Catch the wind - sand sculpture

This sculpture is dedicated to my parents and the love they captured between them. It is a personal piece. I suppose all artworks really should be or else whats the point. For the 2009 Dublin Castle sand sculpture exhibition we gave ourselves the theme 'The four elements' and as usual, drew our personal theme from a hat. Mine was Wind.

How was I going to capture this in a sculpture?. It's invisible and you can only see it by its affect (or is that effect?). I thought about other things with similar traits and found love. Ahhhh!
I don't know why but the song by Donovan ' Catch the wind' kept coming to mind and I found inspiration in that, well for the title anyway.

I suppose when you have been together as long as my parents the love that is shown is maybe not the most obvious but being married for 58 years and raising a family of 10 shows that there was a large supply.

With my sculpture I decided on having their two hands come together and capture a space in between them which symbolised that love.

Spinning sand sculpture

Originally I planned to make a fan like element in the center and see if I could get it to rotate mechanically. I had built a very strong Lazy Susan with Wood, metal and lots of ball bearing which I had compacted into the center of the sculpture. The plan was to hollow out the center while leaving a block of sand on this turn table which I would fashion into some sort of fan like structure. Then, using bicycle parts connect a motor onto it and have it spin. I think I was being overly ambitious and in the end the sand would not allow it. The sand wasn't the strongest and I needed to make things a bit more chunky than I would have liked. The turntable was never utilized, it just sat in the middle of my sculpture unseen and an artifact of one of my crazier ideas. I decided instead to make a fan like structure on the outside.

I had my parents hand model for me so I could get all the texture detail and structures correct, although with the sand I needed to adjust a few things for support. When carving large objects this is sometimes necessary to avoid overhangs and make it structurally safe.

My parents loved the sculpture and were happy to be part of it. Most of my work kind of goes over their heads even though they have always been very supportive of me, maybe even sometimes a little proud. With this one they were interested in my process of ideas and could see where I was coming from.

RIP to the most amazing man I have every known

My father passed away in 2016 year after a long well fought illness. He will always be sadly missed as he was the one that I would call if I had any technical questions when I was making something. He knew everything and could do everything. He was a gentleman and a genius. My mother is still fighting fit and is always on the other end of the phone when I need advice on how to show that love for my own little family.

These hands also represent the two people that made me what I am today and for that I will forever feel honored and grateful. Their marriage was a perfect balance of love and support.
Here's to you Mammy and Daddy.

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Ps

Thanks for reading. I use PeakD to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, amongst other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Hive Blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.

Breaking the surface - sand sculpture

DIY Sculpture - sand sculpture

Asian Montage - sand sculpture

I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite

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