Sculptor on the beach

Please Rate Vote 1 Vote 2 Vote 3 Vote 4 Vote 5

by Sjöblom, Andreas

You might have seen his sand sculptures by the Malecon. You might have even seen him sitting next to them in the sand, with his long hair and bearded face, resting after a hard day's work. You might have seen all that, but you probably still haven't seen the man behind it all.

This is he: Juan Guillermo Corbera Aleman, a 28 year-old from Mexico City. One day, about five years ago, Juan found himself sitting in school, halfway through his degree in Anthropology (he already had a law degree), unhappy and thinking "What I am doing here? I'm always dreaming about being somewhere else, about seeing the world. So why don't I just do it?"

He came here six months ago, on December 24th. He was really on my way to Los Cabos to try to sell some silver. But as I was walking down the Malecon with my backpack seeing if I could maybe sleep on the beach, something caught my attention. It was these wonderful sand sculptures."

Impressed by what he saw, Juan walked up to the sculptor and asked if he could watch him and maybe learn from him. The man agreed, but only if he was willing to work. Juan started working that same day, and two weeks later he made his first sand sculpture.

Picture, Sculptor Juan Guillermo Corbera Aléman, pictured here, has found a ready-made studio – on the beach.
Photo by