Until our recent vacation, we hadn’t been to the beach for so long that we’d forgotten what wonders lay there: raw materials free for the playing with…
…Our friend James brought a ball with him, then hunted for the perfect piece of driftwood, for a pick-up game of stickball
(and we realized that we never really thought about that form of rough-and-tumble baseball born of improvisation: Don’t have a bat? Use a stick!)…
We watched five year old Diego make his amazing sand palace, with its many sea-gull-feathered turrets and underground waterways…
…and it reminded us of the sand paintings we posted about last year…
…and the the possibilities for making forts and dribble castles, and the Sand Castle Contest that takes place every October at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, that our friend Kim Sykes helps organize, a wild competition between teams of architects, engineers, contractors, designers and local elementary school students…
There is sky to float kites in, and waves to ride…no two alike…
We found smooth stones and spent hours stacking them into perfectly balanced sculptures that we knew would be gone tomorrow…
It’s the last days of summer… time to take advantage of the wonderful palette-for-improvising that is the beach.
Thanks for the mention of Leap’s 27th Annual Sandcastle Contest. It’s a huge fundraiser for providing art & architecture programs to San Francisco area public schools. “Leap…imagination in learning” is a force in inspiring improvisation and creativity and fits in well with the improvised life manifesto.
Hi Kim, We hope to post pix of this year’s Sandcastle Contest…wishing you big success!
What a surprise to read your mention Kim! Look forward to the contest being in my front yard this year! See you soon:)