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Building Castles Made of Sand

The Fantastic World of Sculptor Rusty Croft

December 4, 2024 by Michael Chatfield

According to author, philosopher and artist Elbert Hubbard the happiest people on Earth are “A craftsman or artist whistling over a job well done. A little child building sandcastles.” He posits that “Happiness lies in a constructive job well done. Get your happiness out of your work or you will never know what happiness is.”

By that metric, Rusty Croft certainly knows what happiness is. He’s not a little child, but he gets to spend his days sculpting mind-blowing structures out of sand, snow, ice as well as more permanent materials such as steel, wood and ceramics. Obviously multi-talented, Croft also paints, “but that’s work,” he says with a laugh. As everyone knows, playing in the sand is not work.

A recent visit to Croft’s tool-filled Carmel Valley Quonset hut revealed several pieces in progress simultaneously. This is clearly a happy workplace. On the wall is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that the artist takes inspiration from: “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” A partially complete life-size horse made up of steel wire and a ceramic head takes up a good deal of the floor space. On a table sits a “vertical sandbox,” a large, rectangular, rustic wood frame containing a palette of finely packed sand on which he carves such things as company logos for events that can be erased and used over and over. Think of it as a vertical Etch A Sketch made of sand. “Sculpting comes naturally to me, and I sculpt with pretty much anything I can get my hands on,” he says with another laugh (as one might expect, he laughs a lot).

At present, there are a few of Croft’s sand sculptures in the area. One commemorates the 90th anniversary of Big Sur’s River Inn and two adorn the grounds of Hacienda in Carmel Valley. However, his unique craft has taken him up and down the California coast and to far flung parts of the planet. 2014 saw him in Rio de Janeiro for an attempt at the Guinness Book’s world record for the tallest sand sculpture. His work is whimsical and, in many cases, seems to defy gravity and credulity.

Croft grew up in Iowa and displayed artistic talent from a young age. Unable to afford art school, he lit out for the West Coast with $200 and a mountain bike, then landed in the Caribbean, where he windsurfed and began playing around with sand sculpture and papier mâché. Relocating to San Diego, he saw some guys building a sand sculpture at the San Diego Zoo and was blown away. “I saw these guys shoveling sand and knew I had to do this,” Croft recalls. “I bugged them to hire me.” Eventually, they did, bringing him on board as part of an 80-person team for the world record attempt in Rio. The hook was set.

His work drew the attention of the Travel Channel, and that led to a TV show, “The Sand Guys,” with his now retired partner Kirk Rademaker, that ran for 29 episodes. Translated into three languages, the show aired in Asia-Pacific, Europe and South America. “That put us on the map,” Croft says.

The sand Croft uses for these works of art isn’t just regular Carmel Beach sand. As nice as that soft white stuff feels between the toes, the shape of the sand grains is not conducive to holding together as a building material. The sand he uses comes from a quarry in Felton. “When sand is cleaned for use in construction, companies separate the dust and dirt from the sand,” he says. “We use the byproduct of that process called ‘cyclone sand.'” He says the structure of the grains is akin to “pizza boxes, allowing it to fit tightly together.” Beach sand is more like tiny tennis balls and, as a result, can’t be as effectively compacted. “We mix it with water and after it dries it’s like a rock.” That doesn’t mean these sculptures are permanent, however. Like adobe, rain will erode the carvings, returning the material to the earth, perhaps to be sculpted another day.

In addition to large-scale public works, Croft conducts corporate team-building exercises, in many cases for Silicon Valley companies such as eBay, Amazon, Google and Yahoo. “Since the pandemic, these companies are trying to get their employees back to interacting in person.” Taking place either in a parking lot or at the beach, Croft hands out buckets and shovels, creates a demonstration piece and sets the employees loose. It’s an effect approach to building team cohesion—one the participants thoroughly enjoy. “Who doesn’t love playing in the sand?” he asks.

For more information, visit www.rustycroft.com or sand_guys on Instagram.

Filed Under: Winter 2024 Tagged With: Lifestyle

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Carmel Magazine is the quarterly lifestyle magazine for Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula, featuring the notable people and places, arts, food and wine, destinations, styles and events of Carmel and the Peninsula.

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