Building Sandcastles Is Her Bread and Butter

Clearly, Carolyn Shearer has the best summer job.

She spends her time building sandcastles at monthly beach workshops and teaching kids how to boogie board, body surf and use snorkeling equipment.

The Dana Point woman has become so popular that she is often hired for private parties and company beach gatherings where she demonstrates the intricacies of sand sculpture.

Her sand art includes airplanes and bumper cars, “things you could sit in or sit on,” she said. Her skill was acquired from years of beach living, much of it in La Jolla, where she was born.

“I’ve never had a lesson in sand sculpture,” said the mother of two, who plans to enroll in school soon to become an operating-room technician. “Like other beach kids, you picked it up from each other.”

Sand sculpture is not always easy.

“Wet sand becomes very heavy and hard to move,” she said, “but the more volunteers you have, the easier it gets. Workshops are a definite plus because of the numbers of kids.”

She also points out that sand sculpturing is easier now than in earlier days when she had few tools to help build her creations. Now, she said, sand sculptors in competitions use forms, trowels and such things as trash cans for the turrets in sandcastles.

Shearer teaches the “volcano method” in her monthly workshops. “You start out by piling sand together and pouring buckets and buckets of sea water over it.”

Because of the fun she had with sand as a child, she said, “I like to see kids take part and create something out of nothing. The reward is seeing the look on their faces after they complete a sculpture.”

Shearer is a former ballet student at the University of Mexico and a one-time competitive swimmer and swim instructor. She got her sand-workshop job three years ago by answering a newspaper advertisement placed by the Youth Group Facility in Dana Point. The workshop “just took off,” she said. “It became a big family-oriented project.”

That pleased her.

“I’m kid-oriented,” said Shearer, who has also been a school crossing guard for 10 years and remembers that she “was pregnant four years ago and was so big it’s no wonder the cars had to stop.”

Although qualified as a judge for sandcastle sculpture contests, she shies away from that. “I’ve been asked to judge contests, but I don’t because so many of the contestants were kids in my class,” she explained.

As for herself: “I don’t enter contests. I’m not a competitive person,”

Shearer admits that she may not be the best sand sculptor around.

“I’m not perfect,” she said. “All my corners are not squared properly,” a fault that may be created by the fact of having 20 kids crawling around the sculpture. “You really can’t take that great care.”

She is philosophical about the short life of a sand sculpture. “It’s pretty much true to life,” she said. “Everything has a cycle of life. You are born and you die, but you try to find some goodness and make your mark in life.”

And she adds: “Hopefully, while we are here, you help someone appreciate the world we live in.”