Kirk Rademaker

Website: www.sandguy.com , www.sandguys.com
Birthplace: Berkeley California
Current home base: Santa Cruz, California

How many states/countries have you visited as part of sand competitions and/or exhibitions?
Kirk: 20 countries

Is sand sculpture your career? If not, what's your day job?
Kirk: I quit my job in construction to do sand full time.

When and where did you first experience sand as an art medium?
Kirk: First saw sand sculpture event in Alameda California

What was the motivation for your first sand sculpture?
Kirk: I needed some therapy.

Do you have an interesting story about sculpting you would be willing to share?
Kirk: It was my first time to carve sand in Europe...Southern Portugal. The project was sketchy at best....the organizer was a nice guy, but he was already way over his head. Carvers actually camped at the site. When I first arrived I wondered what I had gotten myself into. The first evening I was sitting by the open fire. I could here the footsteps a group approaching out of the darkness.... They were belly dancers.

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Matt Long

Website: www.canyoudigit.com , www.sandsculptor.com
Birthplace: Staten Island, New York
Current home base: Staten Island, New York

How many states/countries have you visited as part of sand competitions and/or exhibitions?
Matt: I've traveled to more than fifteen countries and more than half the states.

Is sand sculpture your career? If not, what's your day job?
Matt: I have a successful wood restoration, refinishing and maintenance business in New York City since 1974. We restore old, abused, and ravaged wood in commercial and landmark spaces in Manhattan and Brooklyn. If you have been a tourist in NYC, you have seen my work.

What other media do you sculpt or carve?
Matt: I create things in wood and have recently taken up working with stone

Do you have a nickname you can/want to share?
Matt: I know it is obvious, but after being called The Sandman for so many years, I go simply with Sandman Matt

When and where did you first experience sand as an art medium?
Matt: I was while walking on the Cape May New Jersey beach some 18 years back when I experienced my first sand sculpture. It was of a guy in a raft being attacked by a shark. I had never seen anything carved in sand, nor did I speak top the guy that did it; but decided to try something myself. For the next several years the only sand I carved was on vacation. I knew nothing, had no instruction, and made embarrassingly pitiful sculptures; mostly of castles and dragons with a few sea creatures eating swimmers. Not knowing what to use for this stuff I made my own tools in wood and learned the most basic tricks by trial error and more so... by accident.

Adding water to the sand was a revelation! It would be years before I learned what a form was. My self entertainment and often enough frustration with the medium went on for a few years and in about 1999, I met a professional sand sculptor named Chuck Feld at an event in my home town. I was surprised to find someone getting paid to carve because I thought I invented it! I mean I was sure there were other people messing around in the sand, but getting paid! I had never seen or heard of such a thing.

Chuck was quite impressed with my home made tools and after hearing from many people over several years that I should make and sell them, it was after that meeting with Chuck that Can You Dig It Sand Tools were born.

At that point, I spoke with John Gowdy after reading a NY Times article about him. From the start he was gracious ­ as John is. He told me about professional contests in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire and Virginia Beach as well. I drove to each in turn, pulled up a chair and in between gasping at the skill and talent of those sculptors I would come to know so well later in my career, I watched, and learned.

My greatest lessons came a year or two later when I was bringing Can You Dig It Sand Tools to market. I registered for a booth at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to exhibit at their Gift Fair. I was hardly skilled enough to demonstrate the tools properly myself, but I was smart enough to engage the services of the one and only Kirk Rademaker to make them look good. We spent five days together. Him carving and demonstrating: me selling and keeping an eye on what he did: and all the while becoming friends. Two weeks later I was back in NYC where none other than Karen Fralich carved the sand at Toy Fair: It was Dan Doubleday and Meridith Corson who came to Surf Expo to do the same. I was getting schooled by the very best in the world and selling a few tools at the same time!

What's your favorite carving tool? most unusual tool?
Matt: Like a lot of sculptors, I carry an array of things in my tool bag. Some are for specific things and some for general use. I have two favorite tools, and you might guess one of them is the smallest offset shaper in the Can You Dig It set. I can reach places from odd angles I can't seem to do with 'straight' tools. My other favorite is a Liquitex 1 1/2" palette knife with the original rounded edge ground flat. It does a lot of work for me.

Do you have an interesting story about sculpting you would be willing to share?
Matt: Sand sculpting has left me with many, many stories to tell. Along with 4 other world class sculptors, Kirk Rademaker (my team mate this year) and I traveled together on the Travel Channel show Sand Masters. I believe traveling the world with Kirk, Rusty Croft, Sue McGrew, Morgan Rudluff, and Andy Gertler was the greatest experience. We learned from each other, loved each other, and supported each other. We swam with sharks, were actually part of Ringling Brothers circus, went to a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, worked on the restoration of a Buddhist temple in Thailand, celebrated Carnival in Puerto Rico, installed a Star Wars display in Lego Land, and celebrated the Mauri Tribe of New Zealand at the base of their sacred Mount Manganui. We ate and drank the finest fare in Napa, and later ate bugs in Phu Ket. We saw a huge pod of Orca off the shoreline in Baja, and dressed in full medieval regalia at a Renaissance Fair (where my hand was almost impaled by a knights lance!) We laughed endlessly, (did a little screaming!) played a lot of music, carved some great sculptures, sometimes under tough conditions and often with very limited time, worked ridiculously long days and did some crazy, crazy stuff. No doubt, the Crystal Classic will be yet another story to tell...