02M-7

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Choose!

Bike ride? I want to explore Point Mugu State Park, but just don't care for the drive right now. Besides that, there are more experiments that need to be done with the multiple sculpture idea.

I must be nuts. I'm still post-sculptural from the last one.

Build number: 02M-7 (lifetime start #252); 3-unit formed unfiltered native sand distributed multiple sculpture with borrow pit earthworks
Title: none
Date: November 15
Location: Venice Breakwater, just south of pipe
Start: 0715, construction time 8 hours
Unit A size: 42 inches tall, 21 inches nom diameter ellipsoid prism (Latchform)
Unit B size: 30 inches tall, 19 inches diameter cylinder (Short Form)
Unit C size: 28 inches tall, 19 inches diameter cylinder (Short Form)
Plan: Unit A on elongated riser beside borrow pit, in half-circle of kelp.
Units B and C 25 feet west of Unit A, sharing borrow pit and base design. Unit B on shaped riser south of borrow pit. Unit C also on shaped riser, 9 feet north of B, on north side of borrow pit.
Helpers: none
Digital Images: 51, with Canon Powershot G2
Photo 35mm: none (LX w/zoom and Fuji Acros available, no energy; light better for color)
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: Rich, w/Canon Z115 (process and completed)
Video motion: none (camcorder left at home deliberately)
Video still: none
Video volunteer: none
New Equipment: none

 

 

1. Distributing Energy

Timing is critical. Given the amount of energy a multiple requires, every little bit saved is a good thing. I arrive as the tide is just revealing a higher spot on the beach, made by a C-shaped windrow of kelp. I start building a base here for the first sculpture. A few more vigorous waves contest the location, but the moon has its way and by the time I set the Latchform on its base the area is no longer inundated.

The multiple-pile sand sculpture isn't a new idea. Basic economics led competing sand sculptors to plan their plot-filling constructions so that they could be built with several individual piles rather than one huge block of sand. The latter would be more versatile, but impossibly labor-intensive. Imagine packing a 20-foot by 20-foot plot eight feet deep in sand, and then forget it. No, you have to put tall formed piles only where the design requires.

Usually these sculptures are designed as one piece. Several piles united in one story, speaking with one voice. My interest is different. I want each of my sculptures to tell its own story, and then somehow unite those individual stories into one larger story. Instead of one big singer, a choir.

By the time the form is full, a nice flat area about 25 feet away is just being revealed. I make a riser on the south edge of the borrow pit, and then set up the Short form. Filling it takes a few minutes; while the excess water drains, I make a new riser on the north edge of the borrow pit. The pit slants between the two bases. I reuse the Short Form on the northern base and use the last of the water caught in the borrow pit to fill the form. In about two hours, the three piles are finished. I want to make a fourth one, farther away, but reality faces me squarely and says "Forget it."

It's hot. The wind puffs back and forth, never really settling.

I'm tired. The first sculpture goes well, with planes aimed at the other two sculptures, in hopes of tying them together. I plan to continue this pattern in the other two pieces: some facets very similar, but the rest of the design unique. I also try a little trick: at the top of Unit B's western face I cut a small flat-bottomed hole that looks as if it will give a view of Unit A. Anyone tempted to look for this will find, however, that the space has a dogleg in it and only a sliver of daylight can be seen.

Unit C is a little more confused; my ability to envision is becoming very fuzzy. I do remember the fake viewport, matching in mirror image the one in Unit B. Then this one develops a variation in another exit port that also misses the view of Unit A.

Unit A, when I get around to it, turns into a complete sport, sharing very little design with the other sculptures. It's so far away that this doesn't really matter.

I've ended up with a choir whose two members get along pretty well with each other. Off in the distance is a soloist pretty much doing her own thing. The connection is very tenuous, amounting to rough proximity and the same color. Soloist it is, on its own, but at least it's singing in a similar style.


2. Finish Twice

Rich feeds me lemon cookies, which are about all that hold me together. I've run out of muffins. Mirjam's grapes probably would have been better, but I had no fruit that would have survived transport to the beach.

I clean up the borrow pit between B and C, randomizing its bottom and smoothing the edges, and then shape the sculptures' bases to fit. The whole area is drying out under the uncharacteristic heat. This is mid-November, and I'm sweating! I take the radical step of spraying the bases and borrow pit to keep the sand dark, so it will contrast with the surroundings.

Unit A is easier to clean up. Its base ends up looking like the long side of a football embedded in the beach, with the sculpture on top. i'm too tired to change it. B and C look better, linked by the borrow pit between them. I shoot a round of photos, stumbling around, hoping to get something decent.

A few passersby are taken in by the fake viewports. They lean down to look through and see only glowing sunset sand inside the spaces. So, the idea worked, but it seems dishonest. Besides that, it doesn't help with the unity. Neither do the coplanar surfaces on the different sculptures because they're nearly invisible unless you're kneeling and looking for the alignment. I walk around, looking and trying to think.

Then a few brain cells fire and I more closely at the bases for B and C. They don't really do much other than hold the sculptures up. Might there be something better? I walk to the trailer, pick up the tools I need and go to work, forming up a long rib swinging between them and shaping some hollows. These make good shadows, and make the borrow pit more than just a separator. I shoot some more images. The sun is low enough to get into the various spaces, making the light-colored sand glow wonderfully.

"That's it, Rich. I've had it."
We start to pick up things, and load the trailer. He forces me to eat more cookies so he won't have to carry the heavy things home. Then Rudy and his wife come by. We haven't seen them for some time, so we go back to the sculpture and visit. By the time they leave the sun is on the horizon, so we stay to watch that. No green flash, just a great ball of fire all the way down. No attenuation at all, just red-gold light in a flood blindingly bright.


3. What Is It?

This is the second time I've tried the dispersed-multiple idea. Both times it has been OK, but no more than that. The sculptures are, I guess, too far apart to be linked effectively. Maybe I'm not doing it right. Common-base multiples seem to play with each other better.

Maybe it needed a centerpiece.
"I thought about making a fourth pile, Rich. Originally over there, beyond the pipe, but maybe it needs to be right here instead." I point to a spot near the middle of the sculpture group. "Maybe that would help hold things together."
"Yeah, if you made it eight feet tall!"
We both laugh. Nice dream. No time.

Sculpture grouping? Multiple? One-in-many? Well, certainly not that last. It could be a two-piece multiple, though, what with B and C sharing earthworks. As the sun sets, the piece looks better and better, drawing long shadows and collecting sunlight in their hollows. Are the extra pieces a distraction? On my way home I begin to think that maybe it's time to quit this fol-de-rol and just do one sculpture, but all the usual reasons work against that. The only way to get complexity from sculpture built with coarse winter sand is to make more than one, and in that regard this piece worked. Good enough.

It could also be that my definition of a multiple sculpture is too tight. Mirjam talks of creative accidents happening when one is completely focused on the art. More contemplation of this piece reveals that it's by no means a bad sculpture. It just doesn't measure up to what I think I want.


4. Further Reflection

One thing is for sure. Distributed multiples are very hard to photograph. Maybe I need to buy a panoramic camera; as it is, the wide angle setting on the Powershot is just barely wide enough. Fortunately, the small CCD works with the lens to give great depth-of-field.

Looking at the images leads to more thinking about what makes a multiple. My most powerful ones have been closer together, with basal carving that helps tie them to each other. This one does, however, have its own kind of very quiet power. It needs a quieter setting; wandering people distract because they can walk through the sculpture. One person even walks into the raked sand of the borrow pit for a photograph. I need a couple hundred feet of red tape.

Setting Unit A amid the kelp half-circle actually worked fairly well. Its base is too tall from some angles, but from down the beach the riser is just right, providing a backdrop for the kelp and giving the sculpture more presence.

If nothing else, it is encouraging of thought. What more could I ask? Well, of course, beauty, but that's harder.

Written November 16
Amended November 17

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