Written By Elaine Bean
As formerly published in The Courier.
Randy Hofman believes every artist is a salesman. “He or she says ‘See there! See there!’ – implying that it’s beautiful to behold or worthy to consider,” he said. “Art is something to share and connect us.”
Hofman has been connecting art and beachgoers for 40 years with his large, intricate, religious-themed sand sculptures on the Boardwalk in front of the Plim Plaza Hotel at 2nd St. “I’m an artist and a minister,” he said, “and I combine the two in the Biblical sand sculptures.”
The artist has now branched out his mission to connect people with art, filling the Roland E. Powell Convention Center with more than 30 large-sized paintings representing life at the resort. The paintings are on permanent display and open to the public for viewing.
“My paintings focus on the life that exists in the space between the land and the sea,” Hofman said. “Here you can see the ages of life … What we share is the love and care of our young ones, and the ones we grow old with. Like the waves on the beach, this cycle continues from generation to generation.”
Hofman has also just completed a custom sand sculpture to promote the Art League of Ocean City’s annual Sand Castle Home Tour, being held virtually this year from Oct. 1-31. Attendees at the ArtX Fest at Northside Park in August enjoyed watching Hofman build the sand castle right before their eyes. “The Art League of Ocean City — and its home at the Ocean City Center for the Arts on 94th St. — is a hub of productivity and fellowship,” Hofman said. “It helps artists network in the community. It helps to get feedback, criticism and encouragement.”
Hofman, who currently lives in Ocean Pines with his wife, Marilynne, was born in Washington, D.C. and spent his formative years in the countryside nearby before studying advertising design and visual communication at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. After spending every summer season in Ocean City since 1974, he moved to the resort permanently in 1978, when the town was much different than it is today.
“The winter of ‘78-‘79 was the coldest in memory,” Hofman recalled. “That’s when the Delaware Bay froze, and the ice drifted down the coast and ripped off the end of the amusement pier. The chunks of ice were as big as Volkswagen Beetles sitting on the beach until spring … It took four summers to break through the barrier of remaining in Ocean City over the winter. Back in the ‘70s, the town flushed out on Labor Day until next spring. Slowly the off season developed. I’d go to Buck Mann Property Management for any sign and art work I could contract, and he would package projects just to get me through the winter.”
These days, Hofman creates art in his studio in Newark, Md. from source material he discovers out in the community. “The most pleasure is to paint on location,” he said. “That way, for a few hours, you get a double reward. There’s the joy of being a part of nature in real time, and the souvenir you materially create to later share. The next best thing is to go on a photo safari for source material to bring back to the studio to manufacture the finished piece. The studio is a workshop, a controlled environment needed to execute the concept. It may be a rainy day in the winter, but in my studio down in Newark which is 7 miles west of and 8 miles south of downtown Ocean City, I’m spending the day living the scene created in the painting being worked on.”
Hofman’s work can be described as regional, in that he celebrates what it means to live and play and work here. “There is a saying, ‘All art is regional,’ or to put it biblically, ‘What you behold, you become.’ And there is also another, ‘As a man thinketh, so he is’,” he said. “Our area by the sea coast is disarmingly beautiful, and the culture of ‘the good life’ and ‘the land of pleasant living’ is savored by anyone who comes here from the metro belt. That’s why so many drive long distances to refresh their souls here. It’s the same as the artists of Paris going to the south of France to be inspired and paint.”
As a natural and alternative way of showing his love of the land and the sea, Hofman is developing a flourishing gardening project at Mariner’s Country Down in Berlin. Reggie Mariner had hired him to build a 5-foot tall concrete castle in his formal garden that led to Hofman planting a permaculture fig, elderberry, and fruit tree orchard on the property. “It’s an ongoing ‘art is life project’ for me,” Hofman said, as he continues to make beautiful things grow.