ESSEX JUNCTION — When you take a visit to the Champlain Valley Fair this week, be sure to head to the indoor expo floor. There, you will find a tall, imposing sculpture with bees, butterflies and flowers on it. The sculpture’s medium? Not stone, or marble, but sand.
The sand sculpture was built by well-known artist Dan Belcher, who has been a sand sculptor since 1990. Over his 34 years in the profession, Belcher has sculpted from sand around the globe. His work has won him acclaim, with over 17 worldwide championship wins and accolades from sand sculpting competitions in San Diego, Virginia Beach and more.
Belcher originally learned of sand sculpting at a convention for landscape architects, where he saw a professional sand sculpting project that he said was “one of the neatest things I’d ever seen.” He became involved in the medium soon after and has never left the industry.
Though the fair opened this past Friday, Belcher has been hard at work since last Tuesday sculpting the sandcastle right there on the expo floor, making sure guests who poured in on opening day already had something to see. The sculpture took Belcher around 100 hours to complete.
Belcher first took his talents to the Champlain Valley Expo at last year’s fair. There, he did a more cartoonish, Vermont-inspired sculpture, complete with images of Champ the mythical Lake Champlain monster, a large pumpkin and maple leaves.
In his second year showing his work at the Champlain Valley Fair, Belcher told the Reporter he wanted his sculpture to go along with the theme of the expo room his work is in. With lots of vegetation on display at the fair, he decided to go with a “pollinators” theme, populating the sand with intricate butterfly, floral and honeycomb details.
While this year’s theme is pollinators, Belcher doesn’t necessarily gravitate toward any one subject for his art. He’s done everything from Disney projects to sand recreations of Renaissance art.
A giant sand sculpture isn’t exactly what you might expect at a fair. But the intricate craftsmanship makes it more than worth a visit after you’ve ridden all the rides and sampled your share of fair food. The sand sculpture stays intact due to large wooden boxes, or forms, that the sand is packed inside, small layers at a time.
The theme of Belcher’s sculpture for this year’s fair is pollinators.
The sand’s moisture provides a “binder;” there is no glue additive to keep the sculpture together.
Belcher said so far, the sculpture has had great response from fairgoers. Swing by, and you’ll likely see a small crowd walking around the sculpture, taking in all of the sophisticated, silty details.
Belcher’s sand sculpture will be on display through the end of the fair on September 1. At the end of the fair, Belcher’s hard work will go back into the expo, with the sand being used for other purposes around the exposition grounds.
