Jenny Rossen is a professional sand sculptor and she is the queen of the castle. But it is not castles she is building all the time. Qadijah S. Irshad meets the artist who also shapes structures that challenge the imagination
Whether it was building castles in the air, on paper or with sand, as kids, being kings - or queens - of these fancy creations was our favourite fantasy.
But Jenny Rossen, an Australian, took her childhood fantasies quite seriously. In fact she is a professional sand sculptor who travels across the globe building structures that are quite often 20-30 feet high and are renowned for their attention to intricate detail.
"It's about passion," she states simply as she smoothes down the sides of minaret of a castle that she was building at Al Majaz Park, Sharjah, during the Water Festival. "The challenge (of getting it right) demands that passion."
It's not just castles that Jenny builds. She builds anything from dragons at theme parks to miniature model buildings for architects before they start on their projects.
When I first met Rossen a few weeks ago, she was busy perfecting a sand version of the 2008 edition of Murano at the Nissan showroom during its launch.
"That's the beauty of my work," says Rossen, as she stands back to watch her own version of the sleek machine. "It's so diverse and you get to work on different things in different countries and with different people all the time."
Sand isn't forever
Just as surely as our childhood sandcastles were washed away by the waves, Rossen's castles are also wiped away sooner rather than later.
"Depending on the event and the sponsors, it's pulled down, say anywhere from three days to three months," says Rossen.
So how does that make her feel?
After hour after excruciating hour, day after day of moulding, shaping, sculpting and honing to perfection a giant sand structure, how does it feel to watch it being pulled down? Doesn't the transient nature of sand sculpturing defy the very principle of art, to create something beautiful that lives on?
"On the contrary. I think it's the ephemeral nature of sand sculptures that makes them beautiful. It's like a song or a bunch of flowers.
"When a song ends or when a bunch of flowers wilt you you're not worried, because you have enjoyed it while it lasted. Sculpting in sand is just like that. You do it for the beauty of the moment, and that makes it so much more satisfying," says Rossen.
"In fact I just love what happens every time I sculpt something because it touches people's lives, including mine. When I work indoors for instance, everyone gets involved from the cleaners to the managers of the company. They watch it turning from a square structure of sand into a form of art. And every day they watch, they enjoy the moments."
This seems be what drives the people-oriented Rossen. Rather than being closeted in a studio most of the time creating paintings or sculptures of other mediums that 'last' she prefers to live her life 'touching lives' as she puts it.
After graduating as an artist with a double major in sculpture and painting, Rossen worked as a conventional artist for quite a few years. During that time she realised that art galleries held little appeal to her.
"I just fell in love with the idea of sculpting in sand one day while I was at the beach messing around with a bit of sand. At the time I didn't know there were so many professional sand sculptors around the world," says Rossen.
As the fantasy of building sand castles beckoned her, Rossen spent some serious time on the beach trying to master the art that delighted her.
"The thing with sand sculptures is, " she says, "there are no secret hidden meanings to decode, you don't need to know what Post-Modernism is, you just enjoy the art for what it is.
"It was also at that time that it really struck me that there are no queues in front of art galleries, it attracts just a segment of the people, but when I work in a shopping mall or a beach or a car showroom, I can touch so many more lives."
"I think the best moment for a sand sculptor is when she (or he) is working and a kid walks past and exclaims, 'Oh look, it's a dragon!" or even "Oh look, it's a Murano," she laughs shaking her head ruefully adding "This car is the biggest challenge so far. It's just so smooth! Got no curves at all!"
"But really," she says on a more serious note, "There's not enough joy in this world, and I'd like to think I'm spreading a bit of joy with my sand, even if it lasts for just a few minutes or a few months and comes crumbling down."
Although Rossen builds more than castles than when she started out, her work retains a fairytale feel. Her first sculpture that won her an international award was a 20-odd foot sculpture of an Arab woman in flowing abaya leading a camel with a picturesque Arabian Nights-like castle as a backdrop.
It was not her first participation in the famed World Championship Sand Sculpture Competition in Italy, but it certainly was not her last either.
A castle can speak a million words
The fairytale-ishness that surrounds her work is very real for Rossen. "I was the youngest in a family of nine kids and we lived by the sea. So when I was very little I was not allowed to go into the water.
"My brothers and sisters would build a sand wall around me, keep me in the middle and I would make dribble castles, all the while making up stories about fairies, knights and imprisoned princesses.
"And that's the best thing about sand sculptures and making castles, which I love sculpting best. You can make up your own story and everyone who looks at it will have their own story to tell. A sand castle can have a million tales, which makes it very special and personal," says Rossen.
There's one incredible dream though that Rossen nurtures passionately. To build a theme park out of sand.
"I'm talking about something like Disneyworld where people can walk through sand structures and do all kinds of great stuff with sand. The scope for such a project is very viable, and I hope to do it one day," she smiles.
How it's done
For higher structures, the sculptor stands on a ledge and begins working from the top down. "You just start carving in, and deduce as you go along," says Rossen.
Rossen usually glances at her sketches for the castles, or in the instance of the Murano, for example, has the model of the real thing a few feet away from her box of sand.
There's no specialised sand sculpturing tools. "You can almost use anything from cake decorating tools to an upholsterer's measuring tape. This ones my favourite," says Rossen fishing out an old dentist's palette out of her pocket.
"The other day I went to eat at a restaurant and saw this really beautiful vegetable carving. So I asked the manager's permission, went into the kitchen and, after a chat with the chef, he presented me with one his favourite tools.
"Can't wait to try it out!"
There's sand, and then there's sand
For those of us who know so little about sand sculpting (and that's you, me and the rest of the world except a few hundred individuals!), the secret behind these mammoth-size sculptures that stand so sturdy may seem to be in the sand.
But apparently, sand seems to have little to do with it. "Of course, the finer the sand particles, the tighter it packs, and the finer the detail and higher you can make your sculpture. And every sand is different, just like paper.
Some might be great when wet, but flake away when dry "but the secret is, when you make a choice, you have to stick with it and make the best out of it. Sand is just a tool, and I have noticed the worse the sculptor, the more he'll complain about hissand," says Rossen.
Nothing more than just water is added to the sand. Water is used to increase the compaction density and you compress it against the forms. The forms provide a barrier
for resistance, so you can press to a higher density.
Jenny Rossen and her crew will be building a replica of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel at the Hotel itself this weekend, December 21 and 22. She will also be conducting workshops on how to build a sandcastle for kids and families. There will be some great prizes and giveaways during the event as well.
