As Denevan's mother deteriorated, he found solace in his drawing, noticing that his random sand doodles were actually geometric shapes. His spirals were logarithmic, even following the Fibonacci series in which each integer after the second is the sum of the two preceding it. The connection between his mother's passion for math and his own for art fascinated Denevan. He couldn't share this epiphany with his mother, who no longer recognized him, so he just kept drawing, getting lost in a trance while moving his stick through the sand. "The completion of the motions was like a prayer," he says. "Of course, when your mother is dying, you grasp at anything."
Now, with his mother in the final stages of her disease, Denevan has come to terms with it, and his new outlook is portrayed in happier, more carefree drawings. "I realize that tragedy happens, and so does beauty, but they all go away and you can't hold on to either forever -- and that's OK," he says.
Anthony Pidgeon
Denevan drags sticks, logs -- even people -- through the sand to create his art.
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Denevan's philosophy is in harmony with the surf that inevitably washes away his art. Besides, he has never been a fan of permanent public art. Denevan says it is a good idea to liven up urban areas, but the giant structures that are usually more landmarks than pieces of art can become boring and stale over time. "The beach is new every day," he says. "It is nice to look at something for 10 minutes or an hour, but it would be irritating if you had to look at the same thing all the time. A lot of public art can be irritating."
Jill Manton, director of public art for the San Francisco Arts Commission, has seen Denevan's work, and says that she -- and her kids -- love it. Manton says she wishes there were more local artists willing to produce "here today, gone tomorrow" art like Denevan's beach scenes or the sidewalk chalk drawings common in cities like New York and Paris. "We'd love to see more spontaneous art," Manton says. "I think what [Denevan] does, which requires no resources other than his time, is a real gift to the public. What we do is much less spontaneous than what he does, but there is room for both."
Manton says she understands Denevan's sentiments about traditional public art, where the accountability of public funding can cause a project to become bogged down in the tedious but important details of whether a project is feasible, appropriate, or accessible for all. "By then, the idea can get so worked out that a lot of the spontaneity is gone," Manton says. "When you take the bricks-and-mortar approach to making art part of the civic landscape, there can be a long pause between idea and reality. It is very hard to plan for permanence and select something that will live well in an environment that is always changing."
When it comes to rapidly changing environments, Denevan still prefers to roll with the punches. Not long after he begins drawing his fish scene on the beach below the Cliff House, the surf creeps up and starts to erase a tail. More tourists gather, raptly watching the art being simultaneously created and destroyed. It is too much for some to handle.
"Oh, no, it's going to disappear," one concerned woman laments.
"Sure looks pretty," another says. "He better hurry up and finish."
