Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Art on sand


During my last visit to India, I saw this guy at the Puri beach making a sand sculpture of Pope John Paul II. And the most amazing thing was that he had no references, it was all in his head.

I used to go to the beach every day. And every evening, he would be there, making something beautiful. Something different. A big crowd (which included me) would gather around him and watch him make it. Some would take pictures and videos.


Long after everyone had left, when it would get really dark, he would stay there and wait for his sculptures to get washed away by the waves. Invariably, they did. They were destined to get washed away. He could not make them further away from the sea because the amount of moisture in the sand is crucial to make the sculpture. And that depends on the distance of the sculpture from the sea. So he knew his works would eventually get destroyed. Within a few hours. Yet, he poured his heart into them as if they would stay immortalised in the sand forever. And he never took any photographs of his creations.

That evening, I waited with him to watched this one get washed away. It was very dark. And all you could hear was the sound of the waves, washing the sculpture away, bit by bit. I saw it happen. I almost cried. When it was no longer there, he left. To come back the next day and make another one.

Some people are just so talented... they may not leave any trace of their works behind, but they leave impressions wherever they go.



8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The true artist seeks not glory but the satisfaction of having created a masterpeice. He is passionate enough to create a work of excellence and dispassionate enough to see it turned into nothingness by the elements. His strength is his never ending devotion to his work and his motivation to keep spinning out works of beauty...

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

Anonymous said...

mesmerizing..

Anonymous said...

I admire his devotion and inspiration to come up with somethign beautiful everyday.

Anonymous said...

I suppose no matter what I'm drawing, there will always be some sort of question in my mind about it. A work of art is never really finished; it is abandoned.
Brooke McEldowney, Pibgorn commentary, 03-31-05

dUh said...

Edgar Allan Poe's "A Dream within a Dream"

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep–while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Sayesha said...

Wow, amazing poem! Both in simplicity and beauty.

Free verse is fine and all that, but don't you just love it when words that express feelings with such simplicity and beauty, rhyme too? :)

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Prithi Shetty said...

wow .. and me have nearly stopped writing because messed up & lost one of my brilliant posts ... too much