Recently while writing my post on Sand Sculpturing, I tried searching some authentic quotes and good pictures, and met probably one of the greatest
master of this craft, Paul and his cute wife Remy.
Strange thing about this wonderful couple is that they possess very rare insight about several cultures of the world and assimilate their knowledge to develop mammoth sand sculptures.
The above picture depicts lord Shiva sitting on a lotus, an amazing diversion from the normal understanding that only lord Brahma, the creator of the universe seats on a lotus.
This blog starts with a autobiographical style and ends with some practical tips for the Sand Sculpturing enthusiasts all over the world.
Paul & Remy : Official Brief
“We, Remy and Paul, are a couple who work and travel together, we are both master sand sculptors with a combined experience of 27 years in creating sand sculptures. Remy (38) is Dutch and Paul me (43) is English. We met in a huge sand sculpture park in Belgium in the summer of 2003 and have been inseparable ever since.
Sandy Pleasures
Pault elaborates further, “Together we created sand sculptures in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, England, Ireland, Turkey, Canada, USA, China en India, and we hope to visit and work in many more countries. We lived a nomadic lifestyle for a few years, traveling to where the sand sculptures took us, literary around the world!
“Of course we still make time for our biggest passion in life: creating
Palu & Remy's sand Queen sitting pretty
sculptures out of the elements water and sand. With the right sand we can make unbelievably big and detailed sculptures in a relatively short time. The sculptures exist for an hour, a day or a few weeks depending for which occasion we create them. And then they go back to nature; the sea will take the sculpture or the wind evaporates the water and all that remains is a pile of sand. Some of our sculptures are spread out over the grass to help it restore better, after a festival is held for example. The sand of one of our sculptures is used in the cement of a building and there is sand of a sculpture under a new road in Holland.
Remy & Paul at China
Sculptures with a message
“We work very well together, we complement each other qualities and ‘dance’ around our sculptures; we work in layers over each other’s work until the statue is finished. We aim to create sculptures with a message; the ideas for these come to us often intuitive or in our dreams. Together we create sometimes magical sculptures that are more than the sum of both our input, then we step back, look at each other and ask surprised ‘did we do this?’
Spiritualizing Sand 
Paul tells me a strange fact about the sand sculpturing they practice, “When we create we often get into a meditative state that we call ‘the sand zone’ in which we forget about time and are enjoying ourselves immensely. During the process of creation we always take a moment to concentrate on one grain of sand, and to ‘spiritualize’ this grain, we believe that this way we bring our sculptures to life. We call this ‘spiritualizing matter’. When this is successful a sculpture can all of a sudden ‘look back at us’, or from the corner of our eye seem to move. Together we create sometimes magical sculptures that are more than the sum of both our input, then we step back, look at each other and ask surprised ‘did we do this?’
April 16, 2009 at 8:19 am
April 15, 2009 at 11:14 pm