Creative Grit : Craftsmen in Sand Turn Play Into Art

Gerry Kirk reached into a box and pulled out a plastic bag filled fat with a white, powdery substance. It wasn’t one of those little sandwich Baggies, but a bigger, sturdier, beef stew-leftovers kind of bag. Kirk dropped it on his desk with a thud.

“Look at this stuff,” he said, grinning. “I just got four bags of this stuff from Florida.”

Kirk reached into the bag for a pinch. He scrutinized his white-tipped fingers and sighed.

“That’s great stuff right there.”

And it had a street value of about 3 cents.

A Matter of Design

It was sand, plain old sand. But then, Gerry Kirk is into sand. He piles it high, wets it down and packs it solid--sometimes with the help of tractors, water pumps, pneumatic hammers and a work force of dozens. Then he carves intricate, fragile designs--human and animal forms, fanciful castles and cityscapes, an occasional Christmas tree and, once, a full-scale Chrysler Le Baron.

Kirk, 46, owner of a Solana Beach construction firm, is a professional sand sculptor--a pioneer, some say, who is helping to transform what is usually thought of as child’s play into serious art.

Or, at least, semi-serious art. While it seems that no museum or university has embraced the genre, Kirk and other sculptors believe that this is the dawn of the golden age of sand sculpture.

The best sculptors, they say, are “stretching” the medium in new and creative ways--and making money in the process. Sand castle contests, some with cash prizes, have proliferated in recent years, attracting thousands of competitors.

And sand castles themselves are getting bigger. Last summer, Kirk coordinated the construction of a 29 1/2-foot-high, 2,100-ton “Camelot” on San Diego’s Pacific Beach, believed to be a world record.

Exposed to Risk

Of course, as Kirk says, “it is a highly transitory art form.” The creations are usually left to the elements: the tide, the wind, the errant Frisbee. Even the palaces that require several days to build can be quickly reduced to rubble by a child imitating Godzilla. A sand castle that took hours to carve was obliterated in a split second by a speeding truck for a chase scene in the film “Police Academy II.”

Transitory, but profitable. Kirk and his partner, architect Todd Vander Pluym, owners of Sand Sculptors International, got paid their daily standard fee--$400 per man, plus expenses--for the “Police Academy II” job.

Some sculptors can demand such fees because their work is gaining popularity as a tool for promotion and advertising. For example, Kirk and Vander Pluym have sculpted a striking, 12-foot-tall rendering of the Chicago skyline for W. R. Grace & Co., a montage of San Diego images for the city’s tourism bureau, and the Le Baron for Chrysler Corp.

There are a few other professionals, but most, like Kirk and Vander Pluym, approach it only as a part-time endeavor. Perhaps the only full-time sand sculptor is Kali Bradford of Carlsbad. In addition to her commercial work, Bradford teaches the craft 20 hours a week at an elementary school and a private high school on a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

All in the Family

Joe (Sandman) Maize of Honolulu works with the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, decorating cakes and sculpting sand (but not simultaneously). He is known for his series on “The New Wave Family”--father Harry, with his tall flat-top; mother Mabel, with her beehive; Junior, with his Mohawk; and Cosmo the cat. The sand-sculpted family sometimes watches a sand-sculpted TV through their sand-sculpted sunglasses.

Michael di Tersio of Bradley Beach, N.J., is a master sand castler and author of a “how-to” book on the subject. The Newport Beach trio of Kent Trollen, Jeff Poland and David George, architects all, usually work with Sand Sculptors International, but have branched out for a few jobs on their own.

Perhaps one sign that sand castle building is a serious matter these days is the fact that personality clashes and the profit motive have turned a number of sand sculptors who were once friends into enemies.

Norman Kraus of Encinitas, for example, does not win many popularity contests. Known for his precision scale replicas of such architectural icons as the Notre Dame and Chartres cathedrals, Kraus, 47, is touted by some, most notably himself, to be the “sire of the sand sculpture movement.” But critics say Kraus’ claims exceed his accomplishments.

Seeds of Revolution

From the mid-1970s to the early ‘80s, Kraus became known as a leader in sand sculptures by coordinating, on successive Labor Days, re-creations of such wonders as Mont Saint Michel, Heidelberg Castle and Angkor Wat on the beaches of north San Diego County. But revolution was in the air.

The rift, as Kirk remembers it, started “between Windsor and Heidelberg,” or between 1977 and 1978. Critics say Kraus was a tyrant who hogged press attention, giving short shrift to the 40 other sculptors who worked on the projects.

Many people now refuse to work with Kraus. In turn, Kraus is critical of his critics. For one thing, Kraus says he won’t sculpt corporate logos--and those who do so are “bastardizing” the medium, he complains.

And yet, for all the rancor, these grown-ups say they still build sand castles primarily for the same reason that kids do--the pure fun of it. “It just tickles something inside,” Kraus said.

Time of Festiveness

For many sand sculptors, the good-times essence of the endeavor is captured in the major sand castle events, which take on a festival atmosphere.

The U.S. Open in Imperial Beach, Calif., founded in 1981, consistently draws 40 to 60 teams of 10 sculptors each, and its attendance has grown steadily from 45,000 to 75,000 spectators. The Canadian Open in White Rock, British Columbia, south of Vancouver, was founded in 1979 and is now considered the “world championships.” Last year, it attracted more than 100 teams and a crowd of 150,000 to White Rock, a town of 14,000.

For many, the highlight of the 1984 White Rock competition was the luau staged by Joe Maize. After finishing second with the sculpture “A Bad Day at the 613 BC Olympics” (it seems a volcano had erupted), Maize’s toga-clad team marched up and down the beach waving Hawaiian and Canadian flags.

“It was great,” the 31-year-old Maize recalled in a telephone interview. “We had slave girls putting grapes in our mouths, and everyone was singing ‘Louie, Louie.’ We won for best party, you know.”

But sand castlers can be more philosophical.

In his 1981 book, “Sandcastles,” Joe Allen likened sand sculptors to ballerinas and French chefs. “Each is engaged in creating a moment of triumph, a moment of splendor and personal achievement. The fact that the moment must end is of little importance--except that it makes the moment sweeter . . . sand castles are gauntlets flung in the face of reality, bold declarations that enchantment is its own reward.”

Adds Jeff Poland: “It’s a great way to meet women.”

But is it art?

“I really believe sand sculpture was man’s first art form,” Vander Pluym declared as he strode across the sand of Seal Beach on a recent Sunday. “Think about it: The first man saw his footsteps in the sand. . . . Caveman drew circles in it, played with it, lay down on it. . . . They wouldn’t have called it art, but that’s what they were doing.”

Still, today’s sand sculptors think of it as “an emerging art form,” saying its potential is only now being explored. They see it as a blend of sculpture and performance that is enhanced by the ephemeral, ecological nature of the medium and the opportunities for large, cooperative projects.

Vander Pluym talked about his plans to sculpt geometric shapes in the desert and film their gradual demise. He also talked of using anti-erosion agents to preserve some sand sculptures for posterity, such as the 12-foot-tall replica of Michelangelo’s Bruges Madonna he carved in 1983 for Santa Monica’s “Save the Pier” campaign.

Sand has been used to make political statements: In one competition, Kali Bradford produced a work titled “Hunger,” juxtaposing the image of emaciated human beings against that of a nuclear warhead.

Vander Pluym walked back to the work in progress. On this day, Sand Sculptors International was building a 9 1/2-foot fantasy palace, not for posterity but for a Japanese television show. “It’s their equivalent to ‘That’s Incredible!’ ” Kirk explained.

Constructing a sand castle of such height requires a combination of nitty-gritty toil and technical savvy. The filigree comes later.

Attention to Density

Seal Beach has “heroic sand,” the sculptors say, meaning it can be packed densely to form tall, sheer walls. For sand to have such courage, the grains must be fine and faceted, not round, enhancing their ability to “lock” under pressure.

“Is it easier to stack a pile of rocks or bowling balls?” Kirk said in rhetorical explanation. A little sediment, perhaps some clay, can help in the binding process. Tidal worms and sand crabs can create fault lines.

The appropriate mix of sand and water is necessary for good compaction: Water acts as a lubricant for the grains in the settling process and supplants air in the sand pile.

A cubic foot of tightly compressed sand weighs about 123 pounds. “I weighed it myself,” Kirk said. “When you think about it, what you have is an almost solid block of stone.”

So four members of Sand Sculptors International spent six hours on a Friday shoveling the heroic Seal Beach sand into plywood forms and wetting it down. Then they pounded it with an automobile axle. When one large form was full and hard, they set another, smaller form on top; and so on, until they had an 8-foot tall, 24-ton stepped pyramid of compacted sand.

Drawing a Crowd

The next Sunday, the sculptors climbed the pyramid and used a plastic bucket with its bottom cut out to cast a cylinder of sand on top. Then they carved spires, an arch, a curving stairway; moving downward, they released the top plywood form and carved doorways, windows, balconies, and crenelations, and so on, for eight meticulous hours. Into one wall Kirk etched the TV show’s logo in Japanese script.

Despite a cold wind, perhaps 250 people, young and old alike, walked up during the course of the day to watch the group of men, all in their 30s and 40s, build a sand castle. Two boys started their own castle a short distance away, and a toddler dug her fingers in the sand.

The record set last year with the 29 1/2-foot Camelot castle does not figure to last long. In late April, Kirk and company will lead a group of Treasure Island, Fla., residents in an attempt at a 31-foot castle.

The contract between Treasure Island Chamber of Commerce and Sand Sculptors International requires that a world record be achieved. The boosters see the palace as a focal point of a community celebration, a chance for worldwide publicity and perhaps a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records. On the final day of festivities, the Florida Symphony will perform at the foot of the castle.

“I have a great love for this kind of project,” Kirk said. “It’s all about making friends, eating hamburgers, drinking beer and just having a good time.” It’s also about making a personal profit of about $1,600, plus expenses.

That is why there was a plastic bag of Treasure Island sand on his desk. Kirk, who has a collection of sand from all over the world, says it ranks as one of the best.

“Great stuff,” Kirk declared.