The Year in Sand 2007

Rising from the Past, Changed

25 years ago I had an idea but not skill. It was all I could do then to make a simple catenary arch ten inches tall. In the following month I made more arches, all of them affected by not knowing what I was doing.

Once I started packing sand inside forms I did free-piled sculptures only as quick pick-up pieces when on my way to somewhere else. Nothing changed until 1997 when the simplicity of the free-pile appealed to me and I did year's worth in three weeks. The Small Sculpture Revolution had already had its effect on the "real" sculptures and now the same design ideas spread out on the beach, horizontal as well as vertical. Since then every year has included some "serious" free-piled sculptures.

They were still casual, still under the old edict of "You can't do that with free-piled sand." Call it the regular repetition of a mistaken identity. Give it up for a time and the old mistakes fade, enabling new ones.














Build number: 07P-10
Title: too many to list
Date: October 12
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side
Start: about 1315; construction time approx 3.5 hours
Height: about 3.5 feet
Base: 3X1.5 feet roughly
Assistant: none
Photo digital: 27 shots with EOS 1D Mk 2 and 24-70 zoom
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: By Rich
Video: none
Equipment note: backpackable tools

Rain was predicted. It hadn't happened by tide-time. I arrived under bright sunshine but clouds offshore showed hints of what might be, later. Last weekend's thin layer of good sand over coarse was now thicker, and the coarse sand vein was thinner. The coarse would just have to become part of the works.

It's logical. Put the borrow pit below the sculpture. This intercepts any rogue waves and also puts the pit where water is more likely to collect. The placement limits design for lighting because it puts the sculpture in line with the late sunlight. Today I intend to do something about it. Formed sculptures are round so it makes no difference which way the form is oriented. Free-piles tend to be oblong. This one angles down the beach. Unfortunately I think more about orientation than plan and the whole thing ends up too narrow. By the time I get to the top there's not much room; the single-pat stage is small.

The result looks awkward. It's what we have. It is, after all, just a pile of sand.

It's kind of discouraging how strong a voice the original shape of the pile has in the final shape of the sculpture. I have to work hard to make sculptures hide their cylindric origins. For free-pile tower-on-base pieces like this the easy designs range from angry ducks to beer bottles to busts with shoulders. Address that next time. Now is now, here is here.

There's no intrinsic reason this sculpture can't have as much internal detail as any of the year's formed pieces. It's just a matter of carving carefully and leaving sand where it might be of use, instead of just hacking it all away to make bigger holes. Internal structure is more interesting, with the side benefit of greater stability. Call it the Birdcage Maserati of sand.

Reaching inside is always the problem. In some cases I'm reduced to elemental fingers, not the steel variety made before the day of carving where I can't see.

The shadows have become long. Within the sculpture's shouldered outline is a new future. The free-pile has grown up in more ways than this one's size. It's like a formed piece spread out, liberated from the cylindric corset. Elements take slanting flight, curcing upward and around. There's more room to play than time in which to carve it. Planning. I'm not used to this shape. How many years have I spent with cylinders? Oblong expressions are new entities.


2007-October-14