Sand sculpture festival in Fairfield

Fairfield (WTNH) - Some artists are spending the day at the beach in Fairfield creating sand sculptures.

They started by trucking in tons of special sand, but they don't use the traditional shovel and bucket. These guys are using backhoes to create their works of art.

"And we fill the sand in layers, kind of like building a birthday cake. So we're adding the layers of sand right now and getting all the air out of it," said Sean Fitzpatrick, sand sculptor.

Last year Sean created a stunning image of the nearby Penfield lighthouse at the Penfield Beach Sand Sculpture Festival. This year, the festival added Suzanne Altamare.

"What I'm doing is called soft sand, so I'm not compacting, I'm just working with the sand as it's dumped," Suzanne explained.

Suzanne will create an image of one of the Fairfield University buildings with that sand. Suzanne and Sean are both professional sand sculptors. They'll work on their art for two days, and then, based on last year, it will only stick around for maybe a couple weeks.

"We were more than happy because the lighthouse lasted two weeks, and we were happy that the residents were able to see it for that two week period," said Paige Herman, Fairfield Beach Residents Association.

That's the theme of Sean's sculpture this year. He's basing his work on a Jeffrey Ford book about mythical beings that are born whenever a child makes a sand castle. You think about the temporary nature of existence a lot when your life is spent making art out of sand.

"As human beings, as life forms, we're only here on this planet for a very short period of time, a very short window of existence, so we're all ephemeral in a sense, so art that is ephemeral speaks to the human emotion, I think, tighter than anything else," Sean said.

An amateur sand sculpture contest will be held Sunday morning from 9-11.