GLADSTONE & ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – Some artistic creations are making a big splash on the beaches of Delta County.
Last week, a bigfoot sand sculpture appeared on the Gladstone Beach. On Friday, another bigfoot was completed at Escanaba’s Municipal Beach.
The two sculptures—which depict the creature catching some sunrays and fishing on a boat—are the work of the ART Club Hub, a network of artists from across the region.
“I’m a former high school art teacher, and I quit to start my own studio about 13 years ago,” said Johnnie Martinez, owner and operator of ART Club Hub and Martinez Studio in Birch Run. “We discovered very quickly that we needed to do larger projects that I couldn’t handle myself, so I started calling on my friends and other colleagues in the area to help me.”
The ART Club Hub has produced sculptures at the U.P. State Fair for the last several years. Visit Escanaba reached out to the group about a potential project on the local beaches.
“Anytime we get an invitation in Escanaba, we jump on it right away,” Martinez said.
It took a team of three artists three eight-hour days to build each sculpture. Martinez says it’s a major undertaking to make large-scale sand carvings.
“It’s not just me and my carving tools; it’s me, my carving tools, and two other people that are working on the exact same project,” he explained. “It all has to come together in 360 degrees seamlessly so that it interprets well for everybody to see. There’s a lot of planning, stepping back, and making decisions on the fly and just kind of putting it together one step at a time.”
According to Martinez, the lifespan of the sculptures is largely dependent on the weather and human interaction. The artists used sand with high amounts of clay to help them stay together. If conditions are favorable, the sculptures could last up to a few months.
The ART Club Hub thanks Visit Escanaba for inviting its artists to the area and Gladstone’s Bay View Hotel for providing lodging.
To see more of the ART Club Hub’s creations, visit artclubhub.com or the group’s Facebook page.
