suffers.

A development company asked me to make a sculpture for them in a contest. It looked forlorn, standing there in a huge plot, so I had the helpers make a second, shorter pile while I carved the first one. Connecting the two with raised sand and carved shapes joined them into one sculpture. Four hours were enough carve only rough connections but the suggestion was promising.

George and I had been talking about various sculpture ideas. The Zen garden multiple was one of the more attractive.
"We should do it."
"Yah, we should, but who's going to help? It's a lot of work."
"Tess will. Maybe I can get Kimma to come out too. I'll ask them."

With all of those influences the idea kept pushing itself into my mind. How to make the connections? How to maintain enough mental alertness to keep track of how the developing sculptures were relating to each other? What form should the connection take? Should the sculptures be placed on a flat ground, with connection implied only in propinquity? Or should I shape the basal areas to make the connections stronger? How do I design this thing so that it's better than the parts? There is only one way to find out. Take the day off from work and go.

1. Compromise and Decision

The second compromise has to do with sand. I've decided to build three piles, which will require about twice as much sand as I usually pack. I can't haul and filter that much good sand, so I'll use some good sand layered with the native sand. The fine sand layers should help hold the piles together, and the color contrast between them might add visual interest. It's hard to say how that will work out, but it seemed to work with the corporate contest piece.

It's all an experiment, with no time to think about details. I dig a rectangular boundary and use the sand to make bases for the three piles. Not quite big enough, so I stretch it a bit. Two and a half hours later, the three piles are built. I hoped that having all three piles made would help with the integration, but it also solved the problem that showed up in earlier attempts. Making another pile after finishing a sculpture was just too much, and I don't have to think about integrating the second sculpture after having put everything into the first.

Two of them are close to each other, the biggest and the smallest. Farther away, off in the corner, is the middle-sized one. The plan is to leave it by itself, with the other two united on a common island within the moat. Looking at the assemblage it seems that the pieces are too close to each other, but in the past they've been too far apart so I compensated. Perhaps too much.

2. The Problems of Carving

I start with the biggest piece, because it will be the anchor. It will call attention to itself just because it's taller, but it needs to work with the others. Without them it won't be complete.

What connects the movements of a symphony? I've never really known. As much as I enjoy, even need, music, I have no idea where a composer starts to bring a structure out of 12 notes.

I peel the neighbors, breaking them out of their plastic enclosures so that I can work on them together. Light and dark layers of sand contrast strongly. Carving through the layers is interesting, with the coarser, light-colored material easy to cut and the dark, fine sand more resistant.

Well, let's work with that. I carve away the north side of the tall piece and then start burrowing into the soft sand layers. These are thick. With the fine sand layers above and below it should be strong enough to hold. Leave the good sand where it will do the most good, but it looks too uniform and the holes aren't very interesting. I reshape them for movement upward and to the right.

"Pelicans!"
"Where, Rich?"
"Straight up."
There they are, floating high over the breakwater and then down to the water again, making time northward. On business, not fishing.

At the base I twist the side panel and continue it down and across in a curve that starts upward again into a concave on the neighboring piece. This one is more rounded, with strong twisting elements separated by long narrow cuts. It's also simpler than the bigger piece. I carve the basal island to a rough outline, modifying this to suit the sculptures on top.

This basal carving produces a lot of waste sand, which is why I quit doing it years ago. Too much work on top of an already tiring day, but in this case it has to be done. There's no place nearby to put it, so I load the waste into the cart, haul it down the beach a ways and dump it where the rising tide will remove it. The whole process is tedious, even when Rich takes over the "truck driving" part.

"Well, that's pretty well defined. And we're running out of time."
Bob and Rich follow my glance down the beach, where the tide has definitely started to make inroads. There just isn't anything quite like the rising tide to light a fire under the tired tidal sand sculptor.
"Time to work on the third piece. It's supposed to be quite simple, a three-legged arch to frame the other pieces from this angle, and to anchor them from the other side."

I pick up the #1 Loop Tool, the time-pressed sand sculptor's best friend, and go after the sand.
"Wow. You're really making it fly!"
"Yah. No time to think. Doesn't do me any good to have it unfinished when the tide gets here."
This pile looks marbled. Somehow its layers are thinner and more erratic. I cut the legs inward at the bottom with a subtle curve and then start hollowing.

3. Balancing Need with Nature

"Have you made open sculptures like this before, Larry?"
"Yes, Bob, but they end up being rather simple so I've gotten away from making them. Now it's more of a struggle to balance airiness with solid parts whose shapes I like."
"Well, this piece is stunning."
"I like the way it contrasts with the others."

The clean-up produces even more waste as I try to work the basal islands into a shape that complements the rest of the sculpture. Bob and Rich take over the sand-hauling task, with Bob on the shovel and Rich specializing in transport.
"My mother always told me that if I didn't get a Ph.D I'd be digging ditches. Well, here's proof that even with a Ph.D, you dig ditches!"
"I wouldn't be here if I weren't having fun," Bob says. "How do you want this area shaped?"
"Dig this out, then take the line on around to, oh, about here." I draw a line with my toe to where a ridge extends out from Unit C. I go on, juggling clam shell, two brushes and the small spatula as I try to refine shapes so the wobbles and wiggles don't distract from the overall shape. Just don't look too closely.

4. Walkaround

A steady breeze blows out of the west. Low surf disappoints the surfers, but still drenches the occasional person near the breakwater. Low clouds filter the light, softening the shadows into something that works well for black-and-white photography.

The tide approaches.
"Where's your video camera?"
"I forgot it, which means that also forgetting the tripod for you isn't a problem."
"Too bad. This would have made for good video."
"Yah. And Larry will kill me."

I walk around with my little camera, trying to catch some of those little surprises that keep showing up. The echo of a line. The appearance of one hole through another. Two parallel concavities. The top of one sculpture appearing between two others.

"Do you want a picture with you in it?"
"No, I don't need that." I don't need to be in every photograph. "Wait a minute. I haven't had a builder photo in some time." I choose a place pretty much at random.
Bob walks around, then pauses. "I think this angle would be better."
"Fine. Where do you want me?" How often do you get to have a movie director give you blocking instructions?
"Over a bit. There. That'll be good."
I sit down and try for a pose that will give viewers a reason to believe I'm alive.
"That's it."

A wave exhausts its energy dropping over the edge into the moat. It leaves interesting patterns of disturbed sand. A few more come close.

"Hi, George. I wasn't sure you'd make it."
"I told you I'd be here."
"Well, I mean that I wasn't sure you'd be here before the sculpture got washed away."
"Here it comes!"
The first wave with real power flows smoothly into the moat, about an hour after I expected it to. The water runs in gullies and then spreads out through the moat.
"Tess wants to come out."
"She needs to be quick."

In my mind the sculptures rise from smooth islands with their reflections scattered in rippling water. The reality has the islands, yes, but the water is covered by brown foam. I forgot about that: any depression collects foam and there's no way to remove it until freely flowing water comes through. By then the sculptures will be, if not gone, in serious trouble.

A vigorous wave washes the sand and fills the moat. I get some more photos and then Unit C splits, its west half falling on the dry land between it and the bigger Unit A. I thought the most delicate piece, Unit B, would be the first to go.

The sculpture is almost perfectly centered, getting waves from both sides, which is why the foam collects around it. Water rolls in and back. People wearing shoes have to detour inland but I stay out on the flat with toes sinking into the sand. A seagull is surprised when the bundle of seaweed it's perched on rolls as a wave hits, but the gull just walks the moving surface, staying on top.

Unit B splits. The cracks widen and then chunks of sand roll down into the filled moat. Unit A's base is dark, saturated, but the coarse sand is harder to dissolve as water passes through. It hangs on, becoming more undercut as waves wash around. Sand fills the moat. Finally gravity and water have their way; cracks start in the tall sculpture, the west leg sags and then slides.

5. Right for its Time

One root reaches back to the free-pile experiments of 1997. These quite often look like towers on low bases because of the way the process works. The design sensibility becomes one of linked sculptures not too different from today's sculpture. This one is, however, better because form-packed sand is better at holding shapes.

Another root grows from the fairly recent understanding that a sculpture's overall shape matters. Not just the parts, but their combined profile. I've gotten used to shaping a sculpture to lean or curve, and with two other sculptures for these gross shapes to play with the process has suddenly become essential.

Echoed elements are also important. I started experimenting with this a couple of years ago, wondering what good it was. It seemed like just another way to hide mass that couldn't be removed, but as I became good enough at it to make it work, I was able to make flowing shapes that contributed a lot to a whole sculpture. Here, the repeating elements are on other sculptures, and they change with the viewer's location. They're even better in this context, softening the boundary between pieces, helping them to join into one.

It did work as one piece. When Unit C failed, the sculpture lost more than just one-third. Maybe I'm deluding myself, but the other two seemed bereft, the design no longer complete.

"It's six o'clock," Rich says.
"What's the plan for dinner? We have to go water the sunflowers." Tess, who joined us in watching the ruins fade, and George look at me.
"Are you post-sculptural?" Tess asks.
"I think so. Too confused to tell." Never have I done three sculptures in one day. It reminds me of 1999, when Larry was here, and we had three sculptures on the beach. They'd been made on two different days, each the day's sole project. Here are three, done as one in one day. If I weren't flying I'd be horizontal; tomorrow is going to be interesting. "Yah, I'm post-sculptural, all right."
"Maybe we should forget about dinner."

Somebody should just load me into a truck and haul me home. Instead, we load up the gear and haul it away.

At home, fed and showered, I'm still brainlessly flying. What a piece. What it lacks in build quality it makes up in promise. This could be fun, and I call Larry to tell him so. I can't sleep so might as well talk.

The next morning I try to get out of bed. The first task is to find out where the truck that ran over me is hiding. I don't want to be hit again. The memory is worth the pain.

Written July 20
Amended August 17, 18
HTML conversion August 18