Artist turns San Francisco beaches into giant works of art

By Itay Hod

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    SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — In a world obsessed with likes and legacy, a new wave of artists is embracing the opposite: impermanence.

It’s not unusual for an artist to step out of the studio and head to the beach for inspiration. But Andres Amador never heads back because for him, the beach is the studio.

“It’s a huge, enormous canvas,” he said.

While most artists hope to create something that lasts forever, Amador spends his days crafting masterpieces he knows will vanish by lunch.

“I can create artwork, it gets washed away, and I can come back the next day and do another one,” he said.

He calls them Earthscapes, massive geometric designs as wide as football fields, visible only from above and only until the tide rolls in.

Over the last two decades, Amador’s raked artwork has stretched across coastlines from New Zealand to South Africa to Ireland. But he hasn’t always done it alone.

He’ll post a time and place. When people show up, he hands them a rake and a theme. Today’s prompt: What brings you joy?

For Irma Perez, a former teacher from San Francisco, joy means letting go of expectations, perfection, even of the art itself.

“I’m not an artist, but I can come and create something and release it,” she said.

Before the ocean wiped it clean, the designs looked like an Etch A Sketch on a massive scale, scratched into the shoreline, erased with the turn of a tide.

“People keep coming back,” Amador said. “And even more importantly, they keep thanking me for what a deep experience they had.

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