SCAD Sand Arts Festival 2019

A fun day in the sun for the community

Written and photographed by Sapna Ramlogan

What is Sand Arts Festival?

Sand Arts Festival is one of SCAD’s awesome signature events. This is an annual event held at Tybee Island. SCAD students, faculty, alumni, staff and prospective students have the opportunity to compete in nine different awards for prizes.

The categories are:

·         Sand castle

·         Sand relief

·         Sand sculpture

·         Air category

·         Sand jam

Prizes are awarded in all these categories including

·         SCAD 40 Anniversary Award

·         Best of Show

·         SCAD student group

·         Class project

There is a first place and a runner up for each of these categories, totaling over $13,000 in cash prizes!

This is a family friendly event attended by hundreds of attendees from the SCAD, Savannah and Tybee Island communities.

A Judge’s Perspective

I have attended the Sand Arts Festival over the years and walked around and marveled at the creativity and fabulous designs these students come up with. Each year, the designs are equally magnificent as the students compete for top prizes. 

This year, I served as a juror for the festival and I knew the decision would not be an easy one. I was one of four judges in the SCAD 40^th anniversary category. This was the top prize! 

Luckily, one of my fellow judges, Patty, had judged in this category before. She gave us her expert opinion as we walked around all the incredible masterpieces. The designs we judged were based on three categories: Creativity, Originality and Craftsmanship.

Most of the designs are made by 2-6 team members and they start at 10 a.m. and finish at 2 p.m. for the judging.

There were lots of bees (the SCAD mascot), SCAD buildings, the SCAD 40 Volkswagen beetles, and wind sculptures with the SCAD 40 theme for us to choose from. After walking around all the creations made the by the students, faculty, alumni and staff, our team of jurors deliberated which ones were our top choice. There was a clear winner but we also had to pick a runner-up. This choice was a bit harder as we were not just picking a sand relief or sand sculpture, we had to pick one across all categories that showcased the most SCAD 40 spirit.

Patty agreed this is always a hard choice because you not only picking a winner across all categories, but also it can be an alumni, faculty, student or staff. The rules for competition are the same and the winners are picked from the one pool. In the end, we did select our winners.

The Poetter Marionetter was an air sculpture created by a SCAD alum. The design had a replica of the Poetter Hall sign and the two cannons on either side. The design was impressive and even interactive!

Sand Arts Projects

The designs and concepts begin long before 10 am on the beach for these students. As the spring quarter begins, many students, especially in the foundations studies departments, are tasked with projects about the designs they will create and compete with at the Sand Arts Festival.

Professor Deni Javas teaches a class in three-dimensional design. Over the spring quarter, her class was given a project to create a 3-D sculpture. I attended her class to see the students designs and final sculptures. They talked about their design choices, inspiration, materials and strategy for showcasing their sculpture at the beach. Even though all the students had worked in their teams to create their assignments, some of the students had decided they were not going show their sculpture at the beach.

Their designs varied in styles and materials – some were made of plastic, wood, yarn, PVC pipes, metal and even balloons. The students had clearly worked hard on their projects and speaking to them about their designs and inspiration was fascinating.

During one of the classes, the students had guest artist mentor, Gerry Stecca, come speak to them about creating sculptures for the outdoors. He critiqued the students projects and challenged them to make changes to improve their designs.

One of the student groups who took Professor Stecca’s advice and showcased at the beach were the Dreadlock Jellies and their wind creation from the classroom to the beach.

This group won runner-up for the wind category! All their creativity, hard-work, preparation and teamwork was recognized at the event.

Planning of Sand Arts

Professor Deni Javas along with a few other foundations professors, Susan Hopp, Debra Malschick, Honor Bowman and other faculty worked together to organize this year’s Sand Arts Festival.
This is a huge undertaking each year to coordinate the parking, logistics, transportation, judges, volunteers, installations and prizes. Professor Javas said her favorite part of this event was "discussing the event with all the students".

Map of the beach layout

This year, one of the major things to keep an eye on was the weather. There was rain being called for even on Friday morning. It did rain early in the morning and it was an overcast cloudy day but this made for perfect beach weather for the students to create their castles and sculptures without the sun beating down. Hundreds of students were at the beach early in the morning to begin sculpting their creations to perfection!

Dean Maureen Garvin said one of her favorite things about this event is

“the collaboration among the students, their excitement about the work they create and seeing amazing work happen!”

Picture Gallery

Sources
M. Garvin, personal communication, May 4, 2019.
D. Javas, personal communication, May 1, 2019.
P. Henke, personal communication, May 3, 2019.
Savannahnow. (May 4, 2019). Sand Arts Festival 2019 video. Retrieved https://youtu.be/yYAqJE_tA-o