Jamie & Andy

 

People often say to me ‘….doesn’t it break your heart when you see your work being washed away or melt?’  generally this is not the case, it is part of the artwork that it disappears and one of the joys is creating it in the first place.

But there are a few where I have to answer yes they do.

I wasn’t sure why this was until recently.  I must have made hundreds of sculptures now but have only had one or two pieces where I was deeply saddened when it went away.  One such piece was a sculpture of Charles Darwin that I made in my home town of Bradford some years ago.  I remember cycling down to it after it was finished and dreaded the moment that I would have to destroy. This I put down to the fact that it was my greatest work at the time and in my home town.  It seemed such a shame that it would go.

The closest I have come to that since is the stories we wrote about a Little girl called Spirit and the following year a Little White Fox.  These were for an ice sculpture trail and we had spent weeks making them and developing the story only to put them out for a single day to flower and melt to nothing.  But again, I thought that is was because they were strong works that it saddened me.

And then me and my girlfriend Claire made a Snowman.

 

I have to say he was a little different as he was the only Snowman I’ve ever seen climb a tree but he was a Snowman nonetheless.

It was a dark cold night and we were settling down after tea when Claire convinced me to leave my cosy warm kitchen to venture outside and make a snowman with her and Benji the Dog.  So we made a plan to have a tree climbing snowman and set off to the woods.

With a step ladder, a bin and a bucket of water, and a carrot we marched on. We walked up and down the forest looking for the best tree for our snowman to climb, a combination of being visible to walkers by and my ability to get up it.

 

Finally we found a wonderful beech tree covered in snow and with lots of snow around it.  The snow on the ground was far too dry even to make a snow ball so I explained to Claire that if you want it to stick you have to mix some water in it.  So Claire mixed the snow and together we made some nice large balls.  I then clambered up the step ladder and into the tree trying not to slip on the snow in the branches and once I felt steady Claire began to pass up the snow and gradually our snow man began to take form.  Unfortunately, we only had one pair of warm gloves so we had to pass them between each other to keep warm.

Claire then made the head on the ground whilst I was finishing the body in the tree.  She was having great difficulty as Benji the dog had developed an affinity to carrots and seemed to want to eat our Snowman’s nose.  Finally the time came to place on the head and Claire passed it up tenderly, she had placed the carrot in deeply so that it didn’t fall out and had twined some twigs together for his eyes. He was very handsome and I was a little taken aback.  With care I placed on his head so that he was looking up and then made an arm so that he appeared to be climbing the tree higher.

“Do you think he needs a scarf?”  I asked.

“ Yes, I think so.”

So I took the scarf from around my neck and put it on our snowman to keep him cold, taking direction from Claire on styling and finally pouring a little water on it so it would freeze in place.

 

“Do you think he’s ready?”  I called from the tree, my legs stiff from being up there for over an hour and my hands bitterly cold.

“He’s beautiful” Claire said beaming her approval.

Claire then held the step ladder whilst I climbed down.  We then spent a good time taking photos of our Snowman climbing his tree and he was later named Percival.

The day after making the Snowman Claire thanked me for such a magical evening that she would remember forever and I have to say I thought it was magical too.  It was very cold then and for days I heard stories of people seeing the snowman climb the tree and I went to visit him to see how he was doing and still he was contemplating how to get higher.  A great thinker Percival the snowman.

But then of course the winds changed and the air began to get warmer.  Whilst walking the dogs I went to see Percival and saw that he had started to melt, his scarf was no longer frozen and was blowing in the cold wind that made my eyes water.  I sighed and walked on up over the fields looking around me to see all the melting snow.  I realized that I was deeply saddened and didn’t really understand why.  For sure it was something to do with the melting snowman, but it was just a snowman like any other.  I then remembered the time when the great bust of Charles Darwin was to be demolished and felt the same pang of loss, but this was just a snowman and that was a huge sculpture 5 meters tall.

Somehow, the simple snowman had touched my soul just as the sculpture of Charles Darwin did all those years ago.  I had lived and breathed that sculpture and it was weaved into the fabric of my being and those around me, it was an enduring but amazing experience that brought joy to myself, people that I love and hopefully many other people that I do not even know. And the snowman was the same.  Claire and I had shared a wonderful moment together where we created something wonderful, it was joy, happiness, love; and it lived in the snowman climbing the tree.  When he melted, my heart melted.  And then I began to question if it was the cold wind that had made my eyes water.

Doing simple things with the people we love is so important; it is sharing the moment. With regards to art I think it is important to recognise that the most important pieces are not necessarily the ones that are most impressive, it is the ones that touch your soul for whatever reason and become a fabric of your being.  These are the ones that we should be trying to make and the ones that are really important.

I wonder if we will see Percival the Snowman next year?

 

On a Sand in Your Eye assignment you never know what surprises may lie in store for you and Llandudno certainly didn’t disappoint. On this occasion awaiting me were three unexpected close encounters of a strange kind.

The job itself wasn’t overly straight forward, involving for starters the tricky delivery of 16 Tonnes of sand by tipper lorry to an  indoor venue, for two days of sand sculpting workshops. The workshops were part of the ‘Take Part’ free arts event for young people at the Venue Cymru in Llandudno. As it was, the delivery went like clockwork, good planning and preparation proving as usual to be the key to success. It was just as well we were ready and waiting for the eager sand students, as the event itself was very well attended, apparently a record 3,600 attendees over the two days, making the fourth year the most successful yet. Our own workshops were booked up from the first morning. It’s nice to be popular! But joking aside it was the first time sand had been at the event, so it was satisfying to see so much interest.

Our dynamic approach to the workshops, turning a pod of dolphins first into a sea serpent and then into an octopus made for an exciting first day. On the second day the groups helped to construct a fantastical sand castle walled town complete with dwelling houses, trees and even a vegetable patch. It’s quite amazing what transformations those sand particles went through!

So a good time was had by all at the workshops, but what about my strange encounters? Well the first one was when I went to take a short toilet break between workshops and leaving the hubbub of the venue, in the quite corridor behind the emergency exit doors came face to face with a……dead Dalek! Dead because its operator, like myself, had taken a break. I  was snapped later with the alien when it came back to life and mingled with other life forms.

My second strange encounter was with a rubber inflatable known as a ‘Space Hopper’. The last thing I expected at the end of the satisfyingly busy day was a Space Hopper race, but this is exactly what happened as orchestrated by the event organisers for the Venue Cymru staff team. I hadn’t ridden a Hopper since childhood, but like riding a bike, the technique never leaves you. Very exhilarating it was too and I’m pleased to state for the record that the Sand in Your Eye boys came first and second.

My third and most magical encounter occurred as I had a quiet moment on the morning of the second day as I looked out into the cottage garden where we were staying. Lo and behold staring back at me was a strikingly handsome Reynard fox. It held my gaze for a few seconds with a cool look of curiosity before continuing casually on its way. Magical!

 

Thanks to Lucy and all the staff that made us so welcome at The Cymru Venue. Thanks also to Watkin Jones for sponsoring the sand.  Finally a big thank you also to all the participants whose enthusiasm and energy helped to make the workshops so dynamic and the success they indeed were. There’s already talk of us returning next year to run some Ice Sculpting workshops. I look forward to yet another strange encounter ridden adventure. Watch this space!

Andy Moss

 

Two away fixtures that we particularly enjoyed during last year’s season were at the well-known North Wales seaside resort of Rhyl. The first visit was in August for a one day sand sculpture followed by a workshop on the beach the following day. The second visit in December was for a live ice carve event.

It’s strange what you remember from SIYE jobs, for although both occasions resulted in very satisfactory outcomes: on the first a much admired magnificent sandcastle and on the second a magical ice snowman , what  lingers  most in my mind are two very memorable smiles.

 

The first smile was sported on Jamie’s rain drenched and wind whipped face, on Rhyl beach, whilst waiting for the final afternoons sand sculpture workshops to begin. The morning  had been very well attended and met with much commendable enthusiasm despite the cold, but high winds and  the subsequent horizontal rain had driven everyone off the beach…except of course those of us who had to remain at their posts just in case a diehard sand castle enthusiast turned up.  The reason for Jamie’s smile? We were both indeed amused by our predicament; I personally understood the phrase soaked to the skin, from my thighs down anyway as I hadn’t brought my waterproof pants.  Contemplating how long it would be before my boots were completely full of water , I’d just quoted to Jamie the  phrase ‘It’s only work if you want to be somewhere else.’ and then looked around at the dramatic seascape and realized that despite the rain trickling into my boots, I really didn’t want to be anywhere else!  I expressed my feelings to Jamie and this is what had prompted his smile.

The second memorable smile occurred after we were wrapping up after completing the live ice carved snowman. Various people were having their pictures taken next to the sculpture which in itself is very satisfying, but the outstanding moment for me was the beaming smile sported by a little girl as her father held her up next to the snowman. Now there’s job satisfaction! Knowing that I’d played a part in creating such a wonderful moment and indeed helped to create a special memory was proof indeed of a job well done.  People often say what an amazing job we have, travelling the country and making wonderful artwork, well that smile brought home just how ‘amazing’ the job can be.

Thanks to the people of Rhyl for a great reception on both of our visits. A thank you also to Anwyl  Construction   for donating the sand and to Guto LLoyd-Davies for taking some wonderful photographs which appear on this blog. Finally a big thank you to Lisa, from the BRAND project, for managing us so well over the two events.

Andy Moss

 

The Sandinyoureye Team will be installing 9 ice sculptures and a live carve sculpture with chainsaws and all on the 15^th December around the Mirror Pool, City Park Bradford.

 

The sculptures are from a story written by us called  ‘Have you seen Santa?’ We follow the adventures of a Little White fox looking for Santa to give him an important envelope to save Christmas, on the way he encounters many animals that he has been told ‘like to eat little white foxes!’  The sculptures have been made by myself and Andy Moss in our new Sand In Your Eye Ice Studio located in Bradford that runs at a constant -12 degrees.  The sculptures have taken us 18 days to sculpt and have been funded by Bradford Council.

Each Steward will be from Sand In Your Eye and will be pleased to answer all your questions about the story and ice sculpture.

The story is a comment upon prejudice and tolerance. The Little White Fox is tolerant of all the animals he meets even though he has been told that they like to eat Little White Foxes, and it is because of this that there is hope he will fulfil his mission.  The story was written specifically with the multicultural city of Bradford in mind where I grew up as well as my travels abroad that opened up opportunities of becoming a sand and ice sculptor through meeting very different types of people.

Competition and cards

There will be free Christmas cards to collect on the day of the Snowy Owl and the Polar Bear.  There will also be a competition on our facebook page where the winner will be the person that gets their photo uploaded to our page ‘liked’ the most.  The prize will be one of the original illustrations.

Theatre Performance by Green Lane Primary School, Brass band, and Mrs Claus telling the story herself

Green Lane Primary school have been working their socks off to bring together an interpretation of the ‘Have you seen Santa?’ story.  There will be a brass band playing all our favourite festive tunes and a reading of the story by non other Mrs Claus herself.

Timings

1100 Live carving begins

12:00 Sculptures for the trail are all on display

13:00 Mrs Clause tells the Story of Have you seen Santa

14:00 Green Lane Primary perform ‘Have you seen Santa?’

“Come and look at the size of these beauties!” said Jamie beckoning me out to the van. With a beaming smile on his face, he threw open the van doors proudly and revealed his unusual cargo from Keelham Farm. Over the years our trusty van had contained some strange objects, but what confronted my astonished eyes was certainly the most bizarre.  Languishing on a pallet in the dark interior of the van were two enormous pumpkins.  I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, the pumpkins seemed impossibly big, they just didn’t look real. The smaller of the two weighed in at an incredible 120 pounds ,which at over 8 ½ stone is a lot of pumpkin!

Once we’d manhandled our booty into our brand spanking  new studio ,based in a wonderfully characterful  old Bradford mill,  the real fun could begin. Removing the guts from our giants was like an alien autopsy and as for the smell! Finally the carving could commence and yes there was a certain pressure to do justice to the pumpkins that were making the ultimate sacrifice for our art. The grotesque faces quickly took shape and our Halloween monster heads started to come to life. We were very satisfied with our efforts and keen to light them from within. With eager anticipation we turned off the studio lights and then turned on the internal lamps. That’s the great thing about a carved pumpkin head, when lit from within it undergoes a truly magical transformation. We had given the pumpkins life!

Unfortunately the pumpkin season is all too brief running from early October to November, but If you want  to share in some Halloween magic ,next year we will be running  school, group and cooperate carving workshops catering to any skill from beginner to an  artist. We will also be only too happy to take professional pumpkin art commissions.

The monster pumpkin heads are on display in the Leeds and Bradford branches of Waterstones over the Halloween period.

Happy Halloween!

Andy Moss

In April the Sand In Your Eye team went down to an emerging RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) Reed Bed Reserve at Langford Lowfields in Newark to build an artificial sand bank for a colony of Sand Martins.  This is an amazing place of re-birth as the reserve is restored from a Tarmac sand and gravel extraction site where they have to tear up the earth to remove the minerals.  However, Tarmac works in partnership with the RSPB to regenerate the land and make what was a vast expanse of nothing into an unbelievable wetland Reserve.  I am fortunate enough to have seen the RSPB led by Michael Copleston and many hard working volunteers create this wonderful oasis for animals and birds that is a result of meticulous planning and engineering with a good measure of help from mother nature and the River Trent which floods the site.

Our task was to add a little magic by making potential homes for the Sand Martins (Riparia riparia) with the waste sand from the quarry that is left over after extraction.  This was no easy task on such an exposed site and with sand that was not really made for sand compaction as it has little clay.  However, after four days of construction with 130 tonnes of sand we together managed to create a sand bank nestled into a hillock with a view over the water.  It was built according to all Sand Martin specifications with a vertical face two meters high so that most predators such as stoats and weasels cannot get to them.  It is even designed to be slightly concave as the birds like to watch each other to see who is home and away, and take every opportunity to breed with their neighbours given the chance.  What more could you want?

Two weeks later and we had our first residents as pairs of these acrobatic marvels flocked to the artificial sand bank and made their nests.  I went back to the site to take a look and it is a wonderful thing to see a flock of birds all chattering and getting excited about their new homes that I and my colleagues helped to build.  This was rather poignant for me as I was often greeted by these little birds when I first learned to make sand sculptures in Portugal.

It’s autumn now and I visited last week to see how the bank was and it now looks absolutely amazing.  There was in the end 150 nests in our 6 meter bank and it has now been sculpted by mother nature and adorned with wild grasses and plants.  We excavated one nest and found that the birds make a narrow tunnel with a slight incline that is about 30 to 80cm deep with a small oval chamber at the back in which the birds make their nests with grasses and then rear their young. Michael also showed me the Sand Martin fleas, there are three types, two of which are endemic to the Sand Martin.  For this reason the birds prefer to excavate fresh nests each year which is why we designed the bank so that it can be cut back by the volunteers so a new face is exposed for next spring.

The project has been heralded by RSPB ecologists as one of the best Artificial Sand Martin Banks in existence and there are now plans to extend the bank next year so that even more Sand Martins can enjoy new holiday homes for the breeding season.  We also have designs to make a sculpture that the birds will live in.  I must offer many thanks to The SITA Trust for funding the project, Mark and Paul Afford for their engineering expertise and ‘soft digger touch’, Andy Moss and James Haigh from the Sandinyoureye team and the vision of Michael Copleston for having the confidence to make this happen.

May many more Sand Martins enjoy their new homes year after year.

Jamie

On Friday we went down to Filey beach in Yorkshire to do some filming for a new Children’s BBC (CBBC) program called ‘Totally Rubbish’ which is all about recycled art.  And sand drawing is of course the ultimate in recycling as we recycle our canvas every time the tide comes back in to wipe our work away.

The presenters of the show are Nigel Clarke and Michelle Akerley and they were to help us make some of the drawing.  What they didn’t know was that the picture was a portrait of them.  This is possible with sand drawings as the pictures are so big and distorted by anamorphosis that when you are on the ground it is difficult to tell what it is (anamorphosis is the perspective illusion that allows images to be viewed from an oblique angle).

Because this was TV our budget was practically enough to buy a single cappuccino and so the high life of hotels and belly dancers in fancy restaurants was a thing of the past.  Our early start of 7am meant that we had to stay over so I opted to condemn us to a night of camping on an exposed hill that must be the windiest place in the whole of Yorkshire.  Myself and Tom Bolland battled against the gales to erect a giant family tent that did not want to go up and unnerved us with the sound of snapping poles breaking in the wind.  In the end we were victorious even though it was leaning precariously to one side.

Afterwards Tom and I sat high on the cliff watching the full moon pass over the night sky whilst it reflected in the wind blown sea of Filey Bay.  The rest of the crew eventually turned up stumbling in the dark to find us, I kindly shined my torch so that they could see where we were and not walk off the cliff face into the precipice below; what a shame that would have been.  The A-Team was comprised of Jo Billingsley, Yadgar Ali, old faithful Andy Moss, Tom Bolland and myself Jamie Wardley.  The Sandinyoureye team was now complete and ready to go.

Unfortunately the north-westerly wind had something to say about this.  As we all settled for sleeping we realised that we were a little unprepared for a cold night in a tent on an exposed hill and we all opted for getting into our sleeping bags fully clothed.  Yadgar who is originally from the warmer climate of Iraq said “I have never slept in my socks before”.  I am happy to testify that Sand In Your Eye is dedicated to giving people new experiences.  I think for some only getting an hour sleep because the tent sounded like it was going to lift off at any moment in the gale was another.

By 6am the next morning we were bright eyed and bushy tailed after a bowl of muesli and a croissant.  The wind had abated and we were greeted by the warmth of a glowing sun and a calm day.

We hit the beach by 7am and promptly met our co-conspirators from the CBBC production company that call themselves Dot to Dot.  I met with the director Marcus Harben who is a lovely chap with red hair and a mild completion like myself.  We had already had many chats over the phone about the complexities of sand drawing and how the beach has it’s little quirks that likes to keep us all on our toes.  There are so many variables that mean that drawing in the sand should be impossible and that’s why we like it.  With Marcus was Matt the camera man, a soundman with big arms to hold the boom, and Andy who was very nice but I’m not sure what his job was.  There were also the presenters Michelle and Nigel and our Sand In Your Eye favourite Dan because he supplied us all with coffees even though he did get the order totally wrong.

For an hour we in the Sand In Your Eye team scuttled about the beach setting up, this was after I had to carry the whole crew  on my back over a pool of water at the bottom of the steps because I was the only one who had brought wellingtons.  Once we were ready to draw, Marcus’s master plan for the shoot began to unravel.  I have to say that I was very impressed by his team’s relaxed and professional demeanour even under the pressure of the incoming tide.  The presenters Michelle and Nigel are fantastic to work with as they are just as natural and chipper off camera as they are on it.  I was to play a bigger part in the show than I anticipated and their banter and sheer enjoyment of their job made my role much easier to handle.  We were pretty much three kids playing around on the beach with rakes.  Marcus played the part of the School Master asking us to settle before each shot as we were a little giddy.  Nigel and Michelle are also very talented.  Nigel’s raking action is simply style, the lad dances across the sand making dramatic strokes and he even points his little finger whilst he’s doing it.  This was reflected by Michelle’s dry Lancastrian humour and down to earth ‘let’s get on with it’ attitude.  These two make a great double act and I think their show ‘Totally Rubbish’ will be very successful.

All day Michelle and Nigel stayed on the beach, filming and helping us out here and there with a bit of drawing and raking.  I was with them much of the time but the rest of my team didn’t miss me.  They were very comfortable doing the drawing by themselves and I could hear them giggling away in the background at my attempt at Hollywood. As the hours waned Marcus’s fare skin gradually turned the colour of a Lobster and as the sea began to come back in Nigel shouted “The tide’s coming in guys, you’d better hurry up!”

To their credit Nigel and Michelle never looked at the drawing or tried to guess what it was until I finally gave them permission to walk up the stairs and have a look.  If you see the show in January you will see that they were totally amazed to see a characterture of themselves drawn in the sand driving a Cadillac, and then a few moments later to see it been washed away by the sea.  But then that is recycling for you, no paper wasted here!

Jamie

 

 

It wasn’t  even  9.00am on a Saturday morning, but myself and Sam had already been up for over 3 hours and having  already completed  two significantly large sand drawings  were now part way through a third. Now, normally when a sand drawing is made the last thing you want is someone walking on it, however on this occasion I was waiting with eager anticipation for a large group of people not to just walk on the drawings, but to start dancing on them as well!  My ears strained to hear the sound of the film crews helicopter that would signal the invasion of the drawings by a dozen dancers and the films two stars. Time and tide wait for no one and the tide had long since turned!

It was less than a week ago that I’d received a call from a ‘Bollywood’ film production Company inquiring whether we could produce some Sand Drawings, for dancers  and actors to perform on for a song sequencer in an upcoming Tamil action feature film. The exact designs as well as their size and number were yet to be determined. We had virtually no planning time and the weather forecast was pretty appalling, surely this was Mission Impossible? Of course not we were Sand In Your Eye!  So here we were on an overcast beach near Margate meeting the challenge, but would the weather hold and the chopper manage get here on time before the sea erased all our creative endeavours leaving the dancers with nothing else to do but paddle?

I was the first to hear the distant throbbing sound that signalled the long awaited approach of the helicopter. My profound sense of relief was replaced by wonder and awe as perfectly on cue, the dull overcast morning was magically transformed by the sun appearing from behind the clouds. The magnificent white cliffs glowed with an ethereal pink hue and glorious shadows were cast by the dancers across the golden sand as they assembled on the sand drawings. Then all hell broke loose. It was like a scene from ‘Apocalypse Now’ as the dancers went through their routines on the sand drawings and the chopper circled overhead to get the vital shots in the can.

 

For the moment our work was done and as the helicopter continued to make hair-raisingly low level sweeps I had a moment of reflection. The sense of satisfaction and achievement when a collaborative project like this comes together is hard to put into words.  People talk about living in the ‘Now’, well  all I can say is that I had a profound sense of been totally immersed in an extraordinary adventure, a real heightened sense of been alive. I’ve had some incredible experiences working with Sand In Your Eye and this was certainly one of the best.  It was a very special moment.

The smile on Director Vijays face when he had landed told me all I needed to know as to the quality of the footage he had obtained. ‘Thank you so much Andy. You are the ‘Sand Boss!’ he said as he pumped my hand and his smile got even wider as he showed me  the footage on the film camera’s LCD.  It was a hairs standing up on the back of your neck moment. The aerial shots were absolutely amazing. As with all truly successful creative collaborative ventures the resulting whole was so much more than the individual parts.  The sand drawings looked amazing, but the addition of a  group of  choreographed dancers had  lifted  them onto a completely different level. The long early morning  dancing shadows  that  intrinsically  linked the dancing figures so powerfully  to the sand drawings  were simply the icing on the cake!  I started to speculate what the  final result cut together with music would  look like on the big screen and things only got better as Vijay invited me to a possible U.K. premier of the film in London. The red carpet awaits!

‘Thaandavam’  directed by A.L. Vijay and starring Anushka Shetty and Chiyaan Vikran is due for release later on this year.  It will be the first feature film to showcase sand drawing, so once again Sand In Your Eye are at the cutting edge of Sand Art Innovation!

Thanks to location manager Nav and of course to the film’s Director Vijay who made the project such a truly wonderful collaborative experience. A thank you also to Mother Nature  for totally disregarding my Met Office App and blessing us with the presence of the sun at just the right moments, to create some truly magical lighting effects.  Finally many thanks to Sam ‘The Man’ Dougados, my fellow sand artist, certainly the right man to have at your side when time and tide are against you.

 

 

Andy Moss

 

I arrived in Billund in Denmark to be greeted by Karsten that helps organise the Danish Sand sculpture event in Søndervig, a place that has miles of beaches stretching to the horizon and wonderful sand dunes with quaint houses nestled within the hillocks.  This event has globally one of the best reputations in the sand sculpture community by sand sculptors, the organisers are a family who treat all the carvers to great hospitality, as well as generous creative freedom on the sculptures we make and wonderful food made by Mado the Chef which included a whole sheep. The Founder of the event is Karsten’s grandfather Erik Frederiksen, he is an 85 year old dynamo who is full of energy, in fact I do not believe he is 85 years old at all even though we all sang happy birthday to him and it was announced that he is 85, it is obviously an elaborate lie and he is only 42!

Whist in the car to the site Kartsen relayed to me the list of people that would be at the event and there is always a bunch of people on these international platforms that I haven’t seen in some time, namely Helena Bangert and Kimmo Frosti.  Kimmo once said to me “I don’t want to wait until the evening to start living!” and that is why he started making sand and ice sculptures for his job.  There was even Jeroen Meijer and Jan Selen that were considered the great sand carvers in the community when I first started 9 years ago.  Now they work in other professions but take a holiday to carve here each year because it is such a great event.

Karsten fired my imagination by telling me about the wall of sand.  This he described as a compacted wall that was 7 meters high and 165 meters wide.  This is a phenomenal amount and I could really only believe it when I finally saw it looming on the horizon as we drove closer, a monster compaction of sand hiding in a giant wooden box that resembles a colossal Roman amphitheater.  This is the single largest compacted piece of sand that I have ever seen, and that my colleagues have seen for that matter.  Our Sandinyoureye team compacted 120 tonnes of sand a few months ago with great effort, this is something like 6,000 tonnes of sand compacted in 10 days. Unbelievable.  But then we still had to carve it.

On the Monday thirty or so sand carvers from across the globe set about the sand pile.  I say set about in the loosest sense.  We spent most of the day talking about the overall concept which was ‘wonders of the world’ and designing.  The wall was neatly divided into 6 individual teams of 3-5 people who would make a scene each.  Our team was the last on the pile and I was the last person on the pile finally turning up 8 minutes before the finish of the day because I had been preparing our design.  The new boy knows how to make a good first impression!

Our reluctance to be hasty seemed to pay off from the moment go.  It is nice working alone as you have total control over what you make.  However when working in a team other peoples strengths are often your own weaknesses, if individuals are able to work at what they excel in then you have the potential to make something wonderful.  However, if this is not the case and individuals are not able to do what they are good at and there is no clear plan for everyone to move towards then this can lead to de-motivation and in cases under-performance.

I have to say that I was fortunate to have a good team.  My strengths are mapping and I am OK with perspective.  Kuba Libre from Czech is one of the best finishers in the world and has a fantastic natural flare for composition and flowing lines.  Helena Bangert from Holland simply is style and was able to make these fantastic letters that I would never have the patience for. Jeroen Van de Vlag also from Holland is an expert in architecture with Kevin Crawford from America who was a mediator during pressing times! He was also star of the Kevin Crawford Show as journalist after journalist came to him for interviews.

Our chosen ‘wonder’ was the Tower of Babel.  Kevin had the original concept of a modern twist with the tower being made out of ancient and modern buildings, Kuba brought in the God figure and I made it fit in a nice perspective which we spent some considerable time re-adjusting, playing with strings and shouting a lots of instructions as well as mapping out the piece so that the 17m sculpture resembled the A4 sketch that we scribbled on the first day.  On the whole I think we were very pleased as it seemed to go quite smoothly with the odd fall out here and there, but these artists you know are very passionate and have fiery hearts.   Go Team Babylon!

Jamie

If there was one thing I never expected from Weston Super Mare it was sunshine.  However, I was lucky enough to carve at the Weston Sand Sculpture Festival organised by Nicola and Alec of Global Pow Wow.  I was put on the top of a sand pile so that everyday I had a view over the beach and Bristol channel during one of the warmest months of May that I remember.  I was so distracted in fact that my David Beckham footballer ended up looking nothing like him which wasn’t such a bad thing.

Despite this, the sculpture event is a great place to visit if you are in the area and will be open the whole summer!

One other bonus of carving in the UK was that I also got to see lots of friends that live in the area and to swim in our rather muddy sea.  Nice!  Below is a little sculpture by Johannes that I rather liked; its Bert that does it for me.

Jamie