This is based on an old Irish story about a man who sells his soul to the Devil for the price of a mill that he asked the Devil to build for him in one day. The deal is done when by morning stands a mill on the banks of the Liffey in Lucan just outside Dublin. As part of the deal the Miller asks that the Devil will allow him to live out a full life and when it does finally comes time to give his soul it will be on the condition that the devil is able to preform one last mission impossible. I have found other stories from several countries that tell pretty much the same tale. All with Satan being outwitted in the end when he finally comes to collect.
In the Irish version when the Devil comes to take the Miller he sits reading his Bible. He begs the reaper to allow him to finish his book, because it is a Good Book. The Devils says that he can have until the candle burns itself out. The candle is already burning quite low but the miller grabs it, puts it between the pages of the Bible and slams it shut not allowing it to burn out of it's own accord. The Devil disappears after being outsmarted.
Too be honest it is a very convoluted story and I am left rooting for the Devil. Still, it was a nice subject for a sand sculpture.
I was honored to be asked by Martijin Rierse to team up on this project in Liepzig, Germany. Martijin is great sculptor from Holland and to be asked made me feel that he thought I was in the same league as him which was nice. We had never actually worked with each other on something and I was so interested to learn his process and how it would have compared to mine.
The project took place outside a big shopping center built outside Leipzig called Nova Eventis. From what I heard it was built just after the wall came down and was part of trying to make the east of Germany trendy. Most of the shops were high street clothes brands and to be honest it pretty sad. I could see that our sculptures were a last ditch attempt at trying to attract people to what was like a ghost town.
In the lead up to the project the organisers were pushing for a design and asked could we do something Irishy. Martijn sent them a rough design based on this story he found and we agreed that when we got onsite we would redesign and flesh it out together.
What we came up with was very different from the image sent and as a piece it all really gelled together. I worked mostly on the face while martijn created the mill wheel and horns.
It was fun to work together as we each could go a bit crazy as long as the whole piece linked in some way.
Let's face it
For the face, we had looked at some source material just to make sure we were on the same page and rather than just make a big evil head it was decided to adorn it with other elements to add to the story.
I added a rope running down the forehead, a reference to a rope made of sand in the story. Here is a link to the story, if you want to read more about it. I can't be arsed giving you a blow by blow of the whole thing, I'm here to talk about the sculpture.
The Shield like covering was just to make it more interesting and create some shadows.
You may be able to make out some figures embossed on the face. These were to sybolise other victims of the Devil, their souls like tattoos on his face.
From a distance the whole thing read quite well as a big Devils head and shoulders but it was fun that as you got closer more and more detail revealed itself. It reminds me very much of my piece The flock which you can find on my blog.
It was great sand for detail and textures and I was happy that Martijn was game for playing with it. The watery textures were created with a jet of water from the hose to melt the sand so it would run naturally.
There's a kind of an ammonite things going on with the horn as it spirals around to point to a nice cut through at the center of the mill wheel.
The other side had some Celtic knot work to make sure the Irishness came through. Overall I really liked the piece and the way we were jamming off each other.
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use PeakD to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, amongst other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Hive Blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Forklifting - Sand sculpture
Gráinne Ní Mháille (The Pirate queen) - sand sculpture
Gulliver - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon
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