REVERE, Mass. (AP) – Seven years ago, Kirk Rademaker hit a low point in his life. His marriage was in shambles. He was sick of his stressful construction job and had started drinking.
It was sand, he says, that got him out of his rut.
“There’s nothing that’s not seductive about sand sculpting. It’s like butter, you can just cut it,” said the Santa Cruz, Calif.,-based sculptor.
Rademaker is one of nine master sand sculptors competing this week in the third annual New England Sand Sculpting Invitational on Revere Beach.
The competition, sponsored by the Revere Beach Partnership, began Thursday and will run until Sunday evening, when the sculptors themselves will vote on who will win $10,000 in awards. The event also includes a separate category for sculptures designed by children and families.
During the two days prior to the competition, sculptors worked together to create a massive group project – a sand replica of old Revere Beach, including the Cyclone roller coaster and Bluebeard’s Castle.
With an amusement park, dance halls, gardens and a bath house, Revere Beach rivaled Coney Island in the first half of the 20th century. The blizzard of 1978 wiped out many of the beach’s old structures, and during the 80s and 90s, the eroding beach and rising crime kept tourists away. By sponsoring the sand sculpting event, the Revere Beach Partnership is trying to revive the beach’s glory days.
Competition organizer Sean Fitzpatrick, of Saugus, used old photos of the beach to draw a sketch for the sculpture.
“Old-timers remember this as a bustling place. You’d come here if you were coming to the Boston area,” said Fitzpatrick, who also owns Fitzy Snowman Sculpting, a business that specializes in sculpting “nonpermanent, ephemeral stuff” such as snow, ice and pumpkins.
The sculptors didn’t let rain early Thursday get in the way of the competition.
“The rain helps,” said sculptor Sandi “Castle” Stirling. “It’s those hot, windy days that dry (the sculptures) out.”
Three hundred tons of sand from a quarry in New Hampshire were delivered to Revere Beach for the competition. Fitzpatrick explained that eroded beach sand doesn’t have enough silt to help bind sand grains together. The jagged quarry sand grains interlock better to help sand sculptures hold.
Sand sculptors also use a sealant to protect their work against the elements: 10 percent Elmer’s glue and 90 percent water, the nontoxic “windscreen” is sprayed onto the surface of the sculptures with garden sprayers.
They also use a host of different tools to produce their art.
“We have no more melon ballers, cake frosters or pastry brushes in our kitchen anymore,” said Fitzpatrick’s 17-year-old daughter, Shannon.
Stirling, 51, from Ontario, Canada, has been a sand sculptor for 11 years. She and her daughter used to go to the beach at Lake Heron, but Stirling said she never liked to go in the water.
“But I couldn’t sit still,” she said. So the casino cashier decided to check out some books about sand sculpting. She now competes in about four competitions a year, but makes the bulk of her sculpting income from commissioned pieces. She says companies have paid her as much as $3,000 per sculpture.
Stirling’s creation this year, a sculpture about 12 feet wide and 12 feet high, is a viking ship carrying opera singers. She plans to carve the musical notes for “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” into the side of the ship. Prior to the competition, she did a four-day run-through at her sandbox at home. She listens to Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot’s albums while she works.
When a certain song comes on, she knows what step she should be working on.
“I knew it would take four and half hours to fill these forms,” she said.
Rademaker, 54, is creating a gothic castle with plenty of doorways and flying buttresses. Until five years ago, he had worked in construction, making $60,000 a year. During the first year he spent sand sculpting, he says he made $6,000. He makes a better living now, competing in international festivals, creating corporate projects and working part-time as a carpenter.
He says he’s still destitute, but doesn’t regret his decision.
“The novelty has not warn off,” he said. “The beach is hallowed ground,” he said.
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