Surprised, blown away, and ... guilty - that's Sydney sculptor David Horton's reaction to winning the $30,000 major prize at Bondi's 2007 Sculpture by the Sea.
The 34-year-old National Art School teacher won the gong for his sculpture Yesternight , a playful, abstract work of steel loops, angles and arches.
"Surprised and blown away," was his response when asked about his win - not unusual, most would say.
But guilty? It all came down to being an absent father this past month, he said.
"Just in the last month while I've been preparing it, it's taken up quite a bit of time," he said.
"I've been able to keep teaching right the way through, and after teaching I would have to stay back of a night just to work on the sculptures. I've been a bit of an absent father for bed time."
To make up for his absence, and salve his guilt, Horton will now shower his wife Ananda (Ananda) and two young sons Tom and Sam with gifts, he said.
"I think they deserve something ... something nice for putting up with me while I've been making this sculpture," he said.
Horton began Yesternight nearly a year ago, without much thought of Sculpture By the Sea.
But as the work took shape, he felt it became an obvious fit for the sculpture exhibition.
"It's really a response to the material ... all the refuse from the metal industry provides us with a lot of different shapes and angles and curves," he said of Yesternight .
"I wanted to arrange those elements in a sculpture that read like a sentence. Also I wanted it to have a musical sensibility, because music is one of my interests.
"It was a pleasure to work on, and it just evolved by itself really."
Now in its 11th year, Sculpture By the Sea is expected to attract more than half a million visitors to the two-kilometre stretch of shoreline dividing Tamarama Beach and Bondi.
There are more than 100 sculptures in this year's exhibition, with the mix of giant kangaroos and ants, and abstract sculptures like Yesternight , providing "something for everyone", Horton said.
Sculpture by the Sea was a "great forum for sculptors to make an ambitious work", he said.
"It's a cumbersome art form ... just to be able to make something with a bit of size to put in a landscape is just a wonderful opportunity," Horton said.
"Sculpture by the Sea breaks down rarified sort of spaces like art galleries, and people are able to more easily enjoy the work."
Sculpture by the Sea runs until November 18.
Feeds