Sea, sand and sculpture at the East Neuk festival

Michael Church
Friday 25 June 2010 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sculptor Jamie Wardley has two different sets of tools: drills and saws, and spades and spoons. The former are for the ice sculptures he makes in the Arctic, the latter for what he and a bunch of volunteers will create in four hours between low tide and high tide on Elie Beach in Fife on 4 July. Wardley learnt his art by watching a Norwegian sand sculptor create the Queen and Mr Bean out of sand and water, and he became a regular at sand-sculpting festivals all over the world.

For the East Neuk festival, he will supervise the building of a steam train from 20 tons of sand – 10 metres long, one metre high – on the tide-line, so that for a few magical moments it will look as if the train is coming out of the sea. How will he feel when it's destroyed? "I think it's beautiful," he replies. "The point is not so much the finished thing, more the journey towards getting it done, the huge expenditure of energy. But we will photograph it, as we do our sand drawings." For those who miss it, he's doing a slightly more durable sand sculpture by Tate Liverpool between 15 and 18 July.

Eastneukfestival.com

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in