Erasing Art

High school teacher Hirotaka Hamasaki, known on instagram and twitter as @hamacream, has been going viral for the remarkable chalk drawings he creates for his students. Every day, he uses chalk to painstakingly create intricate drawings, either faithfully reproducing known masterpieces or capturing the likeness of his students’ favorite characters. The pictures of his work are impressive, to say the least, but after photographing his creations and letting them be admired for a little, he simply erases them. 

It seems crazy that someone could spend so much time creating something so beautiful only to wipe it away. While his drawings live on in their digital form, delighting millions of people on the internet, the people who he creates for are his students, and he erases each piece so that he can greet them with something new the following day. It’s remarkably moving. 

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In the digital age, art is not subject to the forces of nature that will inevitably cause its  decay; it is preserved in the form of NFTs so that it will outlive us all.  Mr. Hamasaki’s work shows the other extreme. Chalk is of the most ephemeral of substances and even blowing on it will affect how it looks. More than that, he creates these pieces knowing that they must be erased soon after. Their purpose is not to last, but to momentarily inspire and captivate his students. 

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