we played in the sand again...

Last year was the first time I had ever participated in the Piccolo Spoleto Sand Sculpture Competition in Charleston, SC.  You can find a post about that by scrolling to last June.  This year, our team agreed to regroup and spend the day having fun again.

This year's event fell on the Saturday before my family vacation instead of the Saturday after.  Cathryn and Elena worked in some short family vacations around the event again this year.  Katherine also got a little break from everyday life by going down a day early.  Violet and I did the same, we just did it with a week's worth of luggage, a kayak and a surfboard loaded in with all the sand sculpture supplies.  We all assembled from our various locations on Front Beach on The Isle of Palms and got ready for battle.

This is us with our battle faces on.  Elena can't take a "mean mug" photo to save her life.  Catch her on a random Tuesday and she'll be giving you the most evil eye by accident, but ask her to mean mug and she instantly starts laughing and smiling.  Luckily, the faces weren't as important as the sculpting skills and these ladies are some of the best sculptors I know.

First, some background about the weather.  It started raining in my area about two weeks before the event and my rotation of running shoes almost never dried out.  The daily threat of rain continued as we drove down to Charleston and the forecast for the morning of the competition was for heavy rain and storms.  The night before the event, the organizers sent out an email warning that if lightning was in the area, the event would be canceled.  When I got up to run, there was no cancelation email and no rain, so I was very happy.

Katherine was the original organizer of our team and she's a meticulous planner.  I am the opposite of a meticulous planner, at least on the surface.  I actually do a lot of planning and thinking through ideas, but I do it in a way that makes sense for my brain and my knowledge of my limitations.  I also keep all of it to myself.  Still, these two opposing planning forces usually work together well to bring us right into the middle of those two extremes.  Katherine kept teasing me, asking in the group chat if I had a sketch for everyone yet.  Well, the night before the event, sitting on a hotel bed, I drew and sent this one:

After viewing the entries last year, I wanted us to go for scale and make something big.  I joked with Elena that we should make a giant portrait of her step dad Gene.  That got me thinking about doing a human head since none of the entries were attempting anything like that last year.  It was last minute-ish, but it was a plan and a sketch.

The first step is always to pile up a lot of sand.  We spent about an hour shoveling sand, packing sand, and hauling 5 gallon buckets from the ocean and pouring the water over the packed sand.

With only two hours left in the competition, we began sculpting.  I started trying to lay out the face and the rest of the team began working on the much larger area that would become the flowing hair of the sand princess we were making.  

I was really concerned that we might be cold during the competition.  I've been stuck on the beach making sculptures in rainy conditions before and your body can get quite cold.  Since the rain never showed up, the temperatures stayed higher and the humidity was like a big, wet blanket making us all very warm and very sweaty.

Carving faces is not something I do very often and it's very difficult to make your brain understand that you have to keep digging out areas deeper and deeper.  It seems counter-intuitive as you're working and you have to be really bold.  Being bold in sand means a high level of risk.  This kind of risk on a very public beach is a very public risk.  The last thing I wanted was for the whole face to fall off because I was being dumb.  We all did a good job with the packing, though, so the face didn't fall off, even when I kept digging out around the eyes and nose.

In our pregame discussions, we had some ideas for turning the locks of hair into snakes or mermaid tails.  Because we knew we were taking a big bite with the very large scale, we agreed to prioritize the face and hair before worrying about details like snakes or tails.  

This proved to be a wise choice as we started to run out of time before all the hair strands were even in existence.  There were about 30 minutes of manic shoveling and sculpting just to get everything to a finished state before the competition ended at noon.  We were rushing and sweating, but we still used our final seconds to rake out the area and add a title and some musical notes.

As soon as time ran out, we all went for a cool off in the ocean.  It felt sooooo nice.  

While we didn't have Jencyn as one of our good luck charms this year, we did have Violet and we had Cathryn's parents again.  We also had Elena's mom, Tesa again.  This year we added Elena's step dad, Gene, who provided some comic relief while we worked.  I got tickled after we got out of the ocean when Gene asked Elena to take his photo with our finished sculpture.

It was nice to have Katherine with us this year.  She helped us be able to make such a large sculpture in 3 hours.  It's kinda funny because we usually butt heads in the beginning of a project, but after that, we work together pretty well.  Our fussing is usually entertaining to others.

After our dip in the ocean, we walked around and checked out the competition.  There were some really good family teams and some really talented kids making sculptures this year.  When we talked to the judges, they asked us our team name.  We told them we were "The Hot Metal Beaches".  I eventually had to explain the team name to some journalists by saying that these ladies were my current and former students who also just happened to be exceptional metal sculptors.  Then we gathered around the tent for the awards presentation.

We were announced as winning second place overall!

This was our finished sculpture...

...and a closer view of the sculpture and the award sign...

...and our award ribbon that will go with our ribbon collection in my office.

Then it was past time for lunch!  Working very hard for 3 hours had us all very hungry so we got to the Windjammer as soon as we possibly could.  

We were past "hangry" and very close to delirious at this point.  I hope she'll forgive me for posting this photo but I absolutely love making Elena laugh this hard.  There are no photos of the food because it was devoured immediately.  The grouper was amazing, but again, I was famished.

I said earlier that these ladies are some of the best sculptors I know.  I realize it's easy to dismiss such a comment as just being kind and praising my students and friends.  I'm a nice guy, but I'm not that nice and I don't lie about art.  Let me provide some evidence to support my claims:  Katherine is the most decorated (awarded) art student in Lander University history, racking up many national level exhibits and awards while she was still a student.  Her success has continued since earning her MFA, continuing to win national awards, getting her work accepted into prestigious exhibits and having solo shows.  Cathryn earned Best In Show in our student exhibit last year for her sculpture and recently won 1st Place overall in a regional collegiate exhibit for her steel sculpture.  Elena also has some regional awards for her work and just last week won Best In Show in a national juried exhibit of metal work in Virginia.  All three of them had steel sculptures accepted into that exhibit (Katherine had two accepted!).  So, like I said, some of the best sculptors I know.  It seems I was lucky to be on a sand sculpture team with them, huh?  

They're also a lot of fun to be around.  Mama B took some "after" photos for us to go with our "before" photos at the very top of this post.  

This one is how we felt emotionally after working so hard and winning a major award.

And this is how we felt physically after working so hard and winning a major award.  I can't adequately describe how tiring something like this is.  Sand is heavy and we piled it 5 feet high.  5 gallon buckets of water are heavy and we hauled so many of those from the ocean and dumped them on the sand.  Then there was the relentless stomping on the sand with our feet and carving it away with our hands.  We were absolutely exhausted, but our goal for the day was to have fun and we definitely had fun.

And then for reasons I can't explain, we needed to go have our photo made with a yellow flamingo.

With a crew this fun, it was tempting to stick around with them longer.  They had plans to go to thrift stores and have dinner together.  By this time, though, it was after 3:00 pm and Violet and I were late for vacation!  We said our goodbyes and started driving up the coast to meet the family in time for dinner.  

we play in the sand

If you read the last post about vacation, you may have wondered why I was up at 4:00am to run in the dark on the last day.  Let's talk about that.  I have never enjoyed getting up early.  I hate alarm clocks.  My favorite thing about summer in school was begin able to sleep late.  My dad usually had other plans and would often wake me up by 8:00 or 9:00 just because he didn't think people should be sleeping so late.  I guess that's a whole other story but now I realize 8:00am isn't even early.  My favorite thing about teaching school now is that in the summer, I get to not set an alarm.  Yes, I am aware that most of my alarm setting has to do with my ridiculous running habit so it's totally my fault, but it's a calculated sacrifice I've made for the sake of my health and wellbeing.  That said, I set my alarm for 4:00am and I got up and ran in the dark.  Then I showered, loaded the car and Violet and I set out on a new adventure, driving south down the coast of South Carolina.  

One of my star former students, Katherine, had participated in the Piccolo Spoleto Sand Sculpture Contest in Charleston last year with a friend and told me that I should do it.  She told me about the "professional sculptors" who brought in complicated wood and plastic forms they used to pack the sand to make their big creations.  She told me it was very competitive and that while it was fun to participate, she wouldn't expect to win.  She invited me to make a team with her this year and so I casually mentioned it to two of my current sculpture students.  Who doesn't want a reason to go to the beach, right?  So they said yes and we had our team of 4 for the "adult" category.  You can make your own jokes about me being an adult.  I'll keep typing while agreeing with you.

Fate was unkind to Katherine on the very early morning of the event.  She had the longest drive of all of us on the event date and when she went to start her car, the battery was dead.  She was alone and pretty far away from everyone who would normally help her.  It was also 5:00am and she couldn't just go knock on doors to get help.  She had no choice but to tell us good luck and wish us the best without her.  This was a serious blow because Katherine is a multi-year veteran of the Sand Sculpture class I used to teach.  I was counting on her to help out a lot.  

I waited a while to break the news to my other teammates.  We're all pretty delusional, so we just figured we'd pick up the slack and work harder to make up for the loss of Katherine.  Elena (left) came down with her mom the day before and had a short drive to get to the Isle of Palms.  Cathryn (right) also drove down the day before with her mom and dad and they had already made a little vacation out of the event.  Cathryn's mom, Charis, is a hoot and she was quick with the team photos.  She even interviewed us for her podcast, Music Mamas On The Move, and did some video updates.  She's on Instagram and all the other media too.

These two know me pretty well at this point, but neither had ever met "Beach McAbee".  I'm not even sure this meeting counts because I had to be all business to help get this massive sculpture finished in the 3 hours we had for the contest.  Maybe they'll get to meet him one day.

Violet deemed herself our photographer and immediately sad down to tan, paying us almost no attention.  I kid a little.  She did a good job getting some of these action photos below.  And she only burned a little bit after we ran out of sunscreen.  It was an extra beach day for her and some needed rest after a busy vacation week.

It was hot.  My week long vacation during the previous 7 days had been unseasonably mild with low humidity.  One day I made a whole sculpture and barely even sweated at all.  On this day, I poured sweat.  

Cathryn and Elena were fast learners.  I gave them just a few preliminary instructions and we started work.  We piled up a big mound of sand and started the process of packing it down.  They shoveled a lot while I carried buckets of water from the receding tide.  Within the first hour, Elena had a burst blister on her hand.  She later earned another big blister on the same hand.  We were working.  Soon they were sketching out the composition and sculpting a giant octopus head and all the tentacles.

As I said in the last post, I don't normally make a plan for what I'll sculpt in sand.  With a team, it was necessary to at least plan a bit.  We had a starting idea and that idea pretty much went out the window in the first 15 minutes of the contest.  As a sculptor and professor, I wanted to make sure we had a great composition all the way around.  One of the judges came up to us when we started and told us it was more important to have one view for the judges.  Fine.  So we changed our idea completely.  We did focus more attention on one side, but we still had our artistic pride, so we also made sure it was an effective composition in the round. 

Based on Katherine's initial reports from last year, I had zero expectations beyond just making something in the time allotted.  I did not expect to actually compete or take home any awards.  I saw the team of 4 older adult men wheel all their wooden forms to the beach on a cart.  I watched them break out into 4 distinct work plans to get their idea finished.  I saw teams with blueprints and sketches.  I knew we were outclassed by more experienced sand sculptors and I focused my attention on teaching Elena and Cathryn the correct process and having a good time.  

About half way through the contest time, beach spectators started coming up to us and telling us how great our sculpture was.  We were all the way at the end of the line of competitors, so they had seen all of the entries by the time they got to us.  The first few comments, I just wrote off to people being nice.  But when the comments kept coming and a little crowd started gathering at our site, I started to wonder if we were actually being competitive.  Our team parents kept us up on the time and we finished our final touches with just a few minutes to spare.  We had finished a good sculpture on time and in my mind, we were successful, mostly because we all had fun.

After talking with the judges, we had some time to kill so we decided to walk through all the sculptures and see what others had made.  This is the one the 4 dudes made with all the wooden forms.  A dozen eggs, a sports car and the word "eggspensive".  You know that emoji with the guy with his arms up like "whatever"?  Yeah, that.  I mean, it's good, don't get me wrong, but it couldn't stand up to a sculpture critique.

This team made a massive drip castle.  The size was impressive, the drip part, not so much.  Also, not-so-interesting radial composition.  

This one I liked a lot.  The little LEGO guys were well done.  It was impressive in its skill level and while the composition was symmetrical and frontal, it was still satisfying.  It's tough to do vertical carving and those LEGO people were good.

So I wouldn't say I was very impressed by the other works in the adult category but there were some good builds.  A couple of teams did some impressively tall castles hoping to win the "architectural" category.  The categories were not easy to understand for me.  You could compete as a "kid", a "family", or an "adult team".  You could apparently win prizes in those team categories, but they also had a "Most Creative" category and a "Best Architectural" category.  I wasn't sure how all of it worked, so I just observed and learned.  

When they got to announcing the "Most Creative" awards, I was shocked to hear the name of our sculpture called out.  We won 2nd Place for Most Creative!

We got a little sand bucket and shovel filled with goodies.  There were three hats, a few gift cards and a few other items inside.  

Elena and Cathryn play it cool but I think they were happy about winning an award.  They should be super proud of their hard work and winning for their first ever sand sculpture.  Did I mention that?  This was the first time either of them had made a sand sculpture.  Pretty cool.

The egg guys?  They won "Best Overall" with their egg thing.  The drip castle won a big award too.  I think the LEGO team won something too and it may have even been a family who made that one.  That made it even more impressive.

Ours was a Kraken wrapped around a skull.  We were supposed to make a bird.  This turned out a lot better and gave us more options.  

We had all worked hard and sweated a lot.  I was dehydrated even after downing 3 bottles of water during the contest.  The whole gang decided to head up to the Windjammer for some food and beverages.  Oh, and Jencyn, Elena's roomate also came out to support us.  Sadly, we didn't get to talk to her much because of the race against time but it was cool to have her there with us.  She ate lunch with us too.  I accidentally got a photo with her head in the bottom left, but it's the only one I have so there it is.  

We packed up our stuff and left the beach.  Violet and I still had one more adventure ahead of us and we were exhausted and ready to be out of the sun.  After I agreed to add the sand sculpture contest on the end of our family vacation, I also realized that I needed to stay one more day in Charleston to save gas and pick up some artwork while I was already in town.  Violet and I drove to our hotel and got showers and then had a nice nap before going to Page's Okra Grill for a really great meal.  I'm pretty sure we were both asleep by 10:30pm.

 

the return of sand sculpture!

That's right.  You thought the Sand Sculpture Class was dead didn't you?  Well, I did.  Some administrative changes to the way travel-related courses are scheduled made our cool little Sand Sculpture Class unaffordable during summer.  The last one was May 2021 and I guess that was a good one to end on.  But then...

I have been more actively scheduling workshops and artist-in-residence sessions with K-12 schools and my friend Kevin was working with me on ideas to bring me to Summerville to work with his kids.  As we traded emails, out of nowhere he emailed "What if we did sand sculptures?!" and it was the best idea I've heard in months.  The wheels turned, Kevin worked out all the details and a day after graduation I found myself driving towards the coast.

Kevin's literal neighbors just happen to be Monica and Eric of The Chick Inn on Main in Summerville, SC.  Remember when they commissioned me to do a big drawing for them last year?  It's a good story and you need to hear Monica tell it.  So plan your next trip to Summerville and book your stay with The Chick Inn on Main.  You will not regret it!  I'm happy to provide more information on that along with some photos if you're interested.  Monica is a runner and as we planned our visit, we had to get a run in together.  That's Monica and Katherine after our early morning 5K.  What was Katherine doing there?  Good question...

Hannah, pictured here with her new chicken friend, is a veteran of the Sand Sculpture class.  In fact, she was on the last one in 2021 along with Kennedy, Amber, Ashley and several others.  When Hannah heard I was going to do a one-day Sand Sculpture class with high school students, she, Ashley and Katherine quickly planned a girl's trip to coincide with the class.  We were also lucky that my former student Tien's solo exhibit at Public Works Art Center was happening on the night before the class so we all got to go to her reception as well.  Serendipity.  By the way, that's a real chicken.  The Chick Inn on Main has a lot of real chickens and Hannah wanted to hold one.

After our run and after a really good breakfast and chicken photo, we all drove out to Beachwalker Park on Kiawah Island, just south of Charleston.

When the students arrived, I gave an introduction and a few instructions to get started.

It felt so good to be back in the sand.  The shovels and buckets were lonely in my basement.

And these students got to work immediately.

That's Kevin Morrissey holding the jellyfish.  He's an amazing superhero of a teacher and these students probably have no idea how lucky they are to have him.  Kevin and I went to the same college, drive the same car and share the same barber.

Katherine and Ashley working hard on the cat/mermaid sculpture.  Hannah was carrying water.

The students were really doing great.  They were prepared with good ideas and they worked at a reasonable scale for the time we had.  

As usual, I wasn't as prepared with an idea of what I was going to make.  I piled up sand as part of the introduction and opted for a skull to show a few of the different approaches.  After moving a bunch of sand, I decided to carve "Fort Art" and use it as a photo opp for the students.  Fort Art is the art slogan for Fort Dorchester High.

Speaking of moving sand, after a few minutes of working with our shovels, the park guy came out and told us that there was a rule against using metal shovels on the beach.  He was kind enough to go buy us a box of heavy duty plastic shovels.  

After the shovels and packing, it was time to do details.

Kevin brought a lot of students and Stephanie brought a few of her photo students.  The added bonus was that Mini Me got to come along with her students too.  This is Elizabeth Estes, formerly the Queen of Sculpture (long may she reign).  Elizabeth is my fictional long lost daughter and was my sculpture worker for a few years.  It was really cool to see her interacting with her students and being awesome.  

After about 3 hours, students started finishing up.  This was a giant Toothless dragon.

Abigail lives in Summerville and she also came out to join the girl's trip.  The four of them made a great example sculpture.

This one was a turtle.

This was the Mount Rushmore of Marvel.

This was a manta ray strong enough to hold a person on its back.  They all did a really good job.  It was a very successful day.

Everyone was bummed that we had to flatten out the sand before we left, but that faded quickly when they realized they got to destroy the sculptures in fun ways.  Stephanie took most of these photos and this one really captures the joy well.

Kevin and Abigail both suggested the Blackbird Market for a late lunch.  The bus went to get ice cream and we stopped to eat before heading back upstate.  

For me this was, of course, a lot of fun, but it was also a successful experiment.  Now I know that it is possible to do a one-day Sand Sculpture class with high school students when the high school is within an hour of the beach.  I will definitely be adding this to my list of offerings for workshops and classes.  

And don't forget we do beach weddings too!  Hit me up!