Andres Amador says that when he’s in the midst of creating one of his epic beach art installations, passers-by often become anxious when they notice the tide coming in. Many viewers just can’t grasp that someone would take the time to create such a beautiful piece of art, knowing that it’s fated to disappear. “There’s a sense of wonder, that someone would make something so large, and that it would wash away within a few hours,” says Amador, 43, a San Francisco Bay Area-based artist. “People are like, ‘Oh, it’s going to wash away. Aren’t you upset?”
No, he isn’t – and that’s exactly the point.
Amador used to create huge, metal sculptures that he displayed at Burning Man. Then, about 10 years ago, he reached what he called a “creative impasse,” and began to experiment with impermanent nature art. For Amador, the short lifespan of beach art is precisely what gives the work meaning. “We spend so much of our lives in fear of the end,” he says. “If we can make peace with that fact, it came make the rest of our lives so much more meaningful. That’s what I’m trying to infuse into the art – the immediacy of life. You can’t come back to see it, because it won’t be there. You have to examine it now. I think that’s one of the gifts of ephemeral art.”
Amador usually only has a few hours to create his designs, the narrow window between when the sand dries enough to be able to shape and when the tide begins returning. Then – using only a rake, a three-pronged garden cultivator and (sometimes) string and stake to craft straight lines – he forms his designs. His patterns are often wave-like, an echo of the sea itself, or else looping, abstract forms that Amador calls “sacred geometry” (a term he says he always puts in quotes, because what that is might mean different things to different people). He usually works in a palette of nature motifs – interlocking lines like a web, or a lotus flower, or the long undulation of a snake’s body.
Although he’s had years to practice artistic detachment, Amador admits that sometimes it’s difficult to watch one of his creations blur into salt water. “It can be frustrating,” he says. “I imagine the monks who are making sand mandalas, and if one of those guys were to sneeze, I imagine it would be annoying. I’m sure even the Buddha had to practice.”
And so, with that, here’s your moment of TGIF Zen, courtesy of Andres Amador.
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