Toy Nativity - sand sculpture

Watching Children play with their toys can be very entertaining. On the surface they appear to be playing with Dinosaurs, lego and teddybears but if you listen to their conversation there is a whole universe of drama playing out. A battle of good versus evil, characters of all species and relationship status and nothing is really as it seems. These inanimate toys have become actors in an amazing play brought to life by a fertile imagination.

This was the theme for the 2005 La Pineda, Catalonia sand nativity. What if a child had used their toys to tell the story, There were many more sculptures than I present here but at a time in the future I will showcase them all. For now we will just look at the piece Caroline St. Olive and yours truly created, the central cast of characters in the crib.

Playmobil

Caro wanted to make Playmobil characters and I thought they would be great to represent the Sagrada Familia. I pretty much let her do her thing, only helping out when needed. It is good in sand sculpture to allow one style of carving govern all the elements of the specific piece. I do remember I made the Angel lifting up the balloon like star above the figures standing on some Lego.

She really did a beautiful job, her style really lent itself to the simplicity of the piece. The baby Jesus in the matchbox was a wonderful touch.

Scatology

I have spoken about the Carganer more than once in my posts. He is a medieval character in all Catalan cribs who is literally taking a shit behind the scenes. He represents fertility and you can buy little figures of him outside the cathedral in Barcelona in many different guises from Popes to politicians all down on their hunkers having a poop. Pooing, the great leveler.

My approach to the Carganer was a little cryptic this time.

Puntastic

I tried to think of a toy that I child would have that I could use to symbolise the Carganer. Children love pooing and find it a very funny word to use. I know this now that I have a four year old son. The only real children's character that jumped to mind was 'Winnie the Poo' so I needed to work him into the design some how. The idea of a jigsaw puzzle is also a very iconic children's toy so joining both together seemed like a good fit.

I composed the image in such a way that a piece of the puzzle was misplaced. This helped sell the idea that it was a jigsaw. The image was craved in relief to help bring up some shadows and texture.

This missing piece would have been a bee hive while in the tree but placed behind Winnie's arse nicely became a turd with flies buzzing around. This stroke of genius really proves what an amazing artist I am. I think of all my work this is what I would most like to be remembered for.

When I had finished my masterpiece I helped Caro finish the front scene by adding this strange beanbag cow to the composition proving yet again what a serious artist I am.

This was a fun project to work on, Making life sized sculptures of toy brought us back to our youth and the audience both old and young seemed to really like it. Moving further and further away from the traditional crib seemed to be a breath of fresh air.

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Ps

Thanks for reading. I use Steem to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, among other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Steem blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.

The Nightwatch - ice sculpture

The Annunciation - ice sculpture

Mice in the cupboard - ice sculpture

I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite