Sand Sculptors

Nobody remembers his name but oldtime vacationers at Atlantic City, N. J. ("Playground of the World") say that the resort's first sand sculptor was a young artist who showed up on the beach one day in the 1890's and molded from a mountain of wet sand a lifelike figure of a scantily-clad young woman clutching a baby. He labeled the result "Cast up by the Sea." The piece so affected passersby on the boardwalk above that they tossed coins down to the artist, who was soon followed to the beach by other itinerant modelers. By 1910 sand sculptors, with bucket, blanket or hat to receive contributions, had become as much an Atlantic City fixture as its wheelchairs, fortune-tellers and Million-Dollar Pier.*

To promote interest, sand sculptors took to modeling topical subjects. Roosevelt I long reigned a favorite. Then came Woodrow Wilson, doughboys emerging from trenches, caricatures of the Kaiser, militant suffragets, airplanes, Lindbergh, Mickey Mouse. The more enterprising even reproduced old paintings like The Doctor and Washington Crossing the Delaware. Most subjects were done in bas-relief. Although whispering lovers and mermaids survived all passing fancies, religious figures were ruled out some 17 years ago when a colored life-size Crucifixion (green cross, brown Christ, vivid red thorns and nails) remained intact after a rainstorm and such throngs of the pious came to kneel and pray before it that bathers were inconvenienced.

Figures carved from wet sand are vulnerable to rain, wind and tide. Long ago the sand sculptors learned to mix one part of cement with three or four parts of beach, and their creations will withstand two or three years of hail or high water. But last week another force threatened to wipe out permanently much of the itinerant artists' handiwork and a livelihood which, although sand sculpturing has remained the piece de resistance and principal attraction, has lately come from the more lucrative practice of sketching board-walkers who pause to gawp at the modeling. Last week's threat came from the City Hall where Mayor Charles D. White, mindful that ice-cream and newspaper vendors are forbidden beach concessions, broadly hinted that beach artists are unlawful trespassers, have "no more right to do business on the beach than anyone else." What had aroused Mayor White was the sand sculptors' latest elaboration of their trade: making exhibits so big and permanent that they can live in them.

Close-mouthed artists refuse to say how much rent they pay for riparian rights to their small plots of sand. To the City they pay nothing for licenses. But they readily admit that they weekly net somewhere around $50 each, after rent and assistants' fees of $25. Most famed of the beach's seven oldtime artists is a barrel-chested, cow-eyed Calabrian named Dominick ("Nick") Spagnola who has sculptured next to the Steel Pier for 17 years. Self-taught, he pioneered floodlighting, cement statues, the personal sketch. Ten years ago, against his better artistic judgment, he installed easel and paper sketching pads to meet modern competition. He has sand-modeled such celebrities as Paderewski, Caruso, Valentino, Gilda Gray, Portraitist William Chase (who told him to "keep it up"). He specializes in monumental masterpieces like "The Empty Chair," "Lion of Lucerne," "Old Skipper's Tale." A special Spagnola attraction is a pair of big sand & cement dragons with light-bulb eyes, open mouths to receive coins which tinkle down through the animal, land on spaces marked "Papa Love Mama," "You're a Bit Tight." Last year Sculptor Spagnola ran a coin vote with busts of Landon and Roosevelt. Roosevelt won.

Nearby Spagnola works another old-world artist, George Spetsas, who was born on the Isle of Samothrace, went to Atlantic City at 19 because his brother was a hotel waiter there. No foreigner is 32-year-old Paul Jones of Pottstown, Pa., whose permanent display, The Spirit of Atlantic City, presents boardwalkers with a view of Neptune taking a good look at a mermaid.

Among the sketching upstarts is Sam Faier, youthful graduate of Philadelphia's School of Industrial Art, who in winter teaches art at Germantown High School, does odd jobs for newspapers. His biggest tip ($2) came from his biggest customer, Primo Camera. Jack Dempsey, Jackie Coogan, Max Baer each gave him $1, Al Jolson 50-c-. Once he sketched Sketcher James Montgomery Flagg who thereupon jumped off the boardwalk, sketched Sketcher Faier. But when Flagg finished for Faier a picture of a mother & moppet, the mother declared it a bad likeness, angrily tossed Flagg 15-c-.

Although Mayor White has not yet gone so far as to urge elimination of all the beach artists, he deplores the trend toward commercialism, would prefer a return to the oldtime "innocuous" status, intimates that he will take steps if boardwalkers are further bothered by money-chiseling sand-chiselers who persist in erecting by their studios such poems as: Kind words I like to hear To praise I'm deferential Criticisms I get now & then But the coins are the things essential.

*Built in 1906 at a cost of $600,000.

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