The Year in Sand: 2005

2005-06-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Table of Contents

January 1: 05F-1

February 5: 05P-1

March 12: 05P-3

March 26: 05P-4

April 2: 05F-2

April 16: 05F-3

April 30: 05F-4

May 6: 05P-5 "Ae'gura"

May 14: 05F-5

May 28: 05F-6

June 17: 05F-7 "A Better Balance" (includes report)

June 24: 05F-8 "My Place in the Choir" (report included)

July 6: 05F-9 "Missing Spirit" (report follows images)

September 10: 05F-10 "The Story Grows in the Telling" (includes report after the images)

September 24: 05F-11 (includes report after the images)

January 1: 05F-1

2005-06-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

I have arranged this Blog in chronologic order by forcing different dates. The dates on the posts are artificial, but if you click on the "Archive" links you'll be taken to the right places. When I'm done with this, I'll put in a table of contents.

The first year I lived in Los Angeles I was quite enamored of the weather. I liked running around in shirtsleeves. So, on January 1, 1985, I celebrated my liberation from winter by walking across Griffith Park. The next year I did the same. In other years I hiked in other places, but on January 1, 1996 I started a new tradition.

I'm not much for tradition. Put that stuff behind and go on to new things, but some traditions are nice. I like this one. Go to the beach and start the year with one of my favorite activities.

February 5: 05P-1

2005-06-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

Rain made sand sculpture difficult. I took my opportunities when they arrived.

This particular sculpture was inspired by the book "The Artist's Way." I'd seen it at a friend's house, so got a copy from the library. Turns out to be terrible. I suppose if you're hopelessly stuck someplace, it's better than nothing, but I chucked it and walked to the beach. Why read about someone else's constrained creativity when I can go out and make a sculpture?

March 12: 05P-3

2005-06-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

This was preceded by 05P-2, which I didn't photograph.

March 26: 05P-4

2005-06-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

My friends Debbie and Nate joined me on the beach for some creative play. I taught them how to do free-piled sand sculpture, and we had a good time.

April 2: 05F-2

2005-06-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

April 16: 05F-3

2005-06-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

Construction image by Rich Johnson

April 30: 05F-4

2005-06-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

May 6: 05P-5 "Ae'gura"

2005-06-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

This was an experiment. I'd been playing "Uru," and the image of the Great Arch stayed with me. So, I made one.

Unfortunately, the sand was coarse so I couldn't make this as tall as I wanted. Still, I think this is good enough that I don't need to do it again.

May 14: 05F-5

2005-06-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

May 28: 05F-6

2005-05-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

June 17: 05F-7 "A Better Balance"

2005-05-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

For details on this sculpture, read the report that follows the images.

An Invitation to Balance

It is very hard for me to feel welcome anywhere. Old habits die hard and only God's patient provision of strength enables me to contemplate for any time the idea that people might actually want me around.

God's timing is something else. Looking for general information on the "Myst" series of games I wandered into the Uru Obsession forum one day last summer. I was between games and wanted to find out what was going on. I'd picked up hints of Cyan's activities and game plans in other places, but for some reason hadn't come upon this comprehensive source.

Since I first connected a computer to a phone line in 1983 I've participated in many on-line forums, and found them to be a very mixed bag. Most are specialized. Those that aren't seem to specialize in flame wars and triviality. UO turned out to be a more interesting place because of its wide range of people and topics. Seemed as if anything would fit there, so long as the discussion stayed civil. I liked this, and read the forum regularly. My written responses didn't arouse a lot of interest, but enough that I kept on.

Eventually I discovered areas of the forum devoted to people's Web sites and art. One day, on a whim, probably post-sculptural and therefore a little loose of judgment, I posted an image of a recent sand sculpture.

What enabled this is a modern technical transformation. In the old days, say about three years ago, if you wanted to post images on a Web site you had to prepare the images, write the HTML, then use an FTP program to ship the files to your URL. Through various people who have Blogs, I learned about photo hosting. You use your browser to ship the images and then copy the image URL to anyplace you want to put it, including forum messages. I have spent many hundreds of hours converting sculpture reports to HTML and then uploading them. Eventually I quit doing it; my Web site hasn't been updated in three years. I'd rather do sculpture than spend hours making Web pages about them.

Anyway, the image was quite popular, and people asked to see more. Now, in years past, this might not have made a difference; I would have been quite likely to ignore the request and slink off in embarrassment. The Holy Spirit can teach old dogs new tricks, patiently and with great love, and this time I actually listened. As the rains let up and I could sculpt regularly, I made a habit of putting the completed Email image assembly on Photobucket and then linking to a Forum page.

Word spread. I gained a reputation and got an invitation to post images on another forum. Keep in mind this was all minimalist stuff: images only, and done as economically as I could. Then I got an invitation to join another forum. This one was different, centered on art and beautiful in itself. The people there were very enthusiastic, so one day gathered all of my 2004 image assemblies and posted them there in a "2004 Retrospective" exhibit. At the end of this, more joking than anything else, I wrote that I was planning a 2003 version.

The response was "We're waiting." Well, that meant I had to actually do it. My 2003 images were a mess. I'd done very few assemblies; I was still getting used to the digital camera and the ease of image prep made me sloppy. I'd do an image and just ship it, bare, to the list of people. A day or two later I'd do another. I pretty much had to start over from scratch... and with an audience waiting, inviting, I couldn't resist. That I really needed to update "Human Touch" with current content didn't really matter. No, I felt the welcome and it drew out of me all these new versions of old images. This fits very well with the spirit of Until Uru that I've experienced.

One day I was working on images--it's a good thing to do when you're tired of the world and just want to stay indoors and listen to music--when I remembered that I wrote some sculpture reports for the 2003 sculptures. I had no idea if a 5000-word story would fit on a forum, but I asked. The answer was "Give it a try." I did. The response was "We like it." I posted the rest of them and a follow-on story.

And yet I live in the present. I'm only as good as my last sculpture. What is a sand sculptor when he's between dates? It's time to get out of the house and throw everything into another pile of sand.

Build number: 05F-7 (lifetime start #305) filtered low tide sand
Title: "A Better Balance" (for Jeruth)
Date: June 17 (Friday)
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side cusp
Start: 0900; construction time approx 8 hours
Height: 3.3 feet (Latchform); sokkel height about 5 inches
Base: 1.75 feet nominal diameter
Assistant: none
Photo digital: EOS-1D walkaround, Powershot G2 details
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: none
Video motion: none (camcorder not brought)
Video still: none
Video volunteer: none
Equipment note: O-ring failure in sprayer

1. I Guess It's Practice

People are sometimes surprised that I play no musical instruments. I tell them the answer is simple: I don't like to practice. The endless running of scales that is required in maintenance of skill is too tedious for one who believes in using the minimum necessary discipline.

Sand sculpture is an event in itself. Not practice, but the real thing. it does have this odd effect: anything you do repeatedly you'll quite likely get better at. Imagination works with skills and ideas advance, driving the skills forward. Sand sculpture requires a number of different skills and while it might look like herding cats, the whole group tends to move forward. What is forward? Good question. The answer changes through the years. Sculptures that were impossible a few years ago are now routine and that drives a search for new ways of expression. Will I ever make a perfect sculpture? Beats me, but I enjoy trying.

I certainly notice rusty skills after long breaks. The first part of the year got rained out and it has taken me a while to get my chops back. The pause was good in a way because it enabled me to think about the process without the distraction of actually making something. This is another balance.

All I know is that it's time for one man, one day and one sculpture. Each one connects to its predecessors and is a step on the way to the next, even if the step looks to be back. You just have to keep going.

In one of the 2003 sculptures I saw a harbinger of the idea that has consumed me for the last year: complex internal structure. It was a simple expression of what developed more fully last year and has taken a new turn this year. Growing skill leads to faster carving, which means I can do more complex ideas. The key is to keep the complexity under control. The last sculpture was overdone in some areas, underdone in others. I'd like to do something more in line with the forum's tag line for me: "Balancing with Sand."

2. Conditions

Fridays are quiet. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, I avoid Saturdays on the beach. I told my boss I wanted to take Friday off for an emergency sand sculpture. He's understanding. I headed for the beach.

It was a mess. The red tide of a few weeks ago had, as usual, killed a lot of mussels and their shells were in a solid line. Seaweed mixed with more shells littered the flat area behind the Breakwater, which is my favored building site. Looking around, I found a clean area just above the tidal cusp about three hundred feet back from the Breakwater. It would have to do. I made a mussel-free path for my bare feet and went to work.

At least the sand was good. Down around the 2-foot level was a thick layer of fine sand. Getting it to the building site was rough; normally I deal with more gradual gradients as I haul by 250-pound loads up. Full loads were impossible so I lightened them, which is why this sculpture is a little shorter than normal.

A cool sea breeze came in under low clouds. The mountains were cut off at about 1500 feet, but the clouds receded as I worked and by the time the form was full there were patches of blue presaging a warm afternoon.

3. Plan

Sculptures come from some deep place, the process managed by a tense mix of prior planning and ad-hoc decision-making. Planning is another skill that improves with this practice-that-isn't. I can visualize more complex sculptures now than I could last year. In the last year the sculptures have taken on a flowing presence that makes earlier ones look stiff.

For today's piece I had an idea for multiple layers of thin panels with small arabesque designs in them. Fitting all of that into a 21-inch cylinder will be a trick. All I have to do is make them thin enough.

Here I'm building on recent learnings. Things that look thin can be held up by hidden beams or other structure. A thin element by itself is very unstable, but with a stiffening element behind it becomes much stronger.

So, today's effort focuses on bubble-shapes springing from the core, light and airy, with outside detail contrasting with both the detail in the inside and some smooth panels outside. With careful engineering the detail can be carried all the way to the sculpture's bottom.

4. Making It

There's not much to do while packing sand. It's a well-practiced routine. Layer by layer the sand builds inside the form and my mind wanders.

Call me a guided pinball. I don't really know where I'm going but I bounce off of some things and am attracted by others. I tend to be a pragmatic opportunist. My mind turns to Until Uru and the people I've met there, people who make a priority of going to this community that exists mainly in our minds but built around the Cyan infrastructure. Some of it has to be built. The rest, as Yeesha says in Uru, grows.

It grows from the actions of the residents. Each of us affects others. You'd think that in a low-bandwidth communication scheme detail would get lost but it's somehow still there, for those who choose to pick it up.

In face-to-face communication I tend to run at a disadvantage because I want to think about what people say. This makes me slow; the conversation moves onward before I'm ready to respond. I spend a lot of time listening. In Until Uru everyone has to slow down, and words remain on the screen to be re-read. I'm on an equal footing at last.

Something like two hours later, barring time taken for a few conversations with curious passers-by, the form is as full as it's going to get. I do the usual utility things while I can. Once I've started carving I can't leave the sculpture, and my friend Rich is unable to be here.

Carving starts on the north side with the long bulge that's part of the plan. Inside of that, on the west, I start the cut that would have become the large lower cavity, but this gets derailed by other ideas at the top. This is typical. What fun is carving to a complete plan? I'm only partly an engineer.

I end up balancing the lower north bulge with one on the south side near the top. The sculpture takes on an odd sort of symmetry, with similar east and west aspects but it's skewed from one side to the other. There's lots of space in there, so I carve the intended detail up there and leave the bottom more solid.

Except I finally wake up and realize I can still do part of what I wanted there. Delicately I cut back behind the curtain wall on the west. Then I carve the curtain into a set of curves reminiscent of Kadish Tolesa's circles.

As has become typical, clean-up is a real problem. I don't have brushes small enough to get into many of the places I've carved, and the sheer amount of detail means it'd take all day to do a proper job of it. I get it as good as I can with the day's dwindling energy reserve and then sign it. Done. And it didn't explode.

I'm still worried about longevity. My new high-zoot sprayer works well when it works, but it depends on an O-ring to seal the top and this O-ring has been cut by the seat. No pressure. No spray, on a day that was warm and even though cooling is still dry. Water holds the sculpture together. I hurriedly photograph it and it stays intact.

5. Aftermath

I really should mount the wide-angle lens, but the big camera's batter is finally flat. I shoot some details with the "little" Powershot (I tried to give it to Rich but he said it was too big; he refuses to use the "big" camera) and then pack up. I'm done.

At home, there's a message from Nate. "Tradition." That's all he has to say. There's barely time to take a shower. Killer Shrimp is better without the sand.

And there's always time for Until Uru. I link in to find out what's going on. Supergram and Old Man are in the UO neighborhood, so I head there and find lots of activity. People linking in and out, Old Man in his usual spot. When he asks me how I'm doing I say "I feel as if I've been run over by a truck, but that's typical."
"How did it go today?" I'd told him yesterday I was sculpting.
"Very well, thanks. It's quite a piece."
"Did you get pictures?" Supergram asks.
"Yes."
"Are you going to post them?"
"Certainly."

Now, this was a nice friendly group. When the phone rang I answered, and when it turned out to be a friend I told the folks on-line that I'd be back in a while and parked my avatar. Right there in plain sight. Then I saw an administrator link in. Nothing for it but to watch. I'm toast.

"How do you feel?" Larry asked on the phone. "Big truck or little?"
He knows about post-sculptural syndrome. "Medium-sized. How'd you know?"
"I had a delivery out here and decided to walk the beach. And here was the sculpture. Seems to be about 80% complete."
"It was complete when I left."
"Yes, I guessed. You don't sign them unless they're complete."
"Right."

On the screen I watch Drakmyth. Yep. He has spotted me. Parked avatars take on a head-down, seated position that's unique. Soon there's a cordon of cones surrounding my helpless, harmless avatar.

"What fell off? That big balloon part on the south?"
"No, something on the north."
"I thought that was stable. Could have been vandals."
"I don't know. Right now there's a man guarding it while his wife goes off to get her camera."

Drak extrudes the cones upward out of sight. I'm in a prison of orange bars. Fear the power of the Shahr A'hdmin.

"Well, I'm back at my car. I'll talk to you later."
"OK. Have fun."
"Good night."
He hangs up. What do I do now?

Well, face the music. I take the avatar out of park and stand up. I'm greeted with catcalls and the usual "wb" that means welcome back.
"What happened to me? Who let Drak in here?"
I try skydiving to get over the cones, but they go all the way to the cavern roof. Supergram tries to find the upper limit but can't get there. My only alternative to staying is to idiot-Relto out. There's no point in playing on Drak's mercy. But tonight he is relaxed. After a few minutes he removes the bars and I can run free.

Then I hear Nate honking. "I have to go, folks. My dinner friends are here."
"Have a good dinner, Ktahdn."
"Thanks."

After dinner I link back in. They're still at. We talk about art, community and creativity after Jeruth links in, seated on the table that Drakmyth made from a pumpkin and some cones. I stay up far too late, but at least I'm doing something other than tossing in bed. After sculptures I can't sleep. The night becomes quiet around me as the conversation goes on.

Written 2005 June 18

June 24: 05F-8

2005-05-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

For details on this sculpture, read the report integrated within this post after the images.

Improvising the Plan

"All God's critters got a voice in the choir
Some sing low and some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wire
Others clap their hands or paws or whatever they got."

"I don't know what happens. I'm a control freak, but when I get on the stage Trouble takes over. The audience throws me a word and she takes off."
It's hard for me to imagine her as a control freak. Her hands and face are active, involved, tracking what she's saying about her upcoming improv performance.
"That sounds a lot like sand sculpture. I come down here, make a pile and it's as if it's a surprise. 'Oh. I need to sculpt now.' Something does take over."

Except today. The sculpture plan bloomed in my mind, intact, the whole thing.

I have no words from an audience, but I do have memories. I pull one out and start carving. The sun has more patience than a club audience but is just as implacable. I pulled out an old fault--the leggy sculptures that show up now and then--and combined it with the current fascination with microfenestration. Pass all that by way of the D'ni Great Tree of Possibilities and you get... possibility. I could see the potential for production problems, but nothing gets creativity going like need.

Build number: 05F-8 (lifetime start #306) filtered low tide sand
Title: "My Voice in the Choir"
Date: June 24 (Friday)
Location: Venice Breakwater, on the flat
Start: 0800; construction time approx 9,75 hours
Height: 3.4 feet (Latchform); sokkel height about 7 inches
Base: 1.75 feet nominal diameter
Assistant: none
Photo digital: EOS-1D walkaround and wide-angle details
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: Rich, with new A520 and my G2 (safety and builder)
Video: none
Equipment note: replacement sprayer gasket arrived Thursday

1. Expressing Love

It's a common comment, usually stated indirectly, but one person just came right out and said it. "I see love in the sculpture."

Where does love come from? What is it? It seems a concept highly resistant to rational consideration, needing a sort of surfer's feel of instantaneous response to the world. By the time I've done my usual consideration of things, any magic is pretty well gone. Perhaps sand sculpture is what flows slowly out of some porous layer in my soul, like water from years gone by out of an aquifer.

I'm content with leaving that particular sleeping dog alone. The pragmatist's major credo: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Unfortunately for my on-board self confidence, God's way of working with souls doesn't include the ease and unchallenged comfort of His friends.

One night I got to thinking about God and love. I have become more porous to these ideas and the thoughts produced feelings... and no words. Jesus said "If you love me, do the things that I command you." He certainly didn't command sand sculpture.

Brennan Manning tells a story in "Ruthless Trust" (pardon quote inaccuracy here, I've given away all my copies of this) about a monk whose abilities were far beneath those of the other monks. He took to disappearing during the daily ceremonies and finally the leader found him, in the basement, dancing for God. Another monk was going to upbraid the little one, but the leader stopped him and said "Watch." The dancer finished his dance, and God showed his happiness.

Not everyone can be a solo singer. One time I was called up for jury duty and one of the questions asked of prospective jurors was "Do you consider yourself a leader or a follower?" Every one of them responded with "Leader."

You can either complain about getting lemons, or go make lemonade. I prefer cooking to complaining. Who am I to tell God that he can't invite a sand sculptor to work with him? There are messages overt and covert, and just about everyone is tired of the overt kind. Sand sculpture is what it is. If people see love, so be it.

2. Technical Problems

One can do sand sculpture with nothing more than hands. A mussel shell is optional, but nice. I do this kind of sculpture as a reminder, and because it's a pure expression of spontaneous design.

There's a middle ground of equipment and technique. The idea here is production. Big sculptures, big piles, fast work that doesn't involve the interior.

At the other extreme is my equipment-dependent perfectionist approach. When my sprayer broke during the execution of last week's sculpture it became a race between dehydration and completion. Completion won, barely. A few minutes later a friend came by and found part of the sculpture on the ground. I sent a rather peeved Email to the company and their response was gracious. The new gasket arrived in time to enable the sculpture plan.

The rest of it was smooth, until it came time to carve. The sculpture's idea centered on a tree of rounded shapes, hollow and windowed, supported by limbs and trunks. The whole thing depended on being able to hollow the rounded forms at the top but the plan allowed none of the big openings I usually have for tool access. My tools are far beyond the basic mussel shell but that engenders confidence that has been pushing me ever farther into interior carving.

"I know what I need to do, Rich, but how am I going to do it?" I sit on the sand, looking at the sculpture-in-process, and nearly despair.
"Radar guidance? Prehensile tools? Hinges?"

The answer turns out to be a combination of every trick I've ever learned about carving, and then improvising on them. I peer through little holes at a tool that's held in a hand deep inside the sculpture, arm through an opening barely big enough to admit it. Most of the carving goes by feel and sound. I can hear the tool cut and as the tone changes I know the surface is getting thinner. I have to visualize where the parts meet so as to leave enough meat to hold them up.

3. Design

Think of an abstraction a tree, a child's version. A trunk, some limbs and then balls of undifferentiated leaves. Cut off the top part and you have the plan. Of course, this tree will be turned inward due to engineering necessity, but the rounded forms will be good canvases for microsculpture.

"What is it?"
"It's abstract. Whatever you see in it." The sculpture is pretty well roughed out, with some hollows started.
"I see a tree."
I turn and look at her. "How about that, Rich. She got it in one guess. By the way, I'm not going for the Johnson Abstract Prize today."
"That's good, because you have Snoopy there on the side."
"Where?"
"You just put in his nose."
"I see. Has an awfully tall forehead, don't you think? Don't worry. I'll de-Snoopy it in a little bit."
"That's fine. As long as you don't make another 'Palomar.'"

Rich has a long memory. That 1996 sculpture was memorable for all the wrong reasons. It was an early attempt at a semi-representational sculpture inspired by reading a book about the construction of the Palomar observatory. It stood but was still a failure, classed as one of the all-time stinkers I've made. I have improved in my ability to build models in my mind, and in my ability to carve. Today is the first time since 2003 that I've tried to hew to a fairly tight plan, and it's looking a lot better than "Palomar."

The tree shapes remind me of Disney's idealized ones from "Fantasia." The thought produces some discomfort, but that movie still resonates in me. I see other things from it all the time; all the foliage in the Nutcracker Suite section was taken from California chaparral.

When the tree-tops are close to their final shape I have to get serious about hollowing them out. This proves to be impossible with current tools and sculpture design. No thin sections this time, which is a big problem. Every pound of sand up on top requires more everywhere, all the way to the ground to hold it up. If I could start with thin legs I could get inside to hollow out the top but the whole thing would fall.

Then I remember a trick from the early days of microsculpture: thin it out after carving the small windows. Angled tools make this possible. I carve out as much as I can from the inside, then cut the slots. A combination of reaching around corners, cutting at an angle from the outside and using small curved tools produces something close to the thin sections I want. The top parts, envisioned as airy and light, are still too heavy, so the limbs will have to be thicker.

There are four major areas I've intended to carve into the interlaced slots that I hoped would suggest branches. I do the first and then contemplate the rest. Anyone who knows me will tell you I have a problem with discipline and the thought of doing the same thing three more times is intolerable.

"Every sculptor has the right to be silly once, Rich."
"How so?"
"I want a curlicue. Right here." I use the tent stake to bore the initial hole, then carve the whole thing into a sort of large pug's tail. It has nothing to do with the original plan but it does fit very well with rest, especially after some detail work on the overlapping edge to the west.

Around the sculpture is another blank panel. Taking off from a leaf-shaped window between convex panels, I sketch in a vine and then carve away either side of it, so the vine stem is raised.
"If you can't thin it from the inside, do so from the outside, right?"
"Sounds good to me."
As long as it involves more holes, Rich agrees with what I do. In this case, the raised vine is accompanied by leaf-shaped holes that follow it across the broad panel.
"I need another leaf there, but this wasn't in the plan and I need that sand to hold up the other stuff."
"Good idea."

As the day progresses the piece takes on nice shadows. The vine works well with its neighboring elements, even if it isn't terrific by itself. Three down, one to go.

"The more I look at this part, Rich, the more I'm tempted to leave it alone. It's a nice shape, and I like the way the light outlines the top. Anything else might be too much."
"You do have some work to do on the bottom."
"You're right."

In the end, it works. Partly. Viewed from the southwest in the late afternoon light the tree motif is obvious, and beautiful, even with the vine diversion on top. Elsewhere the accidents aren't so happy, and one major failing is the lack of differentiation of limbs and "foliage." I simply forgot to undercut the edges where the tree tops join the limbs to show the separation.

I work my way around the sculpture, spiralling downward from top to bottom, cleaning it up.
"This one really responds well to clean-up," Rich observes."
"I've been disappointed with the last few. They were pretty sloppy." One thing I did differently here was to bring individual elements closer to completion so that later clean-up wouldn't be quite so much of a chore.

Finally, it's done. I make the signature pad and sign it. I'm amazed it's still here. God's being nice to me. This thing should explode; where's the support? The Holy Spirit holds it together as He holds me.

3. Feeling

Sculptures used to have magic. In 1984 every one was magic. I didn't know where they came from and the shapes were straight from somewhere I didn't want to know very well for fear of killing it off. What I understand I usually file away and forget.

The sculpture process still fascinates me but has become as routine as improvisational design can be. I have confidence that if I'm faced with a block of uncarved sand I'll be able to make something that looks good out of it. It'll be an engineering challenge, an intellectual design challenge, but sometimes I think the heart has been buried or forgotten.

God wants me to know what I'm doing. He wants me to be able to love, and know I'm loving. Rather that distancing myself intellectually from everything, he wants me right there, in the moment, with Him and with others. And my sculptures.

This one is here. It rings, and the ringing resonates in me. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the metaphor-trees, a cultural engram by way of DNA and Disney. Maybe it's the rounded shapes so eloquent of biology. Common memory, an archetype, something that connects to deep preferences and desires.

As I talk with the improv performer her enthusiasm rubs off onto me. Good sculptures charge me up even if my brain is gone. Maybe it's enthusiasm, God's and mine, that's holding this impossible sculpture together.

I'm delighted that I made it. Faults and all, it's quite a piece. I stay up half the night on Until Uru, babbling my head off about it and other things. The people there are beginning to understand Post-Sculptural Syndrome.

Written 2005 June 25
"All God's Critters" by Bill Staines, sung by John McCutcheon on "Howjadoo"

July 6: 05F-9, "Missing Spirit"

2005-05-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

This one is a little confused. For more details, read the report that follows the images.

Balance of Need and Terror

The kids play it as "Rock, Paper, Scissors." Rock breaks scissors, scissors cut paper, paper covers rock. It's played with hand gestures to settle a fight or simply to inflict pain in a bored moment.

My version is "Love, Desperation, Fear" and the consequences of missing my guess are much greater than a lunch bill or a slap on the wrist. Yes, desperation covers fear: the road ahead ends in blankness and only desperation led me to try the one improbable act that might lift me out and away: taking God's hand. God's act was a demonstrated fact. Good enough.

Not good enough for him. His main point is love. That's the destabilizing factor in a fragile life. I want nothing to do with love. I can handle facts, and that God loves me is demonstrated by what he has done. But he wants me to know it in a way deeper than thought, warmer than rationale. He touched the deep point, and I turned it off.

Now, I've said many times that life without God isn't worth living. That's true if you care about things, but the secret defense is not to care about things. Rather than let God turn me into a man who can feel his love, I simply stopped caring. The circuit breaker tripped. I didn't even run. Just sort of... stopped. And yet, life has its own momentum.

Build number: 05F-9 (lifetime start #307) filtered low tide sand
Title: "Missing Spirit"
Date: July 6 (Wednesday)
Location: Venice Breakwater, on the flat
Start: 0745; construction time approx 8.25 hours
Height: 3.4 feet (Latchform); sokkel height about 4 inches
Base: 1.75 feet nominal diameter
Assistant: none
Photo digital: EOS-1D walkaround and wide-angle details
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: none
Video: none
Equipment note: Used Waterscreen to filter sand into bucket for form seal. Worked well.

1. Understanding the Israelites

Reading the Old Testament is instructive. God works with people and a day later they abandon him in favor of their own ideas. We're made to have him as part of us; the Holy Spirit is as necessary to life as breath and water, and yet is even easier to live without.

It depends on your standards. If, by life, you mean a sort of grey-ghost existence going to work and back, making money, well, you'll do just fine. But that never has been good enough for me. I knew there was something else out there, something magical. Sometimes I touch it, briefly, in a sand sculpture or while listening to music. People really are capable of marvels.

And yet they end up out there in the desert with the Israelites, cursing God for rescuing them from the Egyptians who had enslaved them. I'd already turned my back on God once, so was familiar with the concept, but it was still amazing to read the story and its familiar refrain: "We should have stayed in Egypt." No matter that Pharaoh wouldn't give them straw for their bricks, so the whole exercise was useless. Make-work. Like daily life today. You'd think that these people who'd seen God's hand in action would never leave him.

You'd think the same of me. I have seen miracles. That I'm still walking is a miracle in itself, two years after God's intervention. And if I had a real excuse, perhaps it would make sense.

But it's just basic fear. Desperation conquered the fear, and love softened the desperation, and that led to Fear, big, sharp and quick. I know I can't turn my back on God or I will die, but I also can't face him. I'm in a weird limbo and the color gradually fades from the world.

2. Design. Why?

Knowing my tendency to turn away, emulating the Israelite U-turn, I asked God to do whatever it would take to keep me with him this time. I thought, when saying that, that the control would be the basic economic one, or something else sharp-edged and definite. It turns out be something more basic. Loneliness?

I've been told that the nature of our relationship with God is just that. Children. Friends. How does one have a relationship with someone invisible? It's not really that hard, and you don't even need a cell phone. Silent conversations are no less powerful. Cut off that ready connection and what is left? At first I didn't really miss it. Momentum covers many dips in the road, but eventually runs out in signs that become ever less subtle.

Not caring is a good clue. I'd quit caring years ago but God was giving this back. Not caring is an addictively powerful technique for blunting the sharp edges of life. The Holy Spirit has a better way: he can make me more resilient so that the sharp edges don't tear me apart. He teaches me to sidestep, to weave and dodge, to look at Him instead of the problems.

It could be a trick. "Watch this one," my grandfather used to say as his other hand sneaked around where I couldn't see it to slap me lightly where I wasn't expecting it. Where is God leading me? Anywhere, it could be, while I just stare at his glowing face in preference to looking at the terrifying world. Which works fine until suddenly peripheral vision finally sees the haymaker coming our way.

Turn against food... turn against water... what chance has life in such a situation? Not much. What's gone from life when I turn from God isn't quite so obvious as those, but the worst that will happen without water is death. Without God, there just isn't much point in going on. Yet what I fear keeps me away. I don't even want to ask him to help me change. It's a situation similar to what prevailed in the last days of psychoanalysis: "I'll die before I'll tell him anything."

So, I go ahead with the process of life, which equates to distraction. Stay busy. Let others provide the reasons for design and creativity. Although I don't really feel like making anything, Shirley is expecting me on the beach, so I load up prepare. Don't think, just do it.

3. Filtering

It's a race with the tide, and I'm losing. Waves splash into the borrow pit, and I only have two loads of sand. But by hauling as fast as I can I get what's needed. At least water is easier to get.

Sand comes and goes. Last week the sand was pretty good, and it was clean. Today it's very good but contains hundreds of little bean clams. Thousands. This is why I have a filter.

Actually I have three. There's the standard box filter with the window screen, the Rectascreenus with heavy stainless steel mesh for use when the sand is coarse, and the Waterscreen for use with the latter because the water also contains things I'd rather not have in the sculpture. It's designed to fit the top of the Rectascreenus so that I can pour the water through it. Experimenting, I find that its tapered bottom fits inside a bucket and I'm able to, fairly easily, to filter enough sand to scatter inside the form to seal its bottom edge. As usual, problems are the mother of invention. This is the first sculpture all of whose sand has been screened.

Fine sand like this goes through the box filter easily. I dump the clams into the Sand Cart so I can haul them away, and end up with about 100 pounds of the little things. I'm glad the police didn't come by. I don't have a clamming license.

I'm on autopilot. Packing sand is routine, the ultimate filter. When I'm presented with a full form and a pile ready to carve, I'm left wondering what to do.

4. No Companion

Shirley worked with me for a time in the Control Center. She has wanted to bring her kids out for a year but the schedule never worked out. When she heard that I was proposing a sculpture for a Wednesday she perked up and said she'd bring the kids.
"What should we bring for tools?"
The usual answer: "A plastic spoon and knife work well."
She's well organized. They come across the sand and set up a well-stocked station with dual umbrellas. She even has stakes for the tarp.

The kids get into digging, and when Peggy, wife of another co-worker, shows up, her kids join Shirley's and the two women discuss things. I'm left with the design problem.

A solo sculpture, for the first time in a year. God likes creativity and seems to have a soft spot for sand sculptors. Once he finally got this idea through my hard head, my designs really took off. Today I'm on my own and ideas don't flow so quickly.

I struggle along. The families bail around lunchtime, to join some others for lunch.

5. Confusion

There are always ideas floating around. Choosing harmonious ones and working them together is the hard part. The Holy Spirit has, in the past, taken a fairly active part in this, not letting me accept defaults and suggesting different ways to look at the piece, and helping me to see it clearly. Yes, I know it sounds nuts. God... cares about sand sculpture? Yes.

Today the ideas fight for expression and no one damps the confusion. It's a sad event for one rescued from slavery to historical Egyptians. The result is a sculpture that, while spectacular, isn't particularly beautiful. It's ungainly, the tree motif mixing awkwardly with the Uru light garden idea. I even made the ball for the top, but it would just look silly. Actually the whole thing is pretty silly. Real life takes some bravery in its design, and my bravery is running very thin. I know where that came from, too.

Still, I struggle along. The light and airy piece I wanted becomes earthbound just as I am. It has some nice motion, but is just too graceless overall. It's a return to the excessively cylindric pieces of a few years ago. Finally in the late afternoon I realize two things: it's not getting any better, and I'm getting tired.

6. Clean-up

While not complex in that there's a lot less microsculpture than its predecessors had, it still has lots of places to catch crumbs. I work my way around and down and finally, at around 1600, I call it good and sign it. A man promptly comes by to look, and steps on the signature. I'm afraid he's going to fall into the sculpture, but he avoids this and instead asks if he can sketch it.
"No problem. I've never been asked that before, but whether you're photographing or sketching, photons are free."
He discards his cane, pulls a sketch pad out of his tapestry satchel and goes to work.

I go get my camera and start capturing my own photons. The lighting is harsh, but that's why I have this fancy camera. Little digital cameras have little sensors that are easily overwhelmed by bright light, and their sensitivity in shadows also suffers. Big sensors are better at both ends. This helps also with post-sculptural photographers who are less attentive to details than they should be. Any camera works under good conditions. Difficult situations make expensive equipment worth the money.

The sketching man finishes, and it's quite a sketch. He obviously knows what he's doing.

And I know what I'm doing. I'm done. Going home. Tired, hungry, full bladder, empty spirit.

7. Life Goes On

If this were a situation in a movie. you'd see a scene right now where, through force, cajoling or an intense emotional outburst, the two estranged characters would suddenly and completely be reunited.

Or you'd see the wronged one kill the runner. Or the relationship would be broken forever, as the lead character packs his bags and gives up.

God isn't like that. He's not even like the God written about in many Christian books where he hides his face.

He's not hiding. He's right there. The connection still exists, the promise holds: he will never leave nor forsake me.

No, it's a reprise of 1979, when I hid my face from him. He waits. With none of the rancor or blame that would accompany a human being, he waits. How tired do I want to get?

Life obviously continues. Why? Without God's spirit, there just isn't much point, no matter how skilled I am at making art.

8. Afterword: Patterns of Spirit

Maybe it's because I live in Los Angeles, but I've gotten used to being invisible. You can do just about anything here and not get noticed; the TV producers are looking for the truly outlandish because everyday outlandishness doesn't cut it any more. So, if you want to be seen or noticed you pretty much have to come in driving a sound truck with fireworks. Otherwise, you drive alone.

I've learned the habit. It means there's more room for self-expression. No one sees, so why not be a little more flashy? No one is paying attention.

Within an hour of sending out the images of this sculpture I had two replies. Both asked what was up with the title. "What do you mean by missing spirit?" After I got around to posting the images on the various forums, the response there was similar.
"What's with the title?"
"Why did you name it that? I guess I'll have to wait for the report."
Here I've been doing this forum posting for a couple of months, and people are already used to the pattern. Changes are noticed.

The idea for the report had come the day of the sculpture. I try to be obedient, and a lot of people (well, three or four) were waiting for it... and the gift of a story idea is not to be disregarded lightly. The way to keep ideas visiting is to use them, like drawing water from a well. The well never gets any more full if you don't use the water. Don't save it. Drink it.

Distraction, or God? I've always used distraction to keep from seeing life's uglier aspects. Don't think about it, just go on. God has, however, broken some of this habit. How is a relationship built? By spending time together. I used to give my evenings to God, chatting, reading, thinking. And then Until Uru came along. Evening time promptly went to that.

You'd think that God would have become angry that I'd let a game supplant him. All he did was wait.

Until Uru is a good thing. I've met people there who are more sensitive and more responsive than most I meet in the so-called real world. I've met similar people on the forums, and it all has come together to provide a lot of distraction. Image preparation, writing forum posts, and the real-time interaction running late on the UU community. For all its virtual nature, it is a real community. People choose to be there.

Last night I chose to be there. The core reason was a misunderstanding: I thought it was Friday, and I went to the Uru Christian Fellowship neighborhood to play music for the people coming to attend the meeting. I stood on the bridge overlooking the light garden, waiting, while writing this report. No one showed. Eventually even my post-sculptural brain got the message: It's not Friday.

Well, OK, what else is going on? Oh, yes, Pub Night in Ae'gura. I linked over there, and found that the music was the not-so-golden oldies so idolized by the younger members of UU. I set up an alternative channel that had no takers. so disconnected and started looking around.

After a while, Jeruth showed up and it didn't take her long to get sick of disco. I moved to a different neighborhood and got a private message from Jeruth, asking how I was. I invited her to join me, set up another channel and started playing Celtic. Jeruth joined me, seeking solace, and we sat on the plaza by the fountain. If I could have seen her eyes, they would have been intent.
"So, what's going on? Your message about the sculpture was so different. Melancholy."
"Well, um..." Cornered. Too tired to dissemble or obfuscate. I just tell her the story. She's already demonstrated that she's a good listener, even to my outlandish ideas.

We talked for a time and then some others joined us. As usually happens the conversation changed course, but I still had things to think about.

Mainly, that it's too late to be scared. The changes have started and I might as well try to stop a landslide.

Further thought through the night and next morning led me to realize that there was nothing major wrong. As you start so shall you finish: take God's hand and look to him. Peter sank because he took his eyes off of Jesus. Jesus is the author and finisher. He knows what he's doing.

And yet I have a brain for a reason. Perhaps the way I've simply dumped my life into his lap isn't the whole goal. I don't know what the balance here is. Between the extreme of being carried and the other extreme of being all alone is some sort of middle path. Probably many of them. Jeruth said I wasn't incompetent, but that's the way I feel. Especially when the talk turns to love. Perhaps what God wants to do is make me competent. I know how I got where I am, and have simply gotten scared of where the path leads, but where I am now was just as frightening when I got a look at where we were headed over a year ago. I freaked out then, too, and took months to get settled again. The key was then to keep hold of his hand and not let the wind distract me.

Even good distractions are distractions. I've never been in a situation like this; relationships have been few and far between. Monthly contact, for the most part, or even more rare. Until Uru is daily, which is a whole new experience for me.

I have a very small taste of what Eve and Adam felt. Separated from God by their own choice. I have to choose to hold his hand. He's always there but I can let go. He won't but the relationship changes and life goes out of life. For me, anyway.

2005 July 7, 8

Post-Labor-Day Celebration: 05F-10

2005-05-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

After a two-month layoff, I returned to the beach on the Saturday after Labor Day. Whew. It was good to be back. The report follows the images.

Grateful Return

Summer. Crowds. Heat, sunlight unloaded in wholesale lots onto skin designed for northern climes. July and August are interminable. I move sculptures to Fridays and walk carefully, quickly, on the hot dry sand. For two weeks July is cool, and then summer reasserts itself on the day I planned for the next sculpture. Add the sunlight to all the other loads I've been carrying around and the result is static. The day brightens and I watch it from indoors. Recycle the count for two weeks.

Saturday is cooler, and Sunday reasonable. The next two weeks are cool, and then sculpture day comes in blazing. This drives more people to the beach, and once more I close the door. After that stiction takes over. We're in August. Just sit it out.

This isn't the only time I've laid off. In the old days I skipped winter, thinking that sand sculpture was a summer activity. I learned that winter is actually the best time, even with the uncertainty of sand and weather. The light is low and soft, weather throws in irregular beauty, and the people I meet are much more relaxed. Even so, there just came times when I didn't sculpt. A month, two months, three months, equipment problems, spirit problems. How long after the last sculpture does a sand sculptor cease to be one?

Ideas, it seems, seep into awareness at a certain rate. Frequent sculpture uses ideas, perhaps faster than the well can replace them even while honing skills. Sculptures done after a hiatus are unpredictable: the idea well is full and the hardest aspect of making a sculpture is restraining their flow so that a whole sculpture results, rather than an assemblage of unrelated but enthusiastic parts.

Still, creativity will come out. You'd think that in a world whose only moveable objects are traffic cone simulacra, and the only control mechanism feet, that nothing could be done that could be called art, but desperation is a proven boost to crossing closed borders. I made a series of experiments in Until Uru and learned that, yes, it is possible to make something pretty. Add Great Zero markers (floating white bubbles) and you're just doubled the number of colors in your pallette. Richness is relative, and the location is calming: water laps against the blue stone of the Ferry Landing under the Great Arch, and unlike the beach there are few people around.

Well, most of the time. Post-migraine one evening, having taken the only cure I know of from two bottles of beer, I was very suggestible.
"Let's go to the City and see if we can find more cones," Jeruth said.
We did, and we did, and there were four of us whooping away down the Great Stairs herding cones before us. Downhill, ever downhill, all the way from Tokotah to the Ferry Landing because the Second Landing just wasn't big enough.

Artists always look crazy. What do you expect? There's only one way to get something done, and that's to concentrate. I'm used to this on the beach, and with my friend Rich there to run interference for me I do pretty well. He answers the questions, I sculpt. On the Ferry Landing there were several bemused people who'd never seen a driven sculptor in action. I have no clear idea of what they said to each other as I dealt with lag and other problems to make in cones what existed in my mind, other than one person said I was a hoot, and some were dancing. I could see the text chat scrolling but paid it no attention except a few times when I, perhaps subliminally, became aware that they were talking about me. Unfair, I thought. Shooting fish in a barrel. I really hope no one was keeping a chatlog to use for blackmail in a few years. In a land without baseball and TV, perhaps cone-wrangling will become the premier spectator sport.

Eventually I got the design done. For some reason I was having a hard time modelling the design in my mind. Something about it just wouldn't come together, perhaps based on general resistance to copying someone else's designs. And, in another unusual aspect, I asked for help. Tehl had to set the markers for the logo's linking panel. Then I had to use Jeruth as a surveying instrument because I couldn't see the markers.

The result was popular, but something about it wasn't right. Still couldn't figure out what. I wandered off to bed somewhat dizzily, it being much later than I thought. Doesn't matter whether it's cones or sand. Time just disappears.

And eventually enough of it disappeared to put me on the good side of Labor Day. I went to the garage to check equipment.

Build number: 05F-10 (lifetime start #308) filtered low tide sand
Title: "The Story Grows in the Telling"
Date: September 10
Location: Venice Breakwater, on the flat
Start: 0730; construction time approx 8.75 hours
Height: 3.4 feet (Latchform); sokkel height about 6 inches
Base: 1.75 feet nominal diameter
Assistant: none
Photo digital: EOS-1D walkaround and wide-angle details
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: Rich, with Canon SD520 process and completion
Video: none
Equipment note: none

1. A Slight Problem of Air Retention

Two months. I pull the trailer out of the garage to see if everything is still there. The only thing missing is air in the left tire. Hmmm. I pump it back up and it seems OK, so I push the whole load back into the garage and close the door.

Start time is dictated by the tide. In the morning light I hook up the trailer and then notice that trapped air has a desire to be free that's stronger than my desire for an early start. Time loss, molecular persuasion assisted by the long-distance bicyclist's best friend and skill attained in the use thereof. A quick patch and I'm on my way.

2. A Slight Problem of Water Retention

The morning is cool, dim, overcast. Unlike Fridays, Saturday mornings are calm. No commuters, just paper deliverers and the joggers on the Boardwalk that hasn't seen boards ever.

Tides and surf have nicely rounded the isthmus behind the Breakwater. Choosing a sculpture site is made difficult by having forgotten to look at the tide chart: where will the afternoon high hit? One result of the long hiatus is being out of synch with the tide. Make a guess, start the sculpture, build the base higher and wider in case I miss.

It gets higher yet when, in an attempt to force the long-idle form's oval plan into something more like its usual circle, I nudge it one time too many and the water inside rushes out unstoppably. What an affront. This never happens to me.

I start over and make the same mistake. Two blowouts in one start. Something of a record. Finally a few brain cells start working together and I figure out how to do this. The form is stiff plastic, and takes a set in whatever shape it stays in, in this case being stored horizontally on the trailer. I throw some sand in, nudge it into place to hold the circular plan, then put in more sand to seal the rest of the periphery. This time it holds water.

September sand. The shells of spring are gone and the fine sand lies in a thick, easy-to-dig bed. Filter, tamp, add water, filter, tamp, go get another load of sand, fetch more water, repeat for two hours.

3. The Hard Part

The form pops open, springing free, leaving the damp dark column of sand standing alone. It always seems like a miracle, these vertical, slender cylinders. Some have told me that it's perfect as is. Cylinders are nice, but I think I can do better.

The problem is choosing which better. Wayne, my boss, said one day when he had to call my name a couple of times to get my attention, "He's thinking about sand." Work with someone for 13 years they get a pretty good idea, if only by osmosis, of what's happening inside another. In this case, I was building models in my mind.

What starts isn't what finishes. I make the major cuts in accordance with the day's arch-springing-from-face idea, but after that the divergences accumulate. A cut here, a hollow there, fingers seeking perfection or something imponderable, and the sculpture grows into something inconceivable. It can only be made, not planned, guided by experience and desire.

Ideas love company. When they're invited to come in, they bring their friends and it's party time, no matter what the host desired or designed. It's a fascinating balancing act, keeping them from tearing the house down while encouraging freedom for surprises. I started writing a story that would describe in about 5000 words the events of a fictional character's doings over about 10 years of his life, but the story has so far covered about two months, and runs about 35,000 words. Sand sculpture is limited by daylight. Ideas become impatient for their time in the sun, but the story still grows in the telling.

A large group of people in bright yellow T-shirts comes along, picking up trash. They stop to chat. One asks if he can try sculpting.
"No, but I'll show you how. Come with me. You others, keep an eye on this and don't let anyone touch it."
I demonstrate free-piling for two people unwilling to get their hands dirty. Well, maybe he'll remember. They amble off to the next short-attention-span event.

The sculpture begins to cook. It's taking on a shape that's unusual, and interesting. It even includes places large enough to dig and remove internal sand. I hollow out the topmost part and cut some small holes that connect with it.

4. Contrast

I used to balance hollow against sand and hope that it would hold up. Any sculpture still standing at the end of the day was a success.

Once success is assured, where do you go? Keep repeating the same thing and become a hack, like musicians constrained by fame to trademark riffs and painters who keep doing the same painting with different subjects? I have my own problems with short attention span: an idea conquered is one behind me. I need to go farther up, farther in, to swipe a phrase from C.S. Lewis. It's no fun to stay with certainty in design, but it's very hard to stage a revolution every time out.

Design, however, is complex. The field is wide and there's a lot of room for failure. Even sculptures that stood the test of construction could fail in the day's-end artistic critique. Successes became rare as my standards changed from simple existence to some kind of beauty I could feel but not touch, but when they came they resonated so strongly I could have shattered right there on the beach.

How do your produce tension in a medium that is completely intolerant of anything but simple compression? You play with shadow, detail, light, reflection, and try to balance them with surprises hidden here and there. Walk a step around the sculpture, it should call you on to another step, and another, getting you lost in a world you thought impossible. Ideally, it would keep calling you around until some time later you realized you've done six circumambulations and still haven't figured it out.

A sculpture that's all air wouldn't be very interesting. Ditto the solid cylinder. Surprises come out in the making, in the relationship of part and space, in little strokes that lead to big ones and in how one surprise relates to another. It can't be planned. At least, by me.

I used to hide the contrast inside. The outside would be strong and smooth, and inside you'd see these little openings lit up by the sunset. Then I started putting them on the outside, balanced by nearby slabs devoid of anything but the sand's natural detail. You could see the design demarcations. This area is for complexity, this for balance, each placed for effect.

This sculpture's big change is in integration. No longer are there separate zones for microsculpture and bigger elements; they sort of fade into each other, wrap around each other, changing shape as various elements take off on their own or come back together. I may not be paying much attention to God, but he's still paying attention to me. Faithful to the unfaithful, doing exactly what he promised to do, and sticking with it because he is truly committed to doing what is right whether I enjoy it or not.

On the southeast is a big problem: that default backward 7 shape that is so easy to end up with by wrapping a curve around a cylinder. I'm sick of it but have no idea what to do about it; I've failed repeatedly in this.

When in doubt, carve. I start from the bottom of a curve in the microsculpture above and continue it down through the top of the 7, and parallel that with another extension. The detail work is hard but the result is a woven look that may be the sculpture's most delightful design. A year ago it would have been impossible. I didn't have the skill. It sits atop a broadly curving base that doesn't look like something left there because I couldn't figure out what else to do with it, but like part of the sculpture. Its solidity contrasts with and balances the airiness above.

Just don't quit. That's all God has been asking of me lately. Don't let go. Works for sculpture, too. Don't accept the easy way out.

"Mommy, why is he wearing a skirt?"
"Because it's comfortable," I say.
"Are you a girl or a boy?"
I laugh. "I'm a boy."

The afternoon goes on, warming, then cooling. People come and go. It's nice to be back here. The clouds have dissipated, but instead of August's rage we get September's tempered sunlight with a cool breeze. A few pelicans cruise by, high and businesslike. Another bird, shaped like a sandpiper but bigger and dark brown, runs back and forth. Sets of big waves bash the breakwater, delighting tourists and surfers each for different reasons.

5. Clean-up

"Well, Rich, that's it."
"Finished so early?"
"Oh, there's a lot of clean-up to do."

Over an hour later he says "You were right."
"Yes. But I'm almost there now."
Another fifteen minutes and I call it good. As with any sculpture with this many tiny elements, true clean-up is impossible. It's always a compromise. Perfect clean-up and detail control would take days of fussy work and I'm not here for that. Nor is the sun going to allow it. Instead of perfection, I work for good enough. The core idea here is to allow the sculpture to present itself whole, without distractions. Some people come along and seek out the tiny imperfections that any hand-made, human-limited object has. I've learned to overlook these, to seek the intent and shape, and to reduce the imperfections through clean-up to just below my level of perception. It's one of the best things about sand sculpture, this enforced limit on fussiness.

After cleaning up the sculpture, I landscape the base. This helps the sculpture look its best, the built-up sokkel both lifting the sculpture above the common sand and protecting it from mistakes in predicting the tide. It came close this time, close enough to send me over to the lifeguard tower to check the tide height and time, but ultimately left the base untouched.

Then I gather some sand, laboriously, stupidly, handful by handful until there's enough to make a signature pad. As I start putting equipment away I hear a man who has been watching for a time ask Rich, "That's the signature?"

Early start, early completion. The light is far from flattering, but one thing my big, heavy camera does well is deal with harsh light.

First, it needs a way to hold the images. Its memory card is quite safely located on top of the computer monitor at home. Fortunately I have the little camera too, and it uses the same kind of card.

Strong light, deep shade. Dynamic range made for black-and-white film, or a digital camera with a big sensor. My own dynamic range, however, is lacking, and I look stupidly at the camera and try to figure out how to set some exposure compensation for the shadowed side. The indicator doesn't move as I randomly turn the dial. I give it up and go back to photographing. The wide lens gets the details, with the front element only a few inches from the sculpture.

6. Ending the Day with Music

I load my equipment back onto the trailer, whose left tire still has the air it started with. Of such small things is importance made at this stage.

We take one last turn around the sculpture.
"It's a good one," Rich says.
"Yes. I like it." This is fairly rare, but more common this year. What's unusual with this piece is how it looks like a whole. All the parts work together, flowing into one another while being distinct. It's one of the bell-ringers that chimes in my mind long after I turn my back and start walking away.

Rich and I drag the load across summer-dried sand, between kite flyers and sunbathers, to where my bike is locked. Step by step I get everything together, loaded and strapped into place, and then go looking for the key to the lock. It's inside the pack, which is inside the form, under the other stuff. Tiredly I dig it out, unlock the bike and throw a tired leg over the frame.

"Thank you, Rich. I'll keep you posted, but the next one should be in two weeks."
"OK. Fare you well."
"Good night."

I wobble off northward. On my way up the little hill, eastbound on Rose, a woman calls from the porch of an apartment, "Nice kilt!"
"Thank you." I didn't think it was very noticeable when riding a bike. Well, it certainly doesn't look like shorts. It's a nice little smiley boost up the hill to the traffic signal.

I get home without being an accident statistic. Pure fatigue. At least I'm not starving. I had sandwiches and other things which got me through the day better than the usual Force Primeval bars and peanuts. There are other criteria for judging food than just how well it holds up underneath the camera gear.

A quick snack, start the computer, basic clean-up, get the music going, enter the Until Uru neighborhood and then park my avatar while I shower off all the sand. By the time I get back there are many comments on the screen:
"Where are you?"
"Are you there?"
Poke, poke.
"Well, when you get around to it..."

"All right, all right, I'm here now. Didn't want to get sand on the keyboard."
"Good idea. And now I know where you are. I'm coming," Jeruth says.
I get the ballads playlist going and soon Jeruth links in. Music Night. A tradition I started in mid-June that has grown to something important for several of us. Music and conversation.

My conversation is, um, interesting. It's not so much a question of typos, as figuring out where typos end and real text begins.
"No problem," Jeruth says. "I speak Ktahdn."
And she does. Experience has taught her how to interpret my mistakes. Perhaps that has more general applicability to life.

A few others join us. I switch to the dance playlist and we get active, fingers flying on keyboards all across the United States. There's even one from England. Music night has run until midnight, but my sculptor's euphoria runs out long before that. I play the closing song and say my good-byes before the typos get any worse, stagger to the bedroom and lay my stiff body down.

7. Guiding Imagery

Of course, this having been a good sculpture, ideas pop off in my mind like fireworks. This make sleep difficult. I just sort of watch the show, and then a few thoughts finally come together.

Yeow. I know what I did wrong with the camera. The exposure compensation scale is inside the viewfinder, and the one on top is for something else. Who knows where the compensation ended up. The images could be alll dark! I was rusty in more than just setting up the form. Regular practice is the only way to stay together when you don't read manuals. Well, we'll deal with that when it comes. and fortunately Rich shot his own round so he can save me. Again.

The next morning I foggily traipse over to the computer and transfer the images. I'm a lucky man. My random dial-twiddling left it in a useable place. Not good, but useable with some heavy-handed adjustments in Photoshop. I make the image assemblies, and am once again grateful for having been able to buy this camera.

Then it's time to consider another failure. That Guild of Greeters logo still bothers me. Tehl placed the makers perfectly but the cones aren't right. I load the Web site, study the logo and begin to see where I went wrong. A few sketches fix the design. I know what I need to do.

First, I need more cones. I link in and herd every cone I can find down to the Ferry Landing. After taking apart most of the existing design, I carefully replace the cones. There are just enough to complete the basic logo. It's much better. I call it good and shoot some images. To do better will require administrative help in acquiring more cones.

The rest of the day fades away into post-sculptural fog. This time the fog sort of glows. It was very nice to do a sculpture, to be creative in the truest way I know. I think in images. Words are a second-level abstraction. Truth is in the sculpture.

2005 September 11
Rewritten September 13
Image of first Guild of Greeters logo by Tehl Nava. I modified it to include a cone that was there but invisible from above.

A Short One: 05F-11

2005-05-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I do short, experimental sculptures to test new ideas. That's what this was supposed to be but it sort of got out of control. The full report follows the images.

Enginarting

Memory and recall, history and repetition, learning and basic research. The whole thing has to be enjoyable enough or one just quits. Years accumulate, and expectations, squeezing the enjoyment into a sort of artistic coffin corner. As would any living creature, art fights back, fierceness increasing with pressure. Either it all blows up or new room is made.

Thinking in three dimensions. Perhaps dementia, but I am getting better. Still, there's an idea that keeps slipping out of my grasp as I try to carve. It's time to try again, to expand that artistic envelope with a pure engineering exercise. Two upright slabs of sand, each woven of strands and connected by springing arches. The problem is sticking with the plan and finding support.

Well, OK, the real problem is finding my brain. My friend Norm had mentioned in early summer an idea to come out from Colorado for a visit and to see a sculpture, but then I heard nothing more about it. My face-to-face social skills were unravelling anyway; I'd make a good recluse. And then there was the message on the phone: "This is Norm. I'm here."

Now what? I'd just received Myst 5. That was about the extent of the weekend's ambition, the morning low tide not being very low. Norm was planning to come out for lunch; we'd talk about it then. But lunch slipped.

I bagged the plans, fired up the Big Black Computer and headed for Germany. They're getting ready for Oktoberfest and I wanted to see if my avatar there still worked. The usual pick-up conversation in Tokotah came together in an interesting mix of German and English. Music crosses the boundaries, though. Naturally, the talk turned to beer.

Well, I had no plans. Had no idea if the traditional Killer Shrimp date with Debbie and Nate would happen. The future hasn't happened yet. One thing led to another. Beer knocks the edges off. J'Kla and his friends logged out, it being well past midnight there, and the next thing led to yet another. By the time plans crystallized the world was a pretty soft.

Social courage in liquid form. Norm and I ended up at Killer Shrimp, where Debbie had just gotten another glass of wine, which somehow became mine. She got another while Norm and I ate shrimp. After that we were over at their new condominium, sitting (this was a good thing) on the balcony among the flickery candles. This time the wine was Zinfandel. Or something. Norm and Nate--united by alliterative affinity?--were tete-a-tete in the kitchen. Deb and I talked about the Holy Spirit. We're both scared. Changes.

Then talk turned to plans.
"Sculpture tomorrow?"
"Well... I'm not..."
"You'd better!" Odd echo with Jeruth, even if I've never heard her voice.

And there comes a time when one little insignificant dust mote causes everything in its vicinity to condense into one thing. Water droplet, or crystalline water of exquisite beauty, the vapor knows not. It just happens. So, go build that test arch.

Build number: 05F-11 (lifetime start #309) filtered low tide sand
Title: none
Date: September 24
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side cusp
Start: 1000; construction time approx 4.5 hours
Height: 2.4 feet (Short Form); sokkel height about 3 inches
Base: 1.6 feet nominal diameter
Assistant: none
Photo digital: EOS-1D walkaround and wide-angle details
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: Rich, with Canon SD520 process and completion
Video: none
Equipment note: new small cosmetic brush, results inconclusive

1. Logic

I finally get home. Sometime. It's dark. Quiet. I drink lots of water, take a shower and crash. Boom. Except I can't sleep. Fitful, tossing around, inchoate imagery.

Dawn comes up more clear than I am. Start time is, oh, yeah, about then. Norm wants to ride a bike, but I have only one suited to beach duty. OK, he rides that. I'll walk. And pull the cart with the Lightweight Edition equipment. Seems logical, but a few gears are missing.

And not just gears. Halfway to the beach I realize I've left the shovel and tamper in the garage. Well, the Rectascreenus can be used as a tamper--I've tested this a few times, and it does work, if not optimally--and I have hands for digging. We'll make do. I'm not going back up that hill.

A cool breeze wafts over me, sun blocked by nice overcast. The Boardwalk is its usual thing and I walk rapidly. At the south end, police officers are setting up tents for a hiring expo. I didn't smell as much marijuana smoke as usual there. Thankfully I walk out onto the sand, leaving the activity behind.

Surfers, waves, sand. Many of the first because the waves are running big. And the sand, considering the height of the tide, is quite good. More or less at random I pick a work site and start. Close to the sand so I don't have to move it far.

Pick up sand and water, set up the form, fill it. Tamping with the PVC frame Rectascreenus causes a lot of turbulence that keeps the sand from settling, but I can feel it hit hard sand someplace. It's just the top inch or so that gets moved around. I hope. The languid tide eventually reaches the borrow pit but by that time I have enough sand to fill this small form.

2. Test

Historically I've used this form to test key ideas. Its design was an experiment that led to the Small Sculpture Revolution, and its size lends itself to testing just one or two ideas. It has been years, though, since I last used it this way.

In those years, I eventually realize, many things have changed. What was once complex is now simple, and I just can't stay with the plan.

For one thing, why do the same plan on both ends of the arch? On the east side I carve the surface from which the braided elements will be made, with the slots that will flank the arch's end. The other end, well, now, there's no real reason to do what I've already done, right? So I pull out another old idea for a hollow arch-end, splitting the west end and hollowing out underneath, like a dome. Yah, I know, it's no clearer to me, and it soon departed from even that plan. And all other plans. The Design Tiger just won't be restrained by something so tenuous as pedestrian engineering.

"How's the engineering exercise going?"
Crews change on the beach. For the last two years or so, police patrollers have been aloof, never stopping to chat. This man is different. He'd stopped earlier to ask what the day's project was.
"Well, that idea sort of got lost. What's coming out is more complicated."
"It looks good to me."
"And me," Rich says.
"It's certainly more than I expected."

3. Packing It In

The first time I used this form as a test for ideas, the resulting sculpture had about three elements. Subsequent pieces became more complex but were always considered the stepchildren of the family; even I am affected by the idea that bigger is better. Stumpy 30-inch sculptures aren't real. Since the last one, though, I've acquired more small tools, and the skill to use them. The reality today is that there is more sand here than I have the energy to carve.

The packing is respectable, too. Not as good as I'm used to but still consistent and better than many sculptures in years past. The only limitation today is my slow mind, and a desire to go home and go to bed.

"Where are the horizons?"
"Yes. They don't show up as usual."
"I think that's because of using the filter for tamping."
There are horizons, but they're not really horizontal. Nor are they prominent, and the pile has a nice silky touch, softer than I'm used to. Normal packing produces prominent layers that feel rippled under my fingers. The trade-off is that sharp edges and details break off more easily here, and it's harder to keep the pile damp.

Some microsculpture goes awry when I sort of lose track of where the openings go and the softer sand falls away, and the east arch end also ends up being changed when I tunnel through the wrong way. Happy accidents, or forced design elements. I work them out and go on.

More could be done, but it's time to quit before I make a big mistake. Looking at the sculpture as a whole, it's quite an amazing little thing. Never has so much been packed into a Short Form pile. By any standard it's a good sculpture. Perhaps not having a brain is a good thing.

I even have enough brain power to check the camera's settings. No more underexposed images. I walk around.

"Short sculptures. This kneeling is hard." It's more like dragging myself around. Knees creak and my back hurts. But isn't that a neat little sculpture. One step closer to tabletop sand sculpture.

We walk away. The last person I see on the beach is the LAPD officer.
"When will you be back?"
"Probably two weeks, but I might come out next Saturday when the tide is going down."
"Good. I'll look for you."
"OK. Have fun!"
He drives off.
"Nice guy."
"Yes."
"This is a good thing."
And it is nice, to be known in a good way.

4. Dance the Night Away

Norm and I walk north through the Boardwalk throng, halfway to Rose before I finally remember that there's a parallel alley. It's much nicer.
"That place is good to visit, about once every two years."
"Yes, but it has been more than two years for me."
He has a point.

Home at last. I rinse out the sprayer. Norm goes off to do other things. I have some dinner and then wash the sand off from top to bottom.

I'm early for Music Night, but no matter. I'll hang out and see who shows up.

Budgie is already there. I've no sooner materialized on the Ferry Landing than she says "I need dance music!!!! I need dance music!!!"
"Coming right up." I set up the channel.
"OK, you're on. Radio KTDN." It would seem I have something of a reputation here, too. Soon the two of us are tearing up Tokotah, blistering the bricks with hot avatar feet. I'd never dance in the real world, but here it's an experimental art form limited only by the number of fingers that will fit on the keyboard. Two on the arrow keys for turn and going forward and back, two more on the sidestep keys for lateral movement, and, in a new discovery, my pinky just reaches the space bar so I can add a jump to the moves. The result gets Budgie laughing and clapping.
"Do that again!"

"How did you get this carpal tunnel syndrome?" the doctor asks.
"Dancing."

Eventually I have switch to quieter music so we can take a break, but then Ghaelen links in and demands a demonstration. Lunasa goes on the air and none of us can sit still. Is it possible for three people to crash a shard? We tried. Music Night usually isn't this active.

Then Budgie has to leave. Atlantis9 comes in and we meet in another Age. Tehl joins us for some initial puns. Ghaelen had asked what we talk about and I had no ready answer, just that the evening passes too quickly.

Then a name I've not seen in too long pops up on my Buddies list.
"Jeruth! Nice to see you here!"
The five of us sit in a pentagon, leaves falling from the huge trees, clouds slowly flowing beyond the hard edge of the plaza in perpetual sunset. There are dancing interludes during some of the more active music, and the talk ranges all over.

The others watch my typing deteriorate and know pretty well when I've reached the limit.
"Very nice. Thank you for joining me here. Turn off the lights when you leave, please."
"Sleep nice."
I toddle off to the bedroom and collapse. It's almost tomorrow. A very nice way to end the day.

2005 September 25