Man Quits His Job After
Visiting Burning Man,
Spends 10+ Years Drawing
In The Sand
Imagine if the art you spent hours making was destroyed soon after completion.
For 44-year-old San Francisco-based artist Andres Amador, who creates
sand-paintings up to 100,000 square feet (~35,000 sqmt) in size, this is a
reality.
This art is destroyed soon after it’s created
Amador received a BA in Environmental Science before
joining the Peace Corps and then starting a regular career, but it was a visit
to Burning Man in 1999 that changed him. He quit his job, and in 2004, in the
hours been low and high tide, started doing sand art.
Andres Amador starts these intricate drawings at low
tide
“It’s an event that cannot be encompassed in any photo
or story,” Amador says of Burning Man, “and it really shifted my perspective on
what life could be and how one could craft one’s life experience.”
He was inspired to quit his job after attending the Burning Man festival in Nevada in 1999
Amador has been creating these sand paintings for 10+ years
After drawing the framework with a fine-tip stick, he uses a rake to
shade-in different areas
“My art is my way to processing the world I experience and recreating it in grand yet fleeting ways that are a tribute
to the regenerative capacity of the human spirit”
“But what will we do in the face of that awareness? How will we live?”
“So much of how we live
our lives is based on fear of the unknown, and death is the ultimate unknown”
“But in the face of the knowledge of our demise, to express one’s spirit and create beauty is the ultimate victory, the ultimate embrace of life”
“I’m enjoying the life that I have been living since I have the courage to follow my own path”
“Now I am travelling and creating my art on huge canvases”