Donnie DeWees has been an international professional sand sculptor for the last 35+ years. Seeing the ephemeral nature of sand sculpture as being the antithesis of architecture, he has helped propel the art form from its infancy in the early 1980’s on the beaches of Southern California to the world-wide status that it has obtained now. Sand sculpting has taken Donnie to Kamaishi, Japan and to twenty different U.S. states.
Donnie was one of the founding members of Archisand Professional Sand Sculptors with Greg LeBon starting in 1989 and has been an integral part of Archisand for the last 31 years. http://socalsandcastles.com/
“You borrow sand from the ocean for a short time, you make something wonderful from it, and then you return the sand to mother earth. It’s the most earth-friendly art form there is.”
-Donnie DeWees
Having mastered Sand Castles and most Sand Sculptures in the traditional sense, the art of Sand Sculpture began to explore more conceptual pieces of art in an attempt to push the medium towards more abstract ideas. These pieces, highly meaningful in their design and left more up to individual viewer interpretation than literal meanings, have found their way into the U.S. Sand Sculpting Challenge held each Labor Day in San Diego, California (pandemics notwithstanding) giving local and international Sand Sculptors a highly visible forum for their ideas…all within the context of a traditional Sand Sculpture Contest and Exhibition. The Team of Archisand has participated in this event for the last decade.
U.S. SAND SCULPTING CHALLENGE - SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNINA - "FACE YOURSELF"
U.S. SANDSCULPTING CHALLENGE - SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA - "DOVE IN HANDS"
