Summer is coming to an end, not literally, though, as the weather is still freakishly hot. As the school children prepare to start their new school year, we are reminded of our summer and the preparation for our first entry in the annual AIA Sandcastle Competition. There were a few people who have been at the office for a while and wanted the BRAVE clan to partake in the event. We wanted to finally put our creative stamp in the competition and as we stormed through ideas, we knew right off the bat that it was going to be a challenge. Coming up with an entirely original idea would take a bit of critical thought and collaboration, but inventing the process would be an entirely different monster.

The concept was to use a mold of a generic human figure and create hundreds of clones in the sand to spell the word “MANMADE” – sort of a pixel font referencing the works of Leon Ferrari, and Antony Gormley. The idea seemed great at first, but as it tends to be the case with most experimental ideas, it was not as easy as we imagined. The first step in the process was to generate a clay model from a concept sketch by the creative and crafty Nick Schmidt (Angela’s boyfriend). With a background in comic illustration and animation, he was able to translate his sketch into a physical model. Coupled with guidance from the team, he molded a 13” statue out of dirt clay that would serve as the base model for casting. Even though this process took more than a few days, the following steps would prove to be far more complicated.


[above] The original Dan, made from clay

In a whole-hearted attempt to preserve the clay statue that Nick had so painstakingly labored over, we decided to utilize a casting method that was never attempted by any members of the team. We decided to try a highly flexible, rubber silicone compound to create our first negative mold. By using a durable medium such as rubber silicone, it would be able to withstand multiple uses in order to create many positives molds. But after 3 days and 9 jars of rubber silicone (we should clarify that we originally suspected only needing 3), it was a success…in the sense that the rubber mold was able to capture every detail of the clay statue. We failed, however, in preserving our clay statue, whom we had named Dan [the man] and accepted as part of the family. The clay ended up crumbling into pieces as we were trying to cut apart the rubber silicone, leaving us with the remnants of a noble sacrifice.


[above] Dan crumbles to pieces as we cut away the silicone

Alas we needed to proceed into the next phase, the resin positive. This step was slightly less complicated but was still headache in more ways than one. Resin, as you may or may not know, can produce some very intoxicating fumes and can sometimes cause some unnecessary panic. On the second attempt at the resin pour, (If you’ve been to our office lately you might have noticed a slight mess by our front door…) we were able to produce a successful duplicate of Dan the Man!


The final mold of Dan would be formed out of plaster; we were hoping for a material that would be durable enough for the beach and economic enough to duplicate. Figuring out a method for creating a seamless, two sided mold, became somewhat of a daunting task. After several hours of trying to work out overly complicated techniques, the plaster mold came together one Saturday afternoon for Peter and Alp. They took the said plaster mold to Galveston beach the following afternoon and realized that after all this hard work, Dan would fail to cooperate. Although the sand would have no trouble forming the body, it was keeping his head on his shoulders that proved to be impossible. To add insult to injury, one half of the plaster mold split right in the middle after a very gingerly drop on the sand from 12 inches, raising further doubts that maybe this wasn’t the most executable idea for a team of 12 people who had very little experience in the sand as adults.


[above] Dan almighty

So after several weeks of intensive molding, Dan returned to being just an idea. With only one week left, it was time to move on and come up with a more simplified version of the idea…something we knew we had a better chance of making. Everyone in the office was saddened by this revelation but the Sandcastle competition was still around the corner. We dedicate this post to our compadre, Dan, whose memory lives on as a resin statue, to remind us of the good, the bad and the ugly experiences of pursuing dreams.