It’s said that 30,000 visitors came out last year for the 15th annual American Sandsculpting Festival.

I don’t know if we broke that attendance, but it sure felt like at least that many came by to see the sculptors on Fort Myers Beach during the beautiful, tropical days of the 16th annual championship.

It was 5th place master sculptor winner Randy Harvey who asked me after the final whistle had been blown: “Are you happy with your sculpture?” As I thought it over, I had to honestly reply, “Yes.” “That’s all that matters,” he told me. “If you’re happy with it, that’s all that matters.”

Almost an entire year in the planning, my sculpture “Carrying a Tune” turned out “somewhat” like my various drawings and play-dough sculptures. I was able to incorporate some various guitar related objects (much to the delight of the musicians who stopped by to gawk and ask questions).

Pound ups started sharply at 8am on Friday, November 1st and would continue till November 3rd with a total of 20 hours carving time. My first object carved was intended to be either a Gorilla or Pignose amp, but somehow in the hustle of the project, I forgot to name it. I did, however, get to create some other dream amps: 

Carvin Amp Close-up

Peavey 5150 Close-up (Tubes were visible on the backside, but I forgot to take a picture of that! What was I thinking?)

A Carvin, Crate and Peavey 5150. Little did I know that the Peavey would cause such a stir, almost causing a shouting match between two bystanders, one who insisted that Marshall made the 5150 model – the other saying, "No. Marshall has a 5100 series, but it was Peavey who nailed the 5150!" Wow. Who would have thought that a few tons of sand could cause such controversy! The two finally came to an amicable agreement that I had it right. Peavey was the right answer. (And I didn’t even have to pull out my photos from my bag to prove it!)

To the left of the Zion is a Digitech GNX3. (Yes, more hardware that only a guitar player would love!)

Update 3/2004 Now that I finally own one of these beauties, I see that I should have added more details. Oh well. There's always next time, right?

I was surprised that one of the fun things about my sculpture was explaining all the gear to everyone who asked, “What’s that?” or “Is that a stomp box?” Sand and music appreciation colliding! Isn’t it great?

A couple of stomp boxes (Digitech again, for sure!), cables and an acoustic guitar case make up the next layer, with a couple of Crate stage monitors to finish the stage out.

Of course, to incorporate my sculpture’s title – this whole thing had to be inside a bucket with a huge handle laying down. At first, bystanders thought I was carving headphones, when it was perfectly clear to me that I was making a handle. When I asked one of them what I could do to make it more obvious, he suggested, “Why not put ‘bucket handle’ on it?”  That got me thinking. What if I put something a little less obvious. I ended up putting “Acme Buckets” on the handle. (If Acme is good enough for coyote, it’s got to be good enough for me, right?)

Through it all, I was surrounded by 17 other talented, master sculptors and loads of wonderful folks from the Fort Myers Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. Thanks to Bruce and his lovely wife, June, the site managers for the Outrigger, who were always making sure I had enough water, finding sprayers, tampers, shovels... all the gear. And of course, I cannot fail to mention the friendly gang at the Outrigger Resort. If you’re looking for a great spot on the beach (with wonderful sand) you can’t go wrong at the Outrigger. (Tell ‘em Ron sent you!)

Shot from the 2nd floor of the Outrigger. Sculptures are just visible beyond the palms.

To see all of the master sculptor's creations, Click Here

To see an awesome sunset picture (at least, I think it's awesome!) I took during the event, be sure to visit my Wallpaper Zone

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