04F-13, "Frodo Lives!" (October 31)
The story of this sculpture follows the images.
Modest Proposal, Immodest Results
"Are you Steve?"
I look up from where I'm seated on the cooling sand. The sun, attenuated burning orange, is about half an hour from slipping down beyond the western ocean. A rising north wind blows my hair into my face as I turn to face her.
She's dressed all in black, and looks frazzled. Long blond hair blowing into her face. I can sympathize with that. I know she's looking for me even if she doesn't have the right name. "I'm Larry."
"Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. I've been looking for you all over the beach. I've asked everyone 'Where's the guy who does the sand sculpture?' They pointed me here and there."
"I was afraid of that. I discussed the location with Ryan yesterday, but never was sure he quite got it. But you're here, and there's still daylight."
"Here's the ring. Guard it with your life."
I don't tell her that to me, one of my sand sculpture tools is worth ten of these little baubles. I simply remove it from the box and place it on the sculpture, in the spot I made for it. The sculpture was designed for this.
Build number: 04F-13 (lifetime start #295); monolith on tall riser
Title: "Frodo Lives!" (or "A Modest Proposal")
Date: October 31
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side cusp (due to seaweed incursion)
Start: 0800, construction time 8 hours (approx)
Size: 41" tall, 21" diameter (Latchform), immersion screened native sand
Helpers: none
Digital Images: 29, with Canon Powershot G2
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: Rich, w/Canon Z115, completion
Video motion: none
Video still: none
Video volunteer: none
New Equipment: none
Comments: Commissioned by Ryan Rees for engagement ring presentation
1. A Gift of Time
A few times each year I am contacted by someone who wants to hire me to make a sand sculpture for them. For a party, for a TV show, for other purposes. I give them my Web site URL and tell them to go take a look. If I hear anything after that it's usually "I was looking for something a little more traditional." I think "Fine," and give them Larry Safady's phone number. The system works well. Larry gets business, I get left alone to pursue my ideas.
Some time back a man asked if I could make a sculpture of him kneeling before his wife-to-be, proposing to her. I gave him Larry's phone number. I wouldn't have touched this one even if I could have done it. A while later another man asked if I'd make a sculpture to hold his engagement ring, as a surprise for his intended to discover as they walked along the beach. I directed him to my Web site for examples, never heard anything more, and forgot about it.
In early October he came back. Not only that, but he liked what he saw, and liked it even after I quoted my usual day rate for commercial sculpture. This is required because commercial work is a compromise. Instead of it being the best I can possibly make, the major criterion for success is that it still stands at the end of the day.
Commercial work is also produced on a schedule. A stated day, complete by a stated time. The stated day may or may not have good sand available, but no excuses are allowed. "Sorry, I couldn't make your sculpture because the sand was mediocre." In the meantime the production crew is standing around. No, I can't do that. It's run what you brung and do your best.
I did this first for MTV and the experience engendered a technological revolution: the real birth of the coarse sand sculpture. I'm an idealist and have taken flak for this. I just won't work with bad sand but as various people have learned, I can be bribed. Usually it just takes lunch, but offer me enough money and I'll give lousy sand a whirl. By the time MTV came along in the fall of 2002 I'd gained enough experience to learn that microsculpture is quite strong because it spreads the stresses over many small elements, and that spreading makes them more stable than one big, thin part. I did a lot of microsculpture in the MTV piece. It held together, and it was very nice looking. It showed the way.
Since then I've made technical changes that allow me to work consistently with coarse sand and other problems. New sand screens, and a screen for water, enable me to handle all kinds of junk in the sand. The result is that I can do a sculpture just about any time I need to, at least on Venice Beach. Ryan's job had a problem, though: he wanted it on another beach. I asked him for samples or other information and didn't hear back until three days before the sculpture was due.
The news, this time, was good. "We'll do it on Venice," Ryan told me. I liked that. Simple.
Simple was about all I could handle. I had serious doubts about the direction of my life; what's the point in following Jesus when everything that makes me an individual disappears? Physical death or psychologic. I'd prefer the former. Now, however, there's a sculpture to get off. Concentrate on that.
2. A Gift of Light
The morning is cool and calm. Low-angle sun brings tears to my eyes as I coast down the hill southward.
Drifts of seaweed two feet deep surround my usual working place out on the isthmus behind the Breakwater. More is floating in the ocean. Yes, I have the new Waterscreen, but it looks more like stew out there than water. Salad surfing. Impossible. I choose a site farther south, balancing cleanliness with potential crowding. As I unload the trailer, a familiar man runs past.
"Another gift," he says. "Thank you!"
"You're welcome."
The beach rake has obliterated the high-tide marks so I have to guess. I add a few inches to the sculpture's sokkel for some insurance. The other disappointment is the retreat of the good sand; it's under the rising tide so this sculpture will be entirely native sand. I skim off the best of it from the top of the beach, and add it in thin layers that promote good packing.
By 1000 I'm ready to carve. Now the pressure is on. Beauty, done on time and still erect when the client shows up. Is this even possible?
The idea is for a ring-bearer. Build a place for a ring to catch light. Under it put a sculpture that will be attractive in its own right. I decide, after much thought over the preceding days, to carve a smooth valley in the sculpture's top. That's for the ring. Then the top will continue over and down the east side. Support it with, well, something. Internal ribs? Microsculpture panels? Various ideas suggest themselves as I carve, but I resist and work at looking at the whole piece. This thing needs to go beyond.
It's pretty well along when Larry shows up, wearing his political stance all over his shirt. This is over the top, even for him. Fortunately Rich shows up soon after he starts to get warmed up and the two of them go at it hammer and tongs. Larry thinks conservatives are always right, Rich thinks some conservatives and some liberals are right, and I think they're all crooks or they wouldn't have made it into the system. If they aren't crooks before, they will be made so by the inherent corruption.
My challenge is simple: balance the needs of the sculpture with the available daylight. Commercial work has to be finished to a good standard so I can't scant the clean-up. I work steadily, taking time out for snacks now and then.
People come and go. One family sets up nearby, watches for a time while their daughter plays in the sand, and then they leave. Over the little embayment north of the isthmus pelicans are fishing, attended by gulls that try to steal the fish. Surfers float around, waiting, and the usual flock of sailboats is out on the water that sparkles under the glorious sun. At least now it smells like seawater instead of street runoff. Of course, the runoff is still there, only being diluted, and the rest of us are deluded if we think the problem is solved. One man who has been watching from a distance walks over to ask about the process. We talk for a time and then he walks away, a newcomer to Los Angeles thinking it's the Promised Land compared to British Columbia. Dream on. People are people.
"That's about it. It's 1500 and I need to finish." I do the initial clean-up, taking out the major problems, and then start the finishing. Quality control. I work around the sculpture from top to bottom, polishing out the ridges and removing the surface sand so that the horizons show. Finally, at about 1600, an hour before sunset, the job is finished. It's still standing. The man from Sweden who has been watching for a time, and asking questions, videotapes me as I sign the sculpture, with Larry's narration.
3. A Gift of Feeling
The contract is complete, but where's the client? There are few people on the beach.
"This is surprising. It's a beautiful day. Where is everyone," I ask Rich.
"Traditionalists. Beach is for summer."
"And maybe they're all at home preparing for Halloween parties."
"I hadn't thought about that." The seriousness with which L. A. people pursue Halloween, which when I was a kid was just children walking around gathering candy, still surprises me and it gets more serious every year. "Fine with me."
The sculpture stands alone on its patch of golden sand under the late sun. I shoot a round of photos and then sit down to wait as the light turns reddish. The sculpture glows.
"You've pulled this one together very well."
"Thanks, Rich. Yah, something has happened this year. No longer a collection of good parts as they were a few years ago." He has been here for most of them so knows the transitions first-hand.
"Yes. This one holds together especially well."
I hope it continues to do so. It looks as if it's about to explode. I made it heavy, the sections thick, to compensate for the coarse sand but there are still some areas whose support is a little sketchy. Well, it just has to hold up until sunset. Either the client will be here, or he won't. No matter what, it has been a good day. A demonstration of effective technology, and a good sculpture.
Then Ryan's future mother-in-law shows up with the ring. After placing it on the sculpture I use her cell phone to call Ryan and tell him that everything is ready. Louise walks away so as not to give away the surprise. I shoot a last few photos in the wonderful red light, the ring a bright silver spark contrasting with the warm sand.
I see a couple approaching. The woman has long blonde hair, as her mother said. The man gives me an unobtrusive wave and I turn back to packing equipment. As they walk up to the sculpture from the southeast I say "Hi," and tell them I just finished it. The ring is in the valley on the west side, invisible from where they are. I walk away, but cast glances back over my shoulder. I miss the moment itself, but one time when I turn around she has her face against Ryan's shoulder, and is crying. The ring is gone from its saddle. I guess it worked.
4. A Gift of Life
It's rather odd that a man who believes love is an illusion has been such an integral part of other people's expression of it. Three dating shows, a wedding sculpture, sculptures that have inspired discussions of love, and now an engagement sculpture.
Ryan comes over after a few minutes to hand me my fee, along with a quiet thanks. He seems pleased with my work. His fiancee, just before Rich and I leave, also says "Thank you." Just as I said to him: guaranteed unique. There'll never be a day like this one.
Rich and I pull the trailer back to my bike. The sun has disappeared. No green flash, just one last spark of red. Little sparks of white echo the sun as Ryan photographs his bride-to-be with his sculpture, which I see on my second trip to retrieve the roll-up table that fell off the trailer. The strengthening north wind keeps the hair out of my weary face as I ride slowly north.
At home I scrounge enough food to pass for dinner. The accumulated stress of the day keeps me from completely relaxing but at least the pressure is off.
It worked. I sit at my desk in a post-sculptural fog and realize that, even with my intransigent demand for running life my way God didn't abandon me. He was with me there, quietly, on the beach. Maybe this whole thing will work, for the rest of my life.
Idea and ability came together. Perhaps both come from God, along with the talent and the interest, but there's still only one person on the planet who could have done this. I don't understand it at all, but then examples from Jesus' life come to mind. I'm afraid of being turned into a squishy mess as God transforms my stone heart into flesh. I'm used to being stone, unaffected by what goes on around me but those days are over. My skin is very thin. Somehow Jesus handled all of this, being strong and tender by turns, when needed. That's the goal, not the extremes nor the stereotypes that are presented in our culture. Just as impossible, this goal at least seems worthwhile.
2004 November 1
Edited and reformatted for the Web 2005 June 22
Clicking on the images will present larger versions.
Modest Proposal, Immodest Results
"Are you Steve?"
I look up from where I'm seated on the cooling sand. The sun, attenuated burning orange, is about half an hour from slipping down beyond the western ocean. A rising north wind blows my hair into my face as I turn to face her.
She's dressed all in black, and looks frazzled. Long blond hair blowing into her face. I can sympathize with that. I know she's looking for me even if she doesn't have the right name. "I'm Larry."
"Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. I've been looking for you all over the beach. I've asked everyone 'Where's the guy who does the sand sculpture?' They pointed me here and there."
"I was afraid of that. I discussed the location with Ryan yesterday, but never was sure he quite got it. But you're here, and there's still daylight."
"Here's the ring. Guard it with your life."
I don't tell her that to me, one of my sand sculpture tools is worth ten of these little baubles. I simply remove it from the box and place it on the sculpture, in the spot I made for it. The sculpture was designed for this.
Build number: 04F-13 (lifetime start #295); monolith on tall riser
Title: "Frodo Lives!" (or "A Modest Proposal")
Date: October 31
Location: Venice Breakwater, south side cusp (due to seaweed incursion)
Start: 0800, construction time 8 hours (approx)
Size: 41" tall, 21" diameter (Latchform), immersion screened native sand
Helpers: none
Digital Images: 29, with Canon Powershot G2
Photo 35mm: none
Photo 6X7: none
Photo volunteer: Rich, w/Canon Z115, completion
Video motion: none
Video still: none
Video volunteer: none
New Equipment: none
Comments: Commissioned by Ryan Rees for engagement ring presentation
1. A Gift of Time
A few times each year I am contacted by someone who wants to hire me to make a sand sculpture for them. For a party, for a TV show, for other purposes. I give them my Web site URL and tell them to go take a look. If I hear anything after that it's usually "I was looking for something a little more traditional." I think "Fine," and give them Larry Safady's phone number. The system works well. Larry gets business, I get left alone to pursue my ideas.
Some time back a man asked if I could make a sculpture of him kneeling before his wife-to-be, proposing to her. I gave him Larry's phone number. I wouldn't have touched this one even if I could have done it. A while later another man asked if I'd make a sculpture to hold his engagement ring, as a surprise for his intended to discover as they walked along the beach. I directed him to my Web site for examples, never heard anything more, and forgot about it.
In early October he came back. Not only that, but he liked what he saw, and liked it even after I quoted my usual day rate for commercial sculpture. This is required because commercial work is a compromise. Instead of it being the best I can possibly make, the major criterion for success is that it still stands at the end of the day.
Commercial work is also produced on a schedule. A stated day, complete by a stated time. The stated day may or may not have good sand available, but no excuses are allowed. "Sorry, I couldn't make your sculpture because the sand was mediocre." In the meantime the production crew is standing around. No, I can't do that. It's run what you brung and do your best.
I did this first for MTV and the experience engendered a technological revolution: the real birth of the coarse sand sculpture. I'm an idealist and have taken flak for this. I just won't work with bad sand but as various people have learned, I can be bribed. Usually it just takes lunch, but offer me enough money and I'll give lousy sand a whirl. By the time MTV came along in the fall of 2002 I'd gained enough experience to learn that microsculpture is quite strong because it spreads the stresses over many small elements, and that spreading makes them more stable than one big, thin part. I did a lot of microsculpture in the MTV piece. It held together, and it was very nice looking. It showed the way.
Since then I've made technical changes that allow me to work consistently with coarse sand and other problems. New sand screens, and a screen for water, enable me to handle all kinds of junk in the sand. The result is that I can do a sculpture just about any time I need to, at least on Venice Beach. Ryan's job had a problem, though: he wanted it on another beach. I asked him for samples or other information and didn't hear back until three days before the sculpture was due.
The news, this time, was good. "We'll do it on Venice," Ryan told me. I liked that. Simple.
Simple was about all I could handle. I had serious doubts about the direction of my life; what's the point in following Jesus when everything that makes me an individual disappears? Physical death or psychologic. I'd prefer the former. Now, however, there's a sculpture to get off. Concentrate on that.
2. A Gift of Light
The morning is cool and calm. Low-angle sun brings tears to my eyes as I coast down the hill southward.
Drifts of seaweed two feet deep surround my usual working place out on the isthmus behind the Breakwater. More is floating in the ocean. Yes, I have the new Waterscreen, but it looks more like stew out there than water. Salad surfing. Impossible. I choose a site farther south, balancing cleanliness with potential crowding. As I unload the trailer, a familiar man runs past.
"Another gift," he says. "Thank you!"
"You're welcome."
The beach rake has obliterated the high-tide marks so I have to guess. I add a few inches to the sculpture's sokkel for some insurance. The other disappointment is the retreat of the good sand; it's under the rising tide so this sculpture will be entirely native sand. I skim off the best of it from the top of the beach, and add it in thin layers that promote good packing.
By 1000 I'm ready to carve. Now the pressure is on. Beauty, done on time and still erect when the client shows up. Is this even possible?
The idea is for a ring-bearer. Build a place for a ring to catch light. Under it put a sculpture that will be attractive in its own right. I decide, after much thought over the preceding days, to carve a smooth valley in the sculpture's top. That's for the ring. Then the top will continue over and down the east side. Support it with, well, something. Internal ribs? Microsculpture panels? Various ideas suggest themselves as I carve, but I resist and work at looking at the whole piece. This thing needs to go beyond.
It's pretty well along when Larry shows up, wearing his political stance all over his shirt. This is over the top, even for him. Fortunately Rich shows up soon after he starts to get warmed up and the two of them go at it hammer and tongs. Larry thinks conservatives are always right, Rich thinks some conservatives and some liberals are right, and I think they're all crooks or they wouldn't have made it into the system. If they aren't crooks before, they will be made so by the inherent corruption.
My challenge is simple: balance the needs of the sculpture with the available daylight. Commercial work has to be finished to a good standard so I can't scant the clean-up. I work steadily, taking time out for snacks now and then.
People come and go. One family sets up nearby, watches for a time while their daughter plays in the sand, and then they leave. Over the little embayment north of the isthmus pelicans are fishing, attended by gulls that try to steal the fish. Surfers float around, waiting, and the usual flock of sailboats is out on the water that sparkles under the glorious sun. At least now it smells like seawater instead of street runoff. Of course, the runoff is still there, only being diluted, and the rest of us are deluded if we think the problem is solved. One man who has been watching from a distance walks over to ask about the process. We talk for a time and then he walks away, a newcomer to Los Angeles thinking it's the Promised Land compared to British Columbia. Dream on. People are people.
"That's about it. It's 1500 and I need to finish." I do the initial clean-up, taking out the major problems, and then start the finishing. Quality control. I work around the sculpture from top to bottom, polishing out the ridges and removing the surface sand so that the horizons show. Finally, at about 1600, an hour before sunset, the job is finished. It's still standing. The man from Sweden who has been watching for a time, and asking questions, videotapes me as I sign the sculpture, with Larry's narration.
3. A Gift of Feeling
The contract is complete, but where's the client? There are few people on the beach.
"This is surprising. It's a beautiful day. Where is everyone," I ask Rich.
"Traditionalists. Beach is for summer."
"And maybe they're all at home preparing for Halloween parties."
"I hadn't thought about that." The seriousness with which L. A. people pursue Halloween, which when I was a kid was just children walking around gathering candy, still surprises me and it gets more serious every year. "Fine with me."
The sculpture stands alone on its patch of golden sand under the late sun. I shoot a round of photos and then sit down to wait as the light turns reddish. The sculpture glows.
"You've pulled this one together very well."
"Thanks, Rich. Yah, something has happened this year. No longer a collection of good parts as they were a few years ago." He has been here for most of them so knows the transitions first-hand.
"Yes. This one holds together especially well."
I hope it continues to do so. It looks as if it's about to explode. I made it heavy, the sections thick, to compensate for the coarse sand but there are still some areas whose support is a little sketchy. Well, it just has to hold up until sunset. Either the client will be here, or he won't. No matter what, it has been a good day. A demonstration of effective technology, and a good sculpture.
Then Ryan's future mother-in-law shows up with the ring. After placing it on the sculpture I use her cell phone to call Ryan and tell him that everything is ready. Louise walks away so as not to give away the surprise. I shoot a last few photos in the wonderful red light, the ring a bright silver spark contrasting with the warm sand.
I see a couple approaching. The woman has long blonde hair, as her mother said. The man gives me an unobtrusive wave and I turn back to packing equipment. As they walk up to the sculpture from the southeast I say "Hi," and tell them I just finished it. The ring is in the valley on the west side, invisible from where they are. I walk away, but cast glances back over my shoulder. I miss the moment itself, but one time when I turn around she has her face against Ryan's shoulder, and is crying. The ring is gone from its saddle. I guess it worked.
4. A Gift of Life
It's rather odd that a man who believes love is an illusion has been such an integral part of other people's expression of it. Three dating shows, a wedding sculpture, sculptures that have inspired discussions of love, and now an engagement sculpture.
Ryan comes over after a few minutes to hand me my fee, along with a quiet thanks. He seems pleased with my work. His fiancee, just before Rich and I leave, also says "Thank you." Just as I said to him: guaranteed unique. There'll never be a day like this one.
Rich and I pull the trailer back to my bike. The sun has disappeared. No green flash, just one last spark of red. Little sparks of white echo the sun as Ryan photographs his bride-to-be with his sculpture, which I see on my second trip to retrieve the roll-up table that fell off the trailer. The strengthening north wind keeps the hair out of my weary face as I ride slowly north.
At home I scrounge enough food to pass for dinner. The accumulated stress of the day keeps me from completely relaxing but at least the pressure is off.
It worked. I sit at my desk in a post-sculptural fog and realize that, even with my intransigent demand for running life my way God didn't abandon me. He was with me there, quietly, on the beach. Maybe this whole thing will work, for the rest of my life.
Idea and ability came together. Perhaps both come from God, along with the talent and the interest, but there's still only one person on the planet who could have done this. I don't understand it at all, but then examples from Jesus' life come to mind. I'm afraid of being turned into a squishy mess as God transforms my stone heart into flesh. I'm used to being stone, unaffected by what goes on around me but those days are over. My skin is very thin. Somehow Jesus handled all of this, being strong and tender by turns, when needed. That's the goal, not the extremes nor the stereotypes that are presented in our culture. Just as impossible, this goal at least seems worthwhile.
2004 November 1
Edited and reformatted for the Web 2005 June 22
# © 1765 by Larry @ 
