One Day, One Man, One Beach: Jewels Underfoot III: British Columbia

In 1995 I entered my first sand sculpture contest, and won it. On the strength of that I applied to the World Championships in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, for 1996 and was accepted.

A friend of mine happened to be there and picked up a sample of the sand so I could find out in advance what I'd be working with. The news wasn't all that good.

Sand from Harrison Hot Springs, BC, collected by Bert Adams

Click on the image see it full size

Harrison Hot Springs is on the south shore of Harrison Lake. What is missing from the sand sample is the silt that is mixed with the sand on the beach. Ocean sand doesn't contain silt because of the wave action. Waves agitate and currents move the silt to calmer areas; the sand remains.

Silt mixed with sand is actually a good thing because it fills the gaps between sand grains and holds everything together. Think of the rammed earth of China's Great Wall that has stood for a thousand years.

The problem I ran into was that in filtering out the roots and other detritus, I separated the silt from the sand and ended up with a weaker pile. My first attempt fell over as soon as I removed the form. A more careful job the second time yielded a column of sand that I spent the next two days carving. It fell over after I sprayed the required preservative on it. There is one extant photograph of this piece.

96M-1, "Zen Sound"

World Championship at Harrison Hot Springs 1996

Photo by a friend of my sister's

That was the first multiple sculpture I ever made. The idea came from a boat ride a friend and I took back to Vancouver from the end point of the Royal Hudson train ride. It's a fjord, rockbound in curving granite. Note that I'm rather silt-colored. The shower at the end of the carving day was a real pleasure.

The other samples from British Columbia probably came from Earl, who also helped me at Harrison. It was a long time ago and I've forgotten the details.