Biography
At the age of 42 I was given a lesson in sand sculpture by Master Sculptor Bert Adams.
It was as if I had never eaten anything but oatmeal and now was being offered every tasty morsel
imaginable. I was determined to earn myself a place at the banquet.
The early years were long and frustrating. Long because there were not many opportunities to carve
sand. Frustrating because the sculptures did not meet my aesthetic standards. You will not be
able to judge for your self, because the evidence has disappeared.
For six years I have spent the Winter and Spring seasons taking figure sculpture classes at
Portland's Hipbone Studio and Portland Community College. Sculptors who have nurtured my development
include Barry Swires, Bill Dow, Suzanne Altamare, Bert Adams, Jeff Burke, Tim Tanner and Babette Harvey.
Like I tell my students and apprentices, any practice is practice. Sand Sculpture can be practiced by
drawing, painting, sculpting wood, styrafoam, plasticine or terracotta (to name a few). Skills
improve with practice.
Everyone can improve with practice. But not everyone was born with the potential to become a Bernini
or Donatello. Just as the optimum time in a human life to learn languages is before the age of five,
it is likely that there is an optimum time to learn sculpture. Also, just as most golfers will never
shoot a game below 85, most folks who sculpt will be average. I strive to be considered, by posterity,
like the elder Bernini, gifted if facile.
Sand is an exceedingly friendly and usable medium for sculpture. It can be compacted into a block and
carved like wood or stone. It can also be built up by hand similar to terracotta. It can be worked into
amazingly delicate and intricate structures. The speed at which a sculpture in sand can be created is
unmatched since a work on monumental scale can be produced in a long weekend by a single person.
Unfortunately, sand is also the heaviest form of sculpture. Metal sculptures are hollow and very
lightweight. Stone or wood needs far less buttressing for any given height. A cubic yard of sand weighs
2700 pounds and requires a minimum of 50 gallons of water to prepare. Five cubic yards (15,000 lbs)
makes a pretty dinky sand sculpture and is the minimum I consider working (alone) with outdoors.
Also, not all sands are suitable for sand sculpture. Picking the correct sand is crucial and good
sand is not always available. There are tricks to make available sand better though.
Often the first thing someone says to me when they hear that I am a sand sculptor is, "Fun!" Now sand
sculpture is fun BUT its something like if you say pizza to someone and they say, "Pepperoni!" Pepperoni
is eternally associated in the American mind with pizza but a pizza is not pepperoni. Even if there is
pepperoni on the pizza (and not every pizza contains pepperoni...), pepperoni may not be the main
ingredient in the pizza. In the same way I might ask, "Is pepperoni the point of pizza?" I can assure
you that fun is not the point of sand sculpture.
Like Khalil Gibran's famous poem about love, no one chooses sand sculpture. It is like a joke that no one
except sand sculptors understand. We work like government mules, make enormously heavy and delicate structures
that can be destroyed by sunshine and a stiff wind, entertaining the populace and in the end have nothing
to show for it at the end but a paycheck and photos (should Fortune smile).
Having said all that, my greatest concern as a sand sculptor is that the sculpture look right and preferably
be beautiful from all angles.
Parallel to the above statement, my greatest concern as a provider of sand sculpture services is that the
sculpture fit the needs of the customer. Lets just say that some compositions lend themselves to sand
sculpture and others less so. Eight years has taught me what works and what does not.
When these two concerns are compatible the resulting sculpture is quite gratifying.
I cut my teeth as a sand sculptor working for Bert Adams, primarily at Sand in the City (TM) events
nationwide. Bert soon noticed that I was good at the planning aspects of sand sculpture. Often he
steered such work my way. I did renderings, scale drawings, volume calculations, talked with customers
and organised sand prep. Here is where my education and work history in Mechanical Engineering and
Project Mangement is of use.
I have been running small and medium sized jobs on my own since 2003. I have collegues throughout North
America. I can put together a crew for jobs nationwide.
|
