One-Night Sand

From the boardwalk you can see him, with his beard and dark curly hair, half-kneeling and half-lying on the mound of sand. He carefully shapes the sand—carving, patting, piling more on, scooping some away, spraying it down, standing back to survey, returning to make a change here or there. Gradually, a larger-than-life figure of Christ on the cross emerges. As a passerby on the boardwalk, you feel as though you have watched prayer become an art form.

For four years, Randy Hofman has been ministering in a unique way to thousands of tourists and locals who come to the beach resort of Ocean City, Maryland. The 33-year-old, who actually is an ordained minister, now has boardwalk vacationers for a congregation, a biblical scene sculpted in sand for a text. An expanse of beach is his peripatetic pulpit. Each evening during the summer season, you can walk out on the beach at Second Street and join the crowd of admiring onlookers.

Hofman’s ministry has evolved over the past 11 years. After studying at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, he came to Ocean City to do seascapes and landscapes. Instead, he began working with Marc Altamar, an artist who was then doing sand sculptures on the beach and religious chalk drawings on a concrete slab on the boardwalk. When Altamar moved to Florida, Randy took over as unofficial sand sculptor-in-chief for the resort town. (In daytimes, he works as a professional sign painter.)

Randy’s daily routine is a rigorous one. Every afternoon at about 4, he comes to Ocean City from his home in nearby Berlin. He gathers his hose and flat shovel from the shed loaned to him by a nearby hotel. His only other tool is a plastic crab knife (for the fine work).

The first project is to dig a huge pit so his figures can be at an angle, thus less exposed to wind, rain, and gravity. As he digs, he wets the sand, giving it the adherence he needs. By 6 P.M., he is usually ready to start sculpting.

Often Hofman chooses his theme just an hour before, selecting from among his repertoire of about a hundred biblical settings. His choice is not entirely due to artistic motivation or the moving of the Spirit. “Actually, it’s a pragmatic approach, according to what’s left over from the night before, what the pile lends itself to, whether I have help that night, how much energy I have,” Randy admits.

His favorite theme is the Crucifixion, the “center of our faith.” Yet the crowds seem to like the more grandiose scenes, such as the Last Supper. The larger scenes, with their magnitude of intricate detail, tax Hofman’s stamina.

The Last Supper, for instance, demands attention not only to composition (“It’s basically the Leonardo da Vinci composition of the table”), but to dozens of smaller matters. He gives Peter a bald head, and also identifies Judas and Matthew. “But the rest of the guys I make a cross section of humanity—a giant guy, a skinny guy, a fat guy, a happy guy, a tough, stern guy,” Hofman reports. Randy uses workers at the local hotel as his models of humanity.

“They usually turn out to be the best portraits of the disciples sitting at the table.”

Cast in marble, his figures might serve as a monument to Christian faith. Cast in sand, they are often destroyed by the elements before morning. Yet Randy sees a message even in their temporariness. His work is to glorify God and to bring hungry souls to salvation in Jesus, not to bring himself acclaim. Passersby may also be reminded of their own transience.

Hofman hopes they will understand that “today is the day of salvation. People get bugged that I don’t make the sculptures in more solid forms. That’s flattering, but I think the Lord has been gracious to me in allowing me to practice on sand.”

At 9 P.M., tired and covered with his artistic medium, Randy faces the gathered crowd. Now, leaning on his shovel, wandering from spot to spot, he preaches—this time a sermon with words. He wants his 15-minute sermon heard by all who come to hear him, whether out of curiosity or desire to praise God.

Randy’s initial ministry did not include the preaching. “I’m not by nature a public speaker. People think I’m very bold and courageous and dynamic out here. I used to worry about preaching, but now it’s like it was for the apostles: It comes in the hour I need to know. I quiet down and think just before I preach. The only thing I try to prepare is the opening line—something relevant to the evening’s theme—to get people’s attention.” Each sermon ends with a basic proclamation of salvation.

At 9:30, Randy’s informal sermon is over. He moves closer to the attentive group gathered on the boardwalk. Some have questions; some seek counsel; some just listen.

By midnight (on some nights it’s later), as the artist begins to put his tools away, the elements are already erasing his message in the sand.

By Sara Lewis, a free-lance writer living in Ocean City, Maryland.

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