As a celebration of the comic book Asterix I was asked to take part in an international competition in the French seaside town of Hardelot, France. All sculptors were asked make a piece which was based on the very famous children's books and they would be judge by a few people including local celebrities and politicians. (if my memory serves me correctly the original illustrator was among them) I'm not really into competitions when it comes to sculpture, I find the whole thing a bit silly. I enjoy my work and of course want to get paid for doing it but when it comes to playing bingo for my wages I am not a fan. How can anyone compare one piece against another? Who is better Picasso or Michelangelo? Answers on a postcard to. The High Commissioner for Arts, Weights and Measurements. EU buildings, Brussels. Belgium.
Asterix is a French Comic book series . It first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comic magazine Pilote in 1959. Since then there have been 34 books which have been translated into over one hundred languages and selling over 325 million copies. This makes it co-creators Frances bestselling authors abroad. (Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix)
I include this for illustration purposes only. Not my work
Two sides to every story
Not being a reader of the series I decided to take the approach of how the writer Rene Goscinny would come up with the ideas and then they were translated into images by Albert Uderzo (this was till the death of Goscinny in 2009 then Uderzo began writing and illustration) In a way I was interested in their collaboration and wanted to show this with a two sided piece. On one side we have the hand of Goscinny with thought bubbles as he forms the idea for the story and on the other the words are brought to life. I copied the illustrations from one of their famous books but made it so that as you walked around the sculpture the drawing cells only came together at one visual point. Quite a simple piece really but lots of fun to do.
Let's hold it together
One of the judging criteria was that the sculpture needed to be a certain height. My composition needed to have the right angle of the page at the top but to make it fit the block of sand I was given this needed to be lowered to give me the width. My solution to keep the height was to carve a paper clip at the top holding the papers together. This would give me the height and allow me to drop the pages about 30cm.
After spending my first half day making this wonderful paper clip with its cut through I went for lunch and at that point I saw a large seagull landing on the top. The sand held for a moment and them collapsed under his weight. Damn. There was no way to build it up again so I resorted to putting a staple holding the pages together instead.
I was quite happy with the piece in the end and had nice comments from the other carvers regarding my taking another approach than just making a cartoony illustration which is what they decided on.
The judges made their decision and even though I was told they liked mine I was disqualified for not having a sculpture that reached a certain height.
C'est la vie.
I still do competitions now and again due to the fact that I get to make a sculpture. I've won some and lost some. but I don't care either way. However, if I am happy with the sculpture and it loses it's much better than winning with one which I am not.
Ps
Thanks for taking the time to read this. All viewers are appreciated. Feel free to let me know what you think and please check out some of my latest posts by clicking the images below.
Make a wish foundation- Sand sculpture timelapse
My introduction to sand sculpture - sand sculpture
Gulliver- sand sculpture
Enjoy to rest of your weekend all 393 of my followers and anyone else who is just popping by. Why don't you stay awhile.
@ammonite