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Q. What do you put in the sand?
A. Water and sweat. |
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Q. What holds the sand together? A. That is the question we hear most. The answer is "water", and more specifically, the surface tension of water. The sand we use is virgin sand from the ground, not all rounded by wave action. Recall the difficulty you have
trying to separate two flat surfaces with water in between. We want the flat
surfaces and the fine particles that bond together best with water. There is
also a considerable amount of sweat in the recipe, as our sculptures are all
hand-packed and weigh well over 10 tons. There are no other ingredients... I
repeat... nothing else! |
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Q. What are the wires for? A. This is a multiple choice question... pick your favourite from these answers. a. They channel the earth's
magnetic field and that is what holds the sand together. |
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Q. Do we have to keep spraying the
sculptures with water? A.
Yes and no. The finer the sand, the slower the drying process, but with the sun
and wind we do find that it helps to have areas that are saturated while we do
the fine detail work. When we are all done sculpting, the organizers ask us to
spray a sealer on the surface, which traps in the water that holds the sculpture
together. The sealer is very thin and fragile, and is not holding the sculpture
together any more than the paint on your car holds the car together. |
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Q. Is this a hobby?
A. I find this a bit demeaning.
Most of us are hardworking professionals who make a living at this challenging
art. Come and shovel 10+ tons of sand in the hot sun and tell me what a fun
hobby that would be. Certainly, we feel blessed that we can make a living
sculpting works that entertain and amaze our audience, but please recognize our
abilities for what they are. |
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Q.
Does it bother me that my sculpture will only stand here for a short time? A. No. All of us realize that we are performance artists and we enjoy the positive feedback and reactions from our audience as we work. It is quite likely that we will have a larger audience for our work than some sculptors whose work is only seen in galleries. I believe that people have a special appreciation for this type of sculpture, both for the unique use of a common material and for the fact that it could be here today and gone tomorrow. As artists, we enjoy being able to create quite a number of works per year, as opposed to working months and months on one piece in a studio.
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Q.
What are we making? A. I prefer to let you figure it out.... Come back and check tomorrow if it still looks a bit baffling. We have a very limited time to create each work, so we need to focus on the task at hand. We are all trying to win that first prize cheque.... Yes, as I said above, this is not a hobby.
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Q.
How
did we get up there (i.e., to the top of the sculpture)? A. First, you must remember that we had to get the sand up there. We pack the sand and water in wooden or plastic forms in the shape of a pyramid. Once we have it all stacked, we can take off the top form and sculpt the highest sand while standing on a lower form. Gradually we work our way down, removing the forms as we go. Once we are at the bottom, it is generally impossible to do any work at the top. (Not that we would want to, as the falling debris sand would obscure some of the lower details.)
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Q. How long did it take? A. This varies of course, but most of the contests we enter have a time limit of 22 or 25 hours, usually spread over three days. There is some variation in whether we must do our "pound up" in that time or have a separate 'off-the-clock" pound up day. Sculptors prefer the latter, as it gives us a bit of time to recover from the hard work of moving all that sand before getting down to the delicate and exacting work of sculpting those tenuously connected little grains. Our jobs can range from a one-day/one-ton effort to a week or more sculpting 50 tons and more. Needless to say, sandsculpture is a great fitness program!
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I hope you found these answers helpful and can now focus on enjoying the results of our creativity! |
