02M-6

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Learning Assessment

Everyone's afraid of tests. This is mainly due to how they've been used: as instruments of compulsion and punishment. The proper use of any test is to find out just what one knows. This presupposes knowing what the test is supposed to measure, which is a big problem.

Here the subject is multiple-pile sand sculpture. I've failed the test in the last two; they not being any more than three sculptures gathered near each other. Ah, but what is it I'm trying accomplish? The answer is somewhere out there in vague future, which makes any reasonable assessment difficult.

Well, keep digging for answers, then test. A few things have become clear in the five multiples I've made so far: the sculptures need to be balance, instead of one taking the lion's share of the effort. The base area needs to be restrained so that it doesn't distract from the sculptures. Water surrounding the sculptures is quite lovely. Too much carving can be even worse than too little.

Beyond those, all I have is questions. What relates one sculpture to another? What would make a set of sculptures a group, without resorting to such obvious ploys as replicated elements or copying? Three copies of the same sculpture might belong together, but why bother?

Any explorer has one foot in the old country, but the next step is unknown. If we knew what was out there we wouldn't need to go. The sun rises, I load the trailer and hit the road through the cool clear air.

Build number: 02M-6 (lifetime start #251); 3-unit formed unfiltered native sand common-base sculpture with borrow pit earthworks
Title: none
Date: November 13
Location: Venice Breakwater, just south of pipe
Start: 0715, construction time 7.5 hours
Height, Unit A: 2.4 ft (Short form, east end); Unit B: 2.1 ft (trash can, center, biased toward A); Unit C: 3.4 ft (Latchform, west end)
Base: A, 1.6 feet; B, 1.5 feet nominal; C, 1.75 feet nominal
Helpers: none
Digital Images: 94, with Canon Powershot G2
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: Rich, w/Powershot and Canon Z115 (process and completed)
Video motion: none (camera left at home deliberately)
Video still: none
Video volunteer: none
New Equipment: none

1. Multiple Choice

The morning is radiant. A slow offshore breeze dries my throat as I haul the trailer across the sand but the job isn't as bad as it was the last time because of the recent rain. Heaps of old dry seaweed still litter the Breakwater area, but just south of the storm drain are some clear flat areas. One of these is still just awash an hour after high tide.

Last weekend's experiment with tall separated bases for the sculptures didn't really work; the bases called too much attention to themselves. This time I want the base to be more subtle and flowing, gently raising the sculptures and helping to unite them. I'd also like to use the coming high tide, and this spot should just be reachable. I dig the borrow pits and build the base with the possibility in mind of getting water in here.

The base is an elongated crescent. A long countercurved borrow pit runs along its north side, and a shorter, wider pit is on the south. All are just at the beach's soft cusp.


2. Forced Simplicity

The sand is bad. Even out where the waves break I dig up only handfuls of wet coarse sand. It's a good thing I planned for this.

Call it the "MTV Lesson." They hired me to do a demo sculpture and to teach the talent how to make sand sculpture. The tide was high and I didn't really think this was worth a full-scale effort so I used native sand and didn't bother to filter it.

Hammer on coarse sand as much as you want. It'll pack and feel solid under the tamper, but it will still be soft when carved; there just isn't enough surface area for the water that coats each grain to grab onto. I've always sought out the best sand I could find because this allows finer detail.

Well, sometimes detail can be a distraction from design. The MTV sculpture turned out to be a nice piece, with surprising grace in its thick, heavy elements. It took some time for the lesson to sink in.

This was partly because a simple sculpture doesn't take all that long to make. I like to spend time on the beach and getting finished in a couple of hours just isn't what I want. Besides, carving is the fun part. I want to maximize the proportion of time spent with carving tools in my hand, rather than shovel and tamper.

Simplicity, however, has been calling me for a few years. Ever since 1998 and its rococo designs I've felt the pull, but time always pulls the other way. The balance is difficult. Time for a new experiment: Crowd three sculptures made from crummy sand into one short winter day. There's no time to carve the detail the sand won't support anyway.


3. Spaces, Surfaces, Solids

Yes, it's bad sand. Unit C, the biggest, is particularly bad because the sand at that end of the borrow pit was even coarser than at the east end. Good sand comes off in chunks. This just slices off in loose grains. Simplicity is good, but a pile of sand is too simple.

The basic concept is of the two-element sculpture. Two slanting almost flat slabs lean inward. I carve a low hole in the west face between the slabs' edges; opposite that I carve a middle hole and connect the two so that light barely gets through.

I usually don't use this kind of sand. Two years ago I quit sculpting altogether because storms had taken away the good sand. As I look at this new space I realize the sand has one big advantage: its light color bounces light around in the spaces whereas the finer sand, being much darker, just soaks light up.

From the north I dig another hole through the necessarily thick wall. This is the high hole. There's time to shape its contours to fit with the slabby walls and rub the whole thing smooth. Nice. It glows with the late morning's light.

Early sculptures were made of legs carved out the sand. Later ones turned the legs into surfaces draped around space. This sculpture is more like a solid block with incidental spaces. Now, how do I continue that theme in the next piece?


4. Sequence

The sculptures of my last two multiples were peeled and carved one after the other, done this way so the piles wouldn't dry out. 02M-2, however, was carved as one piece with all piles peeled and ready to carve at once. That earlier method seemed to work better, so all three of these are standing naked under the sun. It's getting hot. I need a spray-wight, but the beach is nearly deserted.

The three piles are spaced along the curving base, with the two smaller ones on the east closer to each other, with the biggest one farther away on the west end. I've already made some rough shapes in the base to bring widely spaced units B and C together, as a basic idea and to remind myself that this should be one sculpture.

Unit B, the smallest, takes on a tall concave on its northwest side that echoes one on Unit C's northeast side. I also cut a high hole whose shape resembles that on Unit C. On the south side I cut the center out and carve some supporting spiraling ribs. A little overlap cut looks good, so I go back to Unit C and carve a similar element there. You can't see both from the same position but maybe it will work. Who knows? It's an experiment.

Simple sculptures don't take long. I do some more base work, throwing buckets of water onto the waste sand and forming it into long curving ridges that flow past the two completed pieces.


5. Balance

Why three units? Is there some mystical reason? Some heavy religious significance? Nope. It just happens that I have three forms, and only three forms, of an appropriate size.

"I'm trying to be less fussy, Rich. Finding a middle path between overly complex sculptures and things that aren't interesting."
"Just as long as your middle way doesn't turn into an eightfold multiple!"
I laugh. Rich's religious outlook is as multiplex as mine. "Actually, the multiple was originally conceived as a seven-part sculpture."
"The only way you'd get that is to have several days."
"And lots of help." These three forms together hold about 17 cubic feet of packed sand, to which I've added an equal amount in the base, and my shoulders feel every cubic foot. That doesn't include all the water I've carried up here to pack the base and keep it wet.

Now the test's third problem comes up. I like what I've made so far. Like any other school kid I just don't want to mess it up with a bad answer now.

I carry over the bulging overall shapes of the first two pieces, and the high hole cut in the thick wall. This piece develops a little more complexity, getting a little more energy because I've been so economical on the first two.

"This is really nice."
"Thank you." He's a lifeguard I've not met before. "Have you been working here long? Most of them at least know of me.
"No. I'm new. Just a few seasons. I'm Alex."
"Nice to meet you, Alex. I'm Larry." We shake hands.
Tim, our man in the tower this season, has also been walking past to take periodic progress checks. This is the quiet season; the water's too cold for any but the real swimmers so the lifeguards don't have much to do except watch sand sculptors.

I slightly dome the top edges of the third piece, to match the others. It's not really a dome on this one because its center is carved out. Light bounces around in the central cavity very nicely. I could get used to light-colored sand.

"That's it. Time to quit."
"It's only two o'clock! You've never quit so early."
"I still have a lot of work to do with the base." It is, after all, the fourth part of this sculpture.


6. Final Assembly

This is sheer physical work. I cut the edges of the borrow pits back and smooth them and fill in the bottom with waste sand. Between the sculptures I place and smooth long ridges that flow from one side to the other.

The longest of these just doesn't work. It starts between Units A and B, then takes a constant curve to the west, ending below Unit C. It looks like the edge of a bathtub. I cut a big part of it out, a scallop that softens the whole thing and takes less attention.

It's all done on hands and knees. I need some sort of long-handled tool for this task but it would be a specialized item.

Some of the edges are too sharp. I fill them in with sand, pack it and then smooth it with a long hand stroke. That's better.

In 1971 I worked for an engineering company. One of my tasks was to calculate, from numbers taken from the highway plan, the amount of cut or fill for a section of the highway. The ideal was to have the two balance out so as to avoid having to haul dirt very far. My objective here is the same. The clean-up process for 02M-2 generated a lot of spoil that had to be carted away. The cost would have ruined me if Bob and Rich hadn't volunteered to be the trucking contractors.

This time I've worked it out better. Most of the spoil goes into the borrow pits, to smooth the bottom. I carry a few buckets to low spots in the base to smooth them out, pack it in and then smooth it out.

"The tide is approaching."
A wave breaks and rolls, sliding up the wet sand, thinning, stopping and sinking into the sand. Each one comes a bit higher.
"Good. I'm hoping it comes high enough to fill the borrow pits, but I'm right on the cusp. Given that the morning's high tide was about half a foot higher, and reached over there, I think it'll be close." I point to a pile of kelp about ten feet above my sculpture.

While working in the south borrow pit I sign the sculpture.
"As long as I'm here. It's not really finished yet, but very close."
I finish working in the pit, clean up the south part of the base, and call it good.
"One last step."
I reach into the borrow pits and get handfuls of sand, which I throw over the base to randomize its surface. This makes a good backdrop for the brushed smooth sculptures. Then I walk around, cleaning up a few last details such as handprints and footprints in the borrow pits.
"There. That's it."


7. The Fifth Element

Tim walks over to take one of his periodic looks.
"It's finished."
"Looks good. You might get some water in the holes."
"I hope so, but it's going to be close."
Waves reach but expire just short of the borrow pit's lip.

"You're going to have to take over your camera now."
"No problem, Rich. I need to do some site clean-up first."
"It's over there on the table."
I walk around, gathering tools and buckets. I load various loose items onto the trailer so that they don't take up so much background in photographs.

"Turn your back and see what you get?"
"What's that?"
"Water in your moat."
I turn around. Rich is right. Flowlines mark the south slopes of each borrow pit. "Well, we'll just have to make the moat of it."
"If it doesn't work, you're demoated."
"Yeah, I'll just have to join the DeMoatlay club." That one gets a heartfelt groan from Rich.

For the next half hour or so, nothing much happens. I walk around the sculpture, shooting any angle that looks interesting. The shadowed side is very difficult because the air is so clear the sun is like a hot spark near the horizon, getting into the lens.

"Here it comes!"
A more energetic wave slops into the borrow pits, and this time the water stays. More waves enter, enough eventually to wash the foam out. The sculpture stands nearly surrounded, its vertical elements reflected in the water after it stops moving.

The effect is spectacular. The basal ridges, the sculptures' monumental forms and the water all come together strongly. It is of the beach and the ocean, yet also its own thing, in a way that happens very seldom. Most of the time my sculptures stand proud, not really a part of anything. This one combines the standing with the joining.

"The experiments worked, Rich."
"Yah. This is a good one."


8. The Reason for Failure

The ride home, under the glowing blue-black sky, goes slowly. About my body: if it moves, it hurts. If it's not supposed to move, it still hurts. Standing still hurts more than moving.

Even after dinner and a bottle of Full Sail amber, I'm wired. Hurt, yes, but what a sculpture! It flames in memory, keeping me awake most of the night, reflected in still water.

Written November 14

Updated 2017-12-25 with new image edits to replace Photobucket links