Newspaper article appearing in the Springfield, Missouri News Leader & Press, approximately 1939.

"You've probably never heard of sand art. Neither had we until we went out to George Scharpf's market the other day to see one of the few remaining bottles of the once celebrated colored sand art of Andrew Clemens.

When Mr. Scharpf ran across a newspaper story about one of the bottles turning up in Iowa, he remembered that his father had purchased one some 50 years ago, and that it probably was still kicking around in the attic someplace. He found it, and it is still in excellent condition.

The bottle is a little difficult to describe. It is a cylindrical bottle of the kind that used to sit on drug store shelves. At top and bottom are fancy borders of varied colors, and on either side is a picture. On one side is a marine scene, with a ship in full sail, and on the other is a bouquet of flowers. The pictures are made of different colored sand which was chosen with such a fine gradation of tints and colors that one shade blends into another as though the pictures had been printed.

Clemens, as Mr. Scharpf recalls it, originated the art, and it is said to have died with him. Using tiny tools of this own design, Clemens ëbuiltî the pictures by placing the sand in the bottle one grain at a time. No glue was used. When filled to the last grain, they were sealed with wax.

It was slow and laborious work, as a result of which Clemens' output was not large. He realized little from his work, and now the bottles are valued at hundreds of dollars. One of them is owned by the art museum at Milwaukee.

Mr. Scharpf recalls that Clemens charged his father $2.50 for his bottle."


Home Page