Wax Sculptures : Realistic Replicas of You and Me

Collecting sculptures can be a very rewarding experience, but sometimes its just as enjoyable to take a trip down to your local museum and bask in the art. For europeans, the wax museum is often a good place to observe a different sort of sculpture style.

Wax museums started with the travels and collections of Marie Tussaud, who lived in the eighteenth century, but is now the most popular name in the business of wax sculpture museums. The original Tussaud set up her first show in the 1830’s on Baker Street in London. Today, her establishments can be found all over the world, some more famous locations are the fixed ones in Dam Square – Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai and the one in Times Square – New York.

The Movieland Wax museum in Buena Park, California was also a big hit with the tourists that come to see these lifesize replicas of famous people and scenes in human history. Though that particular museum had to close its doors in 2005 after over forty years of service.

Beatles Wax Sculpture Replicas – Photography by Lasse Havelund

The Hollywood wax museum in California is another famous location where movie actors can be seen as surprisingly accurate wax sculptures. The Musee Conti Wax Museum in Lousiana has its own Haunted Dungeon of wax cast figures sure to terrify any crowd.

These are just some of your more popularized destinations to go for wax sculptures, but the trend is pretty spread out all over the globe. It’s a change from the regular art auction or gallery exhibit, because you get to see something new. Wax sculptures are usually done in a style of realism that can be very detailed and accurate when compared to the actual model. In time, I’m not surprised if many more museums will make use of new was casting methods to display their collections in almost-real scenarios.

Sand Sculpting Festivals Around the Globe

Around the world, sand festivals are growing in popularity. Sometimes called Sand Sculpture Festivals because of the main attraction involved, thousands of people gather to witness both the making of monumentally scaled sand artwork, and the exhibit of diverse compositions one would never see at a regular gallery. These festivals showcase the talent and flexibility of sculptors while testing their mastery. Working with sand as a medium is often difficult because of its grainy tendency to crumble down. During the Sand Sculpting Australia “Dinostory” Festival, sculptors were excited to sculpt their favorite prehistoric subjects out of raw beach sand. The Australian Festival is a yearly event that is held at Frankston, Victoria since 2008.

Sand Sculpture – Photography by John O’ Neill

Other countries that encourage this type of sculptural activity include Canada (Lau Beauchamp Park and Clam Harbor in Nova Scotia), Germany (Berlin’s Sandsation Festival) and India (Goa Sand Festival) among others. Many subjects that are sculpted in sand are drawn directly from themes given during the competition, however some artits, like Patnaik in India, prefer to sculpt artwork in support for a specific cause like the tsunami strike in Puri.

The most widespread sand sculpting festival in Portugal; the International Sand Sculpture Festival was the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. It has been held in Algarve since 2003. Russia also contributes to the worldwide phenomena of sand sculpting, with its recent 2005 sand show; “Animal World” which was held at the Moscow Zoo. To much of everybody’s surprise, the venue and inspirational surroundings gave the artists exactly what they needed to put up one heck of a show. Sand sculpting around the world has been the recent dream of many artists and even some regular beach-hoppers. It’s a fun and recreational practice that encourages creativity in today’s fast-paced society.