17P-4 (October 16)

Distractions of Sand and Surf

The tide window was still open on the Friday following 17P-4, so I anticipated making a multiple with earthworks, and loaded appropriate equipment into the cart. As soon as I came within sight of the beach I knew that plan was threatened: I could see the spray from breaking waves above the high-tide cusp. That should have been hidden at this point in the tide.

The day was hot. Little wind, many people. I continued to the Breakwater anyway, hoping. Hope was dashed by the combination of waves being driven far up the beach by the huge surf that hammered the Breakwater and pushed spray high into the sky, and the coarse sand dragged down by the retreating water. Under the coarse sand was fine, so I started a pile but abandoned the effort when a big wave filled the borrow pit. And that was it for the tide window. What to call this effort? Maybe 17A-1 for "attempt," or 17PA1 for "free-pile attempt." It doesn't happen often.

I spent the next week photographing sand and pebbles. These are lovely when seen up close in detail. I began to suspect I could do better than the old 100mm macro lens I'd bought in 2005; it did well for sand of about 250 microns and up, but the very fine Venice sand always came out blurry no matter how careful I was. I decided to take a chance and buy the more expensive L version of the 100mm macro.

I got home from that errand in time to go to the beach for low-tide still life photography. I unpacked the new lens, put it into the kit bag and walked to the Breakwater.

There were some nice still life subjects revealed by the low tide and relaxed surf.

Also revealed was good sand.
   
Build number: 17P-4 (monolith with earthworks and balls)
Title: none
Date: October 16
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side littoral
Start: 12:00, construction time approx. 3 hours
Size: about 22 inches tall, 24 inches wide, 18 inches deep (less earthworks)
Digital Images: EOS 5D Mk IV, 100mm L macro, tripod; 50mm macro handheld
New Tools: none
New Equipment: Canon EF 100mm F/2.8L macro lens

I had only photographic tools with me. Some scavenging produced a big clam shell and some mussels for carving. Those and fingers would do.

The sand was in layers fine and coarse, which mixed as I packed. Quite strong. Not much on my mind as I did this but the simple fact of being there and carving, shaping with fingers, trying to figure out how to get a hand with a mussel edge into a small space and do some carving without pushing it apart.

Earthworks make for more interesting photographs, at this time of year when long shadows show the relief. I retained the waste sand in heaps for the later earthworks.

And, when done, the borrow pit was still wet enough to get sopping sand. I picked up a double handful and made a ball. A big ball. Another one almost as big went on top of that, and a third for balance off at the far end of the earthworks. The big stack was nearly too big, at about half the height of the sculpture itself.

Santa Monica
2017 October 21

17P-3, "Sensual Space" (October 4)

Perhaps differentiating "tail" from "dog" is an artificial concept. Certainly, if you asked the dog (the tail can't speak for itself), it would probably not get into a philosophical argument. "I," the dog says, "bark. The tail is along for the ride." Dogs do balance rather than talk about it.

I do sculpture. I do photography. I do photography of sculpture because people want me to, and it's not too onerous a task, and--eventually--I came to appreciate having a visual record. Visual records led to verbal records and the Web allowed merging the two expressions into one.

Photobucket's deplorable change in operations caused much of the record here to disintegrate. I'll have to address that someday. Fortunately, Blogger now does its own photo hosting so recent posts are still integrated. I don't know if anyone else uses this resource but I do, because it can be read from anywhere.

It is, however, a static display. I add to it. Older entries don't change. The technique for presenting sculptures here is settled and well polished.

In Second Life, sculpture presentations are in a pioneering era. The capability to show static images came about earlier this year, and I set up a gallery on a beach made for the purpose. A month or so later, a friend of mine gave me a display into which I can load my photographs and have a slide show. Its square display works well for many photographs.

For sand sculpture, however, the square often doesn't fit. Few of my sculptures are square in profile, and I frame them tightly in the photograph (a holdover from the days of limited number of pixels). So, I told people that a sand sculpture show was a good idea, but I was still working on the technical aspects.

Then my friend moved the state of the art into another zone. The new image display is big and rectangular, and shows 6 images at once. The six can be parts of one big image, or six separate images (such as flower close-ups), or any combination that fits within the 3X2 mosaic. I at first thought this would be reserved for special shows but it soon became the imager of choice for everything. It can be adapted to just about any subject, meaning that my sculptures of varies sizes, proportions and shapes can be accommodated.

Is the imager a tail, or a dog? What is sculpture, then? The question came up this day on the beach, when I deliberately added earthworks and balls to this sculpture--something I hadn't done in years--to make for a more interesting horizontal composition arranged for the imager. And as soon as I got home, I edited an image to suit. We have a Thursday "Show and Tell" session, you see.

Click on the images to enlarge.

Senses!

I remembered the shading of the surfaces on Monday's sculpture. The feel of the sand, subtly smoothing away the bumps and ridges left by rough carving. Free-piled sand is more plastic and it rubs away less smoothly.

So, I planned this one. I even brought some water. Tools, too, that hold up better than mussel shells.
   
Build number: 17P-3 (monolith with earthworks and balls)
Title: "Sensual Space"
Date: October 4
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side littoral
Start: 12:00, construction time approx. 3.5 hours
Size: about 24 inches tall, 28 inches wide, 18 inches deep
Digital Images: EOS 5D Mk IV, 100mm macro, tripod and handheld
New Tools: none
New Equipment: none

This one started out somewhat bigger, and became a little taller. It also developed an alarming lean to the north. It's well packed, and good sand. It takes a smooth surface once the outer layer of sand is gone.

There's time to carve some details in the curves. I can't do thin sections because there are lots of shells and fragments in the sand. But I can make it balanced.

This time I deliberately retain the waste sand to use in earthworks, which I build up in a curving berm around the east end. It seems to want more. The sand in the borrow pit is still wet so I pick up some and make a Venice snowball. It requires dry sand from higher on the beach to firm it up. That one invites another and it becomes a stack of two. There's another subtle point on the earthworks that calls for a third, smaller ball.

How much of this is for photography? I've learned a few things in dealing with the images for the Second Life show. One is that my image display is horizontal, so I have to use multiple images to fill the space, or shoot some horizontal format photographs. The balls and earlthworks will spread this one out and make at least one good landscape.

It still works for itself, making a more interesting base without being too distracting. I believe that earthworks should be in proportion to the sculpture itself but that assumption, like many others, is kind of blowing in the breeze of change. Try something and see what happens.

By the end of the day I'm thrashed and very glad to have the tripod with me. I can take my time setting up and pointing the camera, and not think about holding it steady while pointing in the right direction.

Going home is more of a slow stagger. At least it's cool. And the tide window will still be open Friday!

Santa Monica
2017 October 5

17P-2, "Etude, Op. 341e (Surfaces Remusselled)" October 2

Summer crowds were pretty much gone, sun was high, tide was low. Wanting to do some photography of beach still life arranged by retreating waves, I shouldered the camera kit, picked up the tripod and headed for Venice.

I'd been pretty well concentrated on sand and events in Second Life. Sculpture ideas were still around but playing second, or third, fiddle to the sand itself. Sand actually had the last word, however. When I got to the beach I saw a huge expanse of creamy fine sand. Thoughts of photography promptly took the back seat and I went looking for some mussel shells to use in carving.

Click the images to enlarge

And You're Surprised?

I'd become so fascinated by pebbles, sand and seaweed patterns that sand sculpture faded into the background. The summer crowds are gone and the beach is a more attractive place to be. Thinking about those lovely seagrass curls, I walked to Venice Beach with my camera and tripod in hand. When I got there the expanse of fine sand drove all other thoughts out of my head; I found some mussel shells and started building a pile. After four years I still remembered how.
   
Build number: 17P-2 (monolith with low earthworks)
Title: "Etude, op. 341e (Surfaces Reconsidered)"
Date: October 2
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side littoral
Start: 1130, construction time approx. 3 hours
Size: about 22 inches tall, 20 inches wide, 14 inches deep
Digital Images: EOS 5D Mk IV, 100mm macro, tripod
New Tools: none
New Equipment: none

The basics are simple but there are details that help make a better pile, such as keeping the top flat and level, and using an arm to retain the sand while patting it to settle. It's a very intense physical process and I wondered if I'd hold up. Formed sculpture is as much work but with lower intensity. By the time I had the pile tall enough I was glad it was tall enough.

"A bad worker blames his tools." Mussel shells are fragile. I used my as carefully as I could. Years ago I didn't get compaction this good in free-piled sculpture. Now the shells don't last long, especially when I hit a shell hidden in the sand.

Fingers don't do much on sand that's packed well. So, everything has to be of a scale that a shell can get into. No fine details, but big smooth surfaces are fine. One basic opening, and some outer details.

I've been working on a sand sculpture show in Second Life. For this I've gone back and found more sculpture images, and I've had to look at them closely to determine which to use in the show. I've read the reports too. One thing comes out regularly: how negative I was about the multiple sculptures.

Now, with some years' remove, I can see more clearly. Yes, the sculptures are simpler and tend to be heavy. Trying to carve three state-of-the-art sculptures in one day, especially after packing three piles, is a lot to ask. The best multiples I made all had help and/or more time in a contest setting. Solo efforts showed some interesting ideas that had not enough time and energy to develop.

I also didn't photograph them effectively. Instead of shooting the ensemble as a whole, I closed in on each element. The very few ensemble shots I took show a lot of promise, especially when working with terrain features that meant I could do less work.

So, I was thinking about all of that while carving today. I had lots of waste sand lying around. I shaped that into earthworks around the sculpture's base. Not really enough, but still gave the immediate surroundings more texture.

I've been too disciplined in my approach to polishing the various factors of sand sculpture. Learning is essential. It's also supposed to be enjoyable to make all that work worthwhile. Too few rewards in recent years. This one is a nice change, and the tide window will remain open through the rest of the week.

Santa Monica
2017 October 5

17F-2, "Etude, op. 344, (Spaces)" (June 28)

Click on the images to view them full size

The report follows the images

 

Summer Sculpture

The early morning is calm, quiet and cool under low clouds. I go a block and a half through the damp air, then return to get the monopod. It helped the last time in taming Sculptor's Palsy.
    The summer day will be long. There's no need to start this early but to catch the low tide. I'd prefer an afternoon-to-sunset sculpture because the light is better for photography. The tide is right now and the sand is good. So, I make my way to the beach and walk out onto the broad expanse of dark and smooth sand.

Build number: 17F-2 (lifetime start #344); monolith on low riser
Title: "Etude, op. 344, (Spaces)"
Date: June 28
Location: Venice Breakwater, isthmus
Start: 0715, construction time approx. 6.5 hours
Size: about 41 inches tall, 21 inches diameter
Technique: Latchform, Box Filter 2, four full loads intertidal sand
Digital Images: 28, EOS-5D Mk IV and 85mm F/1.8, with RRS monopod (safeties and completed)
Volunteer photography: Larry Dudock, hand-held process and complete, and intervalometer
Volunteer videography: Larry Dudock, process and equipment
New Tools: none
New Equipment: none

1. Interior

I'd been looking at images of previous sculptures, with their hollows and graceful internal tendrils. My last several pieces have been more solid, exploring big shapes and how they fit together.
    The process has changed. An arch, which is what I started with, is basically a thin shape of sand around a large void. That idea has guided what I've done ever since. Sculptures have been defined as space surrounded by sand. Shaping the hole shapes the solid pieces, but what happens when one thinks more about the solid parts?
    Well, I ran immediately into the problem of how the solid parts fit with each other and into the sculpture's overall dimensions. For this sculpture I wanted to work more with space.
    The question is always about how to fit a graceful shape within the basic cylinder. First, I have to make the cylinder. The last one required four cart-loads of sand and a partial fifth load, and there was some sand left over. This time I fill the cart as full as is practical and run four loads to see how far that gets me.
    "What are you looking for here?" She's curly-haired, aniimated.
    "Sand." I look back, with a small sly smile.
    "Oh."
    "You see, the sand here is finer than it is up higher." I point to the lighter-colored area near the high tide line. "Finer sand holds together better."
    "Sand is remarkable. I do experiments with clay and sand. People send me sand from all over the world, and I see how the sand works with the clay."
    "I did some of that at Cal State LA, years ago. The sand turned everything red. Low-fire."
    "This is high-fire. Different clays and sands respond differently."
    At first I think I'll be short of sand but the four full loads actually get me within an inch of the form's top, well within the "diminishing returns" area where water and sand splash out as I pack.
    "What are you doing?"
    "Sand sculpture. I'm nearly done packing the sand."
    "I've been working on short video projects of artists in California."
    "Have you heard of Suzi Zimmermann? She was here some years ago and made a short documentary about Venice artists."
    "I haven't heard of her. I'm from Cal State Long Beach, and have various students working on projects. Do you have a Web site?"
    "Yes. A blog, because it's quick and easy."
    "I don't have anything to write on. Can you contact me through CSBLB?"
    "I'll try to remember."
    "And I'll see if I can find your blog."
    This reminds me that I really need to get some simple business cards printed. I used to bring a pencil and scratch paper, but that never worked well in the damp, with sand.
    After some food and water, I start carving to the plan in my mind. Idea is one thing, sand is another, and as people start to gather on this warming summer day the distractions mount. I focus and ignore as much as I can, staying my carving tool until I have considered where the carved surface may go.
    It's another win for the Filter Trivet. There are no shell fragments in the sand to catch on a tool edge. A small thing, yes, but I like this lack of interruption in the sensual process of carving fine sand.
    Everything changes in the making. Translating what the mind's eye sees into the sand's hard reality is a fascinating process of carve-and-respond. Is what I see in my mind really better than what's coming out in the sand? How disciplined do I want to be? Enough, but not too much, and there's always the potential of a design-driven engineering mistake putting the whole piece on the ground in pieces.
    The result is much different from what I set out to make. No real surprise there. Maybe it's a necessary tension, maybe it's necessary exploration, maybe it's a simple lack of interest in excessive direction even from myself. Call it leaving room for the happy accident.
    There are some happy accidents here, traced in the lines of curves that I tried harder to move to something beyond a default connection. The intended delicate connections across the big broadly concave surface became more sturdy than delicate, but it is a summer afternoon, and busy.
   
2. Exterior Distractions

    One thing is sure: I've had enough of the noisy crowds. The sculpture wants more work but the basics are there. I have accomplished what I intended to, and perform a hurried clean-up and then some photography while people yell and spread boom-box simulated music across the isthmus.
    Choosing the 85mm lens was wise. I can set a large aperture and put most of the background clutter out of focus. Experience with the camera has taught me to dial in some negative exposure compensation when shooting the shadow side, to avoid losing highlights in the background. Film responds gracefully to such highlight areas, but digital gets ugly when clipped. The 5D MkIV has lower noise in the shadows so I can boost that in the editing and get a better image.
    "That's all for me, Larry. Thanks for the help." Even if I didn't need to make a restroom run, knowing I could if needed did help.
    "You're welcome. Thanks for telling me you were doing this."
    And with that, I turn my back on the beach and head for home. With the tide high walking the beach would be slow, so I head inland to the alleyway east of the Boardwalk and walk north. Slowly, steadily. Sand sculpture conditioning. I'm in better shape than I'd been after 17F-1.
    The interior lightness of 07F-10 escaped me on this one. I muse on that as I walk. It was 1996 when I started trying to shape the interior of a sculpture as much as the outside and learned, after several months, that this is harder than it looks. I have to think about what's not going to be there as much as what will be left in place, and plan the latter around the former. It requires a subtle concentration that's easily broken, and a feeling in the hands that goes beyond the mental images. There's a reason, I realize, why 07F-10 arrived 11 years after the first thought, and at the end of a series of sculptures done in quick sequence. The fingers forget. Oh, the basics remain but the feeling for subtle shapes becomes stiff. Runners stretch. I need more stretching exercises. This piece was a start.
    Later on, I have another thought about 07F-10: it was made with the Short Form. Smaller, less sand to haul, less time spent packing, less work. Right now it's as much work as I can manage to get the cart up the last hill to my street.
    After some food and a shower, I take a look at the images. The next day I edit them for the blog, and realize these are the best sand sculpture images I've ever had. The larger sensor in the camera makes for lovely smooth gradients, which is what I noticed in going from 35mm film to medium format.
    The rest of the day fades into fog. I put my weary self to bed.

 Official Builder Photo by Larry Dudock

   
Santa Monica
2017 June 29, 30; July 1

17F-1, "Etude, op. 341d, (Concave)" (June14)

Click on the images to see larger versions.

Build number: 17F-1 (lifetime start #343); monolith on low riser
Title: "Etude, op. 341d, (Concave)"
Date: June 14
Location: Venice Breakwater, isthmus
Start: 0730, construction time approx. 5.5 hours
Size: about 41 inches tall, 21 inches diameter
Technique: Latchform, Box Filter 2, five loads intertidal sand, immersion screened
Digital Images: 23, EOS-5D Mk IV and 24-70 F/2.8 L II, with RRS monopod
New Tools: none
New Equipment: Filter Trivet

Jewels Underfoot

I could feel differences when I touched the sand. To my eye, however, it all looked the same. I learned to let my fingers guide where I built a sculpture, taking up a handful of sand from several places on the beach. Through the years I learned where better sand tended to collect, although it was always moving around.

In 1995 I started screening sand to remove, mainly, shell fragments and seaweed. Accidents of availability led to using heavy-duty window screen for this, with openings roughly 1/16th of an inch across. For Venice Beach sand this worked well, most of the time.

There were times when filtering the sand was much more work because of a larger proportion of sand grains big enough that they wouldn't pass through the screen, and would block the finer grains too. This led to a belief that sand around the high-tide line was the culprit, and when I started doing multiple sculptures using that sand I made a different and more coarse screen to remove the shells.

The coarse screen used 1/8th-inch stainless steel mesh. Built quickly, it used MS polymer to bond the mesh to the PVC pipe frame. Late last year I was making a sculpture and the screen was showing signs of wear. Wire ends protruded from the MS polymer to tear up my hands. I started making plans to make a new screen.

I had plenty of the 1/8th-inch mesh on hand. But I also knew that I was still getting flakes of shell in the sculpture that caused little problems. I decided to reconsider the screening process. What, exactly, am I removing from the sand? Which of those things really affects the sculpture?

Acquiring a sample of what the filter retained seemed like a good place to start, so one day I went to Venice Beach, at low tide, with a filter. I ran about 40 pounds of sand through the filter and kept what remained after the fines washed out. That's when I realized I had no way to carry the sample home. This is one time when trash on the beach served a useful purpose: I found a cup.

At home, I put the sample of sand on a piece of 8 lines per inch graph paper, and added a metric ruler for good measure. I mounted the 50mm macro lens onto my camera and shot a few frames. I copied the files to the computer and opened one in the GIMP. The course of my life as a sand sculptor changed. Click on the image to see it full size.

Coarse sand, tiny shells, and shell fragments

filtered from Venice Beach low tide sand

Background grid 1/8th inch on center

Scale at bottom in millimetres
Click the image to enlarge it

I sat and stared at the screen, astonished. All the years I've been using sand en masse to make sculpture, I overlooked the particular. In addition to being a marvellously sensitive sculpture medium, sand is also beautiful simply in itself.

Since then, I have been taking macro photographs of more kinds of sand. I've also been photographing sand in situ, racing the waves at low tide. The colors, the shapes, the patterns still bring a sense of wonder.

Updated 2018-05-17 with better quality photograph

17P-1, "Etude, op. 341c, (Drummer Boy's Mussel Shell)" (January 8)

Elemental Considerations

Within a year, fall 1995 through fall of 1996, my sand sculpture capability changed completely. Tools, forms and working technique were all new. Working style, however, stayed the same. Go to the beach, make a pile, start carving. I'd often go in with some kind of idea but it seldom lasted long. When the idea did manage to center the sculpture I often didn't like it.
    The result was unpredictability. Some sculptures were special, some weren't, and I couldn't describe to anyone what I did, or didn't, like about a particular piece. The headlong rush to get a sculpture done didn't lead to careful consideration, and the pattern stayed the same through the ensuing years.
    It's not a bad way of working. It's enjoyable, and when there's a hit it tends to be spectacular. At the time time there end up being many default shapes in a sculpture, as the design crowds the remaining sand and leaves no other options.
    There were pauses for various reasons. In late November of 2016 I began to get a hazy notion of something else. Simplify. I'd been looking at old sculptures as I edited images to use in Second Life. Why does one thing work and another design idea doesn't work? Could it be the relationship between elements? Maybe I need to make a very simple sculpture, just to see how the surfaces relate. It turned into a series of 3 sculptures, and then the weather closed out the rest of the year.
   
Build number: 17P-1 (monolith)
Title: "Etude, op. 341c (Drummer Boy's Mussel Shell)"
Date: January 8
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side littoral
Start: 1030, construction time approx. 1.5 hours
Size: about 24 inches tall, 18 inches wide, 14 inches deep
Digital Images: none, no camera
New Tools: none
New Equipment: none

I'd walked to the Breakwater on Friday, the day the tide window opened, to sample the sand for an intended Saturday sculpture. The sky held only high wispy clouds. Saturday morning I awoke to rain and dark clouds. By mid-day it was clearing so I went for a rain-refreshed walk. The window would stay open for a few more days, so I  headed for the Breakwater again to see how the sand had fared through the storm.
    Off in the west, rising above the horizon, were layers of cloud. More rain? I ran into Dennis and his wife at the Breakwater, and they confirmed it. "Heavy rain, starting here about midnight. Supposed to end by 6:00 AM, they say."
    Well, rats. Another washout. A window opened after Christmas, and the present of rain was nice but made sculpture impossible. I had to hold onto the ideas for a simple piece with intersecting spaces.
    I haven't done a free-piled sculpture since 2013. The idea didn't occur to me on last Friday's sampling walk. Today, something brings the idea to the fore. Sand, sun, receding tide, wet beach with good sand. I'm not dressed for it and have no tools. Not far away, though, is a mussel shell nicely sized for basic carving. I dig in and start piling.
    No matter how it's done, sand sculpture requires heavy work. Using a form spreads the work out through time. Free-piling must be done quickly and calls for a lot of bending and twisting. I wondered if I could still do it. There were some twinges in my back as I gradually built the pile up. I compensated by taking smaller handfuls of sand, and making a pile that was only about two feet tall.
    As I carved with the gift mussel shell, I realized that this pile was better packed than any of the formed sculptures I did in the 1980s. Those, I could carve with fingers. This one really needs the mussel shell, although I do push one space through with fingers. I miss the small carving tools; what's easy and quick with them is nearly impossible with the shell.
    Maybe that's not such a bad thing. By limiting the complexity of the sculpture, the mussel shell makes me think about the larger piece. I smoothly round the western part, with a concave area lower down on the north. The west gets a nearly flat panel whose edges are rounded into the top. I like the look of that.
    When a space is cut into a flat surface, it appears as a hole in the surface. It can be shaped in ways to fit. A space carved into a curved surface  is different. it's visible from the side as an under cut whose size is dictated by the hole's size. The line between "hole" and "space" is fine. Some of the holes in this sculpture turn into spaces. It's surprisingly difficult to balance the parts.
    I'm also interested in how spaces intersect inside the sculpture. I'm frustrated in working on this because, with the mussel shell and my hand in the way, I can't see how the various surfaces intersect inside.
    Still, there's enough here to show that there's room for the ideas to grow. More experimentation is needed. I polish the surface, sign it, and leave the mussel shells on the signature pad.
    As I walk north the air cools. The clouds to the west are closer but no thicker. I have made sand sculpture pretty much because I can, and have taken little thought on how the carving happens. Art classes start with the basics and work up from there. I had to invent the basics and all the rest. I assumed that when I needed a skill it would be there, or I'd figure it out in the moment, which seemed a more lively way to do it. Excess discipline tends to kill things.
    There is, however, the idea of just enough discipline. Everybody who makes things starts somewhere in the learning process. It feels slow and confining to look at a pile of sand and think about shapes, rather than picking up a tool and carving. The big problem with that approach is that the size of the sculpture, dictated by how much sand I can pile in a day, works with the  size of my hands, the length of my arms, and how far I can reach, along with the fact that I'm mainly right-handed, exerts a very strong influence on the shapes I end up making. Once a shape is cut into the sand it is permanent. Slowing down and being more observant might help me stay out of the default-shape traps. Winter also enforces simplicity because the days are short. Carpenters have a saying: "Measure twice, cut once. Measure once, cut twice." This series of etudes is an ongoing experiment in measuring two or three times. Perhaps... meditative sand sculpture. Part of me is disappointed with the simplicity, and that I did fall into one default-shape trap on this one. Other parts of the sculpture show more promise.
    The next morning I awaken to steady rain. It continues well beyond the predicted 0600 cut-off. I'm glad I did the year's first sculpture when the chance came along.

Santa Monica
2017 January 8, 9