Like the heaping piles of sand to be sculpted this weekend, the annual SandCastles event at Samuel Myers Park may be taking a new shape in due time.

While Sunday's event is set to take place on the beach off 11th Street, it may be the last time you see it in its current form and location.

The Racine Arts Council, which has a new executive director, is rethinking the event which began in 2000. There aren't any definite changes in store, just a number of possibilities.

One is to move SandCastles: A Festival of Creating from Samuel Myers park. Perhaps it could move to North Beach which is a center of water-focused activities, said Jessika Mikol. She is the new executive director of the council and replaces the late Lorna Hennig who started SandCastles. The Downtown Racine Corp. has also expressed interest in having the festival on Monument Square, she said.

Both of these options raise the question of sand. For sculptors the sand quality at Myers Park is very good, said Mike Rude, the council's program director. The sand is damp and thick which makes it easy to work. The sculpting technique used by experienced artists, he said, is to build a mound of sand and then carve it as one would carve a block of marble.

In its first year the festival also brought in sand so a team of students from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design could create a showpiece sculpture, Rude said. Hauling that sand in was expensive, and organizers also ran right into state regulations that restrict dumping at the water's edge.

The organic materials available on Myers beach are also an asset, Mikol said, such as the grasses which some sculptors work into their creations.

"I'd like to do stuff for teens in the future," Mikol said. The face painting and hula hoops featured this year are for younger children, she said, whereas teens may be attracted by tie-dying, batik or some other fabric art which would be relatively easy to do in the few hours of a weekend festival. A remodeled festival may include more performance art, which hula hoop dancing essentially is, she said.

The first festival was large. It was spread over a Saturday and a Sunday, which meant there had to be security guards, and there was an admission fee, Rude said.

"And we realized we made it too big," he said. "In the following years we pared it down and made it a simple thing."

There are no professional sculptors now, and to the best of his knowledge all the competitors come from the area.

"And people really enjoy the amateur competition," Rude said. "It's a local event, and people like to see the local people."

The event really lasts beyond its day, too. Although SandCastles typically attract several hundred people while the sculpting teams are at work, Rude said, it's also pleasant to view the completed works in the evening after all the competitors have gone and all the barriers have been removed. Then it's just the water, the sand and the sculptures.

There are sand sculpting competitions in other countries where teams take days to work on an entry. Mikol said she sees the festival as a sculpting contest rather than an event about creating sand castles. And in fact teams don't necessarily create castles. Some come with plans designed ahead of time on home computers. Others carve whatever their imaginations supply in the moment. Emphasizing sculpture would also reflect the council's mission of bringing art to the public, Mikol said.

"You know," Rude said, "art can be created by anyone."

If You Go

WHAT: SandCastles: A Festival of Creating

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Judging is at 3 p.m.

WHERE: Samuel Myers Park,

11th Street at the lakefront.

ATTRACTIONS: Music by the Matthew Haeffel band, and for kids face painting, bubbles and hula hoops.

COST: Admission to the festival is free. Teams, which can have as many as 10 people, pay $5 to register in advance or $10 on the day of the event. Prizes are: $200 for first place, $100 for second, and $50 for third, and each also includes a piece by local artist Jeff Shawhan. There is also a $100 prize for the most unusual sand sculpture.

INFO: Registration forms are available at http://www.racineartscouncil.org

(click on calendar page). Information is also available by calling the Racine Arts Council at (262) 635-0261.