I knew this task was gonna be messy. Given that, I decided it would be best to do it outdoors. But since I do not own a piece of land that allows me privacy, doing the task outside would mean being vulnerable to the scrutiny of neighbors and folks passing on the street. I realized the obvious thing to do would be to bite the embarrassment bullet and embrace public scrutiny, taking my blindfolded sculpture project to the very public beach.

I loaded up my bag with supplies: Clay, odd arifacts, paint and brushes, paper towels, water, and twine. I found myself a nice shady spot under a tree

laid out all of my supplies, tied my bag to my leg with twine (in case anyone decided to take advantage of my lack of sight and steal it)

and blindfolded myself


I took a lot of really horrible pictures of the sculpting and painting process, of my surroundings, and of absolutely nothing. I spared this praxis most of them but click through the photos below for a sampling.

One of the many photos of nothing


While sculpting I listened to the waves and seagulls, and to the loud drone of hundreds of people around me laughing and playing and chatting. I had a sneaking suspicion many people around me were saying things about me under their breath, but the only two conversations about me I overheard were:
Young girl, "daddy, that lady is being messy."
Daddy, in a disapproving voice, "yeah."

And
Twentyish sounding girl talking on her cell phone loudly nearby gets a little quieter and says, "there's this weird girl here finger painting or something with a blindfold on. *pause* Yeah. I don't know."

After an unknown amount of time spent sculpting my clay and then painting my final product, I finally felt the piece was finished. I removed the blindfold and took in my piece of art. And wow *ahem*, yeah, it was something to behold.


I also took a look at the many people around me and realized most were pretty blatantly avoiding eye contact. It was obvious my little art project had made quite a few people few confused and uncomfortable. Excellent. But I also noticed a young girl, about eight, watching both me and my sculpture with utter enchantment. After making eye contact and exchanging smiles with the woman I assumed to be her mother, I approached the young girl and asked her what she thought of the sculpture. The girl was not shy at all, and said she liked it very much. I told her I would like to give it to her but hoped that first she could help me name it. She was quite excited by this prospect and knelt in front of the sculpture in contemplation for quite a while.


Eventually she stood up and said, "Mount Green Grape. Mount because it is a mountain. Green because it is covered in forest. And grape because there are grapes growing on it."
I told her I thought that was an excellent name and that the piece was hers to keep.
Then I packed up my things as those around me looked on with skeptical and perplexed eyes, and headed home.