ARTICLE

Art that's made to be destroyed

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It’s not easy to think of creativity and destruction as elements that go together in any way, and yet they are really two energies in the same cycle.

Imagine creating a beautiful work of art and then destroying it. How many times have you become frustrated while writing and thought of pressing the delete key and sending your files to computer heaven? Or picked up a paintbrush loaded with too much paint and wondered what it would feel like to go nuts and overpaint an entire canvas? How far do you think you would go? Would you rescue your back up CDs half way through your tantrum? Or throw paint on a dry acrylic painting knowing that you can still wash it off before it dries?

It’s a given that artists, writers, actors, and rock stars have some sort of destructive personality trait somewhere. They trash hotel rooms, take drugs, drink too much – don’t they?

What if the reason for this sense of frustration and desire to destroy things stems from over-creating? Everything has to be in balance. I certainly think it’s possible to be too creative.

So, imagine creating a work of art with the express purpose of letting it go when you’re finished. Imagine working in a medium that is transient, that you cannot preserve. Imagine completing a perfect cycle.

The amazing medium of sand

I want to go through a number of different media that are transient over several articles, but I think the first of these that comes to mind is sand. I think sand is one of the most ideal media for ephemeral art.

Photograph by Alison Wright. Buy at Art.com Buddhist sand mandala

I had the great privilege to see the representative monks of Dharamsala create an intricate and meaningful sand mandala. They created a work of art using fine, coloured sand, with the express purpose of sweeping the sand up afterwards (in a specific order), blessing it, and returning it to the earth or a river. (The photograph used here was taken by Alison Wright.)

Sand drawing

Pouring and drawing in sand with your hands is extremely satisfying. Not only is it fun, but the feel and texture of the sand running through your fingers gives it an added dimension. At the simplest level, mini Zen gardens are perfect for soothing the mind with the repetitive motion of combing sand into patterns.

If you want to try something more intricate and challenging, watch Ilana Yahav’s video clip on her website for some great inspiration. Ilana is a sand animation performance artist, who creates beautiful drawings in sand on a backlit glass table, all in time to music.

Sand sculpture

A third, and probably most popular, form of transient sand art is building sand castles and professional sand sculpture.

Don’t feel bad if your holiday beach art doesn’t measure up. There are two tricks to sand sculpture that I’ve heard of so far. Many sand sculptors add a resin to the sand to bind it together better, and they rarely use actual beach sand because the shape of the grains causes it to pack together poorly.

All of these art forms are open to being captured on film – so while they are temporary in production, they live on in our photographs and our memories.

copyright © Elsa Neal 2006 (Please contact the for permission to reprint this article.)

From Amazon.com:

Sandcastles Made Simple : Step-by-Step Instructions, Tips, and Tricks for Building Sensational Sand Creations, by Lucinda Wierenga

Ice, Snow, Sand & Wood Sculptures, by Adolph Volk

Sacred Rituals : Creating Labyrinths, Sand Paintings, and Other Traditional Arts, by Belinda Recio and Eileen London