Sand World 2007 Festival Opens in Germany

PASSAU, Germany, July 5, 2007 — -- More than 70 sculptors from 15 countries have been spending the last few weeks creating massive sand sculptures on the long, white-sand beach in Travemuende, a small sea resort sitting on the Baltic Sea coast in northern Germany.

The theme for this year's Sand World Festival is "A Journey Through Time" and it will feature historical figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Jana Kuerbis, the art director of the festival, told ABC News, "To come here and enjoy seeing those gigantic sand sculptures is a great experience. I'm sure it reminds almost everybody of his or her own experiences with sand — building sand castles in summer or baking delicious sand cakes. It's just that out here everything is so much bigger."

The artists work only with sand and water, and yes, patience.

About 9,000 tons of special sculpturing sand have been delivered to the 10,000-square-meter site for the artists to create their works.The sand has an angular grain and comes from a local sand-and-mortar factory near Berlin.

The "Journey through Time" has inspired the sculptors to come up with plenty of features: from Stone Age people gathering around a fire and Columbus discovering America to astronaut Neil Armstrong doing a giant leap for mankind and "Star Wars."

Daniel Robert Glover, a professional carver from Florida is here for the sixth time this year, he's putting the finishing touches on his "Michelangelo Carving David."

"This is a pretty large festival. I enjoy working here. Everybody is in a pretty good mood and it's a great atmosphere despite of the rain showers and despite of the stormy wind we're having from time to time," Glover said.

So, what happens to the sand sculptures in case of wind or storm, or when it is pouring rain?

Kuerbis said, "Nothing happens. The rainwater is absorbed by the sand and evaporates later. Only with heavy, driving rain can horizontal surfaces be affected by a sort of 'granular structure' due to the impact of the raindrops. Stormy weather is no problem either, because the sand is compressed so hard, wind cannot get hold of it."