Wet and dry - sand sculpture

In my last post I showed one of my favourite sculptures and now I have to share one of my least favourite because it was made straight after. Maybe I had burned out all my creative juices on the last one or maybe other factors came into play, lets see.

Aeroflop

Niall Magee and myself traveled straight from Denmark to St. PetersBurg for the 2003 sand sculpture competition. We were tired but also very excited to be back in this beautiful city which we had already been to to make an ice sculpture at Peter and Paul's fortress.

When we arrived in the airport we discovered that part of our luggage had failed to show up. Niall went to see about it while I went out of arrivals to meet with our welcoming committee. I told them of our problem and a serious official sprang into action dragging an interpreter with him as he got access to the arrival baggage hall to help Niall.

When they arrived Niall was trying to explain to the airport staff the bag that was lost. They were finding it very funny when Niall draw a pair of shovels as of course that is something which normal people don't travel with. AS you can probably tell by now we are not normal.

On seeing the baggage staff not taking Niall seriously our official began to shout at them that we were very important international artists and that there would be hell to pay if we didn't get our shovels.

A Dutch shovel yesterday

The reason we sometimes bring our own shovels on projects is because we use a Dutch style ones. They are perfect for digging sand and rough carving. In many countries the ones available are heavy and horrible to use so in the days before excessive baggage fees on planes it was easier to bring our own.

We weren't too upset without them but our Russian hosts acted as if it was the most serious thing in the world. Finally after making a full report we left the airport with the promise they would be found or someone be off to the Gulags.

Heating up

Straight to work we went. We were arriving a bit later than all the other sculptors so had some catching up to do.

It was so nice to be back in Saint Petersburg with the weather the complete opposite to what we had before. The temperatures were in the 30s and I must say it was quite distracting to be surrounded by beautiful scantly clad Russian beauties as they sun bathed around us, last time we could only see theirs amazing faces pocking out from furry coat hoods now their wasn't much being left to the imagination. (I have censored my photos to protect your innocence, you can thank me below).

We had great fun with the other sculptors. Some we knew, others we got friendly with, trying to network as much as possible. The team from Yakutsk , The coldest city in the world on the other side of Siberia were really nice. Without a word of English we shared many happy smiling moments. Small in stature these guys had great big beards, giving them the appearance of Gnomes and they were always happy and cheerful .We had met them the year before in Moscow and were impressed by their talent in Ice and now sand.

The sand was full of clay and bits of roots, not the nicest to carve in this heat. After compacting with crappy shovels we began carving something about a Mermaid and a diver swimming around holding hands. it also had some sort of Globe navigation thingy on top. As I said I think it was pretty bad.

Reunited

A few days into carving our shovels arrived. The Airport manager and entourage came to deliver them personally flanked be a TV crew there to document the hand over for the main evening news. it was like being presented with an award. Cameras clicked as Niall and I stood for photos, shaking hands with the officials. The whole thing was very funny and we hammed up being overly happy to be reunited with our tools.

I won't talk about the sculpture much as it felt more like a backdrop to a great fun we were having. I'll let you be the judge but for me it was nothing special and not something I have shown to anyone since we made it. Take it as a good thing or not but Steem gets the honor of beholding this piece after 15 years hidden on a harddrive.

The final day came and we started winding down. For Niall and I the shovels had become more of a hindrance than a help and we decided to give them as a gift to the Guys from Yakutsk. We went over and presented them. They were very moved by our gesture as they were something which are not available anywhere else except Holland. For Niall and I we were sure that they would have better luck getting them home on the Tran-Siberian express than we would getting them home on Ryanair.
That night we partied like it was 1999 (literally). Russian after parties are always like stepping backwards in time to a more romantic era of classic music and dancing.

Trojan horse

The next morning, Hungover and waiting for our ride to the airport we were approached by the Yakutsk team Captain. He was still very touched by our gift and wanted to give something in return. He held up a plastic bag offering what I thought to be sweets, I put my hand inside and felt something wet and squelchy. taking it out it was revealed to be a piece of horse meat with fat and hairs sticking out of it. He looked up at me motioning me to eat it.
Horse meat is one of the staple diets from their area of Siberia, I knew that. But to bring it all the way to St. petersburg and have it in a plastic bag in his warm Hotel room for the week had made it rot and stink like a zombie. I looked at it and looked at him, there was no escape. I couldn't be insulting and give it back, he was honoring me with this precious gift.
I had to, I had to... I popped the chunk of putrid tripe into my mouth, chewed quickly and swallowed. Gagging as I did but trying to hold my composure. He was very happy and then took out a bottle of Vodka. He hardly had time to offer as I grabbed the bottle and threw half of it down my neck to follow the horse meat.
Niall of course found this all very funny but when his turn came he told the guy, through our interpreter that he was a vegetarian and didn't eat meat so No thank you. our new friend didn't even know what a vegetarian was as they had all died out in his areas from being pussies. Niall was happy of course to accept the Vodka.
For weeks later I kept on burping and the rotting taste of horse flesh would repeat on me making me gag and the smell on my hands from having touched the stuff just wouldn't wash off.
lesson learned. Never give anyone anything.

I should probably rename this post something like 'Shovels at Dawn' or something because as you can see that was my biggest impression about this project. For those who came for the sculpture, sorry about that. Next time i will try to focus more on that but it's nice to get these stories documented also. Till next time.

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Ps

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

The three Norns - sand sculpture

Falling Asleep (Remastered) - sand sculpture

Sculpting in nomansland ( contains nudity) - sand sculpture

I hope you'll join me again soon.
@ammonite