In Accra, Ghana, I was fortunate enough to behold the fleeting beauty of artist Jim Denevan’s magnificent sand sculptures. These works of art, crafted upon the shores of Labadi Beach at the mouth of Kpeshi Lagoon, are both a celebration of the natural world and a meditation on the fleeting nature of existence itself.

Jim, the founder of Outstanding in the Field, a roving restaurant without walls, began this particular piece early on the twelfth day of November, leading a team of talented artisans from Ghana. With the Atlantic Ocean serving as a backdrop, he brought to life a massive sculpture comprised of two hundred and forty circular sand mounds, each two hundred feet across. The sheer scale of the piece is awe-inspiring, leaving one with the sense of having beheld something truly grand.

Jim Denevan’s art is unique in that it exists in a state of ephemerality. Upon sand, earth, and ice, he creates intricate drawings that are eventually washed away by the forces of nature. It is this fleeting beauty that makes his works all the more precious, for they embody the idea that life itself is a temporary state, always in a state of flux.

As I gazed upon the sand mounds, I was struck by the thought that each one represented a moment in time, a moment that would soon be erased and replaced by another. And yet, despite their fleeting existence, these works of art inspire us to contemplate the deeper meaning of our own lives, and to consider the idea that we, like these sculptures, are mere moments in the grand cycle of existence. In this sense, Jim Denevan’s sand sculptures are not simply works of art, but philosophical meditations upon the nature of life itself.