The tide was right, but the weather was up for grabs. I decided to attempt a New Year sculpture. Weather had the final say; read the report below for more details. Clicking on an image will present a larger version.
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| Photograph by Larry Dudock |
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Finale/Beginning
Early December brought storms external and internal. Thanks to happenstance and a more or less prepared mind, I'd become a reciter of poetry in Second Life. That led to a need to write more, and I concentrated on that for several months.
I enjoy writing, the craft of putting ideas into words that others can read to bring the event back to life in their minds. I discovered a new enjoyment of recitation through hearing others who have a real love for the spoken word and put themselves into it. Naturally, the part of me that believes survival comes from invisibility was upset by all of this, but nothing bad happened so the argument was based purely upon past events. Right now, this year, these months, I enjoyed it and so did those listening. I wrote some new stories and a lot of poems, and recited them all.
I felt frustration growing toward the end of the year. Eventually I thought that it comes from a basic fact of recitation: I need an audience. While I enjoy doing it, it's not something I do by myself; there needs to be some communication both ways, rather like the musical programs I've done for years. Was I becoming someone who worshipped the crowd and wanted to please them so I'd get the chance to recite again? Given the nature of what I write, I doubted it but there was still a valid point at the heart of the argument.
Sand sculpture started as an experiment and continued as an art, or a craft, done purely for myself. I could do sculpture quite easily even if there were no one else within sight on the beach.
The external storms wreaked their usual havoc with the sand. Low tide is still a good time for walking. I arrived at the Venice Breakwater on a December morning and found an expanse of fine sand with a falling tide, and some mussel shells scattered about. I had nothing with me but the house key. An hour and a half later there was a sculpture and a man covered with sand.
Two days later I planned ahead. In addition to the house key I had a handful of small tools as I walked to the beach. The first intimation of trouble came as I walked down the final hill to the beach and saw a huge breaker rise above the beach cusp, and then heard the roar and rumble of the break. The waves had moved in, and the sand was gone. I watched waves for a time and went home. Trying again two days later yielded the same result.
The day before Christmas was cool and calm, with bright sun. Those big waves drive waves in, and where they are finally stopped by seeping into the beach they leave patterns of coarse grains and small shells. I like to take still-life photos of the patterns. I ambled along the beach, photographing.
I forgot photography when I got to the Breakwater and found, much to my surprise, a crescent of fine sand. There'd been enough people passing by that there were no mussel shells left. Solve that problem later. Pile now while the conditions are good; I can carve with my fingers.
Well, actually, I couldn't. Free-piling technique has improved through the years, and my fingers didn't make much of a mark while I broke some fingernails in the attempt. Fortunately there was a scrap piece of wood nearby, just sturdy enough that I could dig and cut with it.
I even had the camera. After adding some decorative sand balls, I shot a round of photos. These were hand-held because the 100mm macro L lens has a stabilizer built in, and it is astonishingly effective. It even removes the effects of Post-Sculptural Palsy.
The tide window closed after that. It would re-open around the first of the new year. Walks in the interim showed that the sand was here today, gone tomorrow. If I wanted to start the new year with a sculpture, I'd have to be prepared for anything. It turns out that I was prepared for everything but what actually turned up.
Build number: 19F-1 (lifetime start #345); monolith on low riser
Title: none
Date: January 1
Location: Venice Breakwater, isthmus
Start: 0900, construction time approx. 4 hours
Size: about 30 inches tall, 21 inches diameter
Technique: Latchform, Box Filter 2, three full loads intertidal sand
Digital Images: EOS-5D Mk IV, 100L, 24-70L, handheld
Volunteer photography: Larry Dudock, hand-held process and complete, and intervalometer
Volunteer videography: Larry Dudock, process and equipment
New Tools: none
New Equipment: none
The last time I was here the beach was covered with shells, which would have made free-piling impossible. It's still a simpler process so it's what I wanted to do, but I brought the full kit so that I could respond to conditions as they were.
The morning started calm. I loaded the cart and headed out.
Twenty minutes later, walking south on the Boardwalk, the palm fronds start to sing in a wind from the north. I stop for a minute. Abort? Go on? It's cold, and not that strong, so I go on.
There is good sand, and not too many shells. But there's a layer of coarse sand mixed in everywhere. Using a form will allow me to work with this, so I set up on the flat area behind the Breakwater.
A seal is perched on a rock at the north end of the breakwater. That's unusual for this place.
The coarse sand is just the right size to plug the holes in my screen, making it very much work to wash the fine sand out through it. I compensate by making it short, three loads rather than four. At the end I'm glad it's done; my shoulders need a break.
Along the curve of the beach to the south, the Penguin Swimmers are getting set up. Today is chilly and breezy. Not going to be much fun for swimming, especially after coming out of the water.
I sit on a cart wheel and contemplate the stubby pile of sand. It's all potential at this point. Previous sculptures have been more about surfaces than spaces, and I'd like to continue that, but the problem comes in the sculpture being cylindric. What happens when surfaces meet? They take on default shapes. Well, with time, I can move the surfaces around and experiment with how to have them meet and change.
This goes well for a time. The wind moves around to the south, then the east, then moderates to a gentle breeze. I can even feel my toes for a time.
I'm about half done when, suddenly, the wind unsheathes its claws and comes after us from the north. I can feel it, rolling up its sleeves and getting ready for real work; gradually it builds to the point where snakes of bouncing sand grains slither over the beach to assault my skin. I'm on the verge of shivering.
It just gets worse. I yield to Boreas, do some basic clean-up, call it done, and sign it. A few photographs, and a struggle to load the cart with the wind trying to blow everything away, and then I'm headed off the beach to the relative calm of the alley northbound.
The sculpture shows I can still do it after a year and a half hiatus. It shows some design promise, too. On a warmer day, with more consideration, perhaps the ideas will come to fuller expression; unlike a poem, a sculpture is fixed in time with no possibility of future editing. There is no rewrite desk for the sculptural process.
Santa Monica
2019 January 3, 4
