Andrew Clemens Sand Art. Clemens is credited with "inventing" this rare art form of building beautiful artwork out of sand, one grain at a time. To this day no other artist has achieved his level of skill or determined how he did it. Clemens produced hundreds of sand bottles, but only a small number of these fragile artworks have survived. His peak period of production was 1880-1886 & each of the more ornate bottles could take up to a year to complete. Mr. Clemens was born in 1857 & grew up along the Mississippi River in Iowa. Clemens lost his hearing during a childhood illness & was educated at the Iowa State School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs. He & his brothers frequented the Mississippi River Valley near Pikes Peak State Park, famous for its variegated sandstone bluffs, veined w/iron & mineral deposits resulting in over forty different shades of stone. He began making sand bottles one summer vacation in the early 1870's. He & his brothers would gather dislodged pieces of sandstone from the bluffs, sort them, then dry & grind each sample into fine powder, giving Andrew a rich palette to choose from. He painstakingly constructed grain by grain using his home-made hickory sticks & bent fish hooks. His works have been examined by experts. None have determined how he achieved this skill as his artwork often required his sand bottles to be crafted upside down & backwards. This very rare sand art bottle is 4"H. One side shows a distant sailing ship on water inside an oval border surrounded by a spray of roses. The opposite side features the date 1884 w/colorful geometric flourishes connecting the two. It is among the smallest Mr. Clemens made during his peak period. There is some disruption in the sand in the first inch from the top of the bottle, while the rest is in Exc cond w/great clarity & unrivaled craftsmanship.