"On the Edge of Collapse"

Andy Goldsworthy is one of my favorite artists. I can't seem to link a youtube video of his work but almost any clip of Rivers and Tides makes me want to tithe to his religion of art, form, nature and creativity. His work stirs a longing in me that is almost indescribable. I am instantly calmed and inspired, focused and awed.

I have added a few of his books to my amazon favorites to the right of this page.

Here are a few quotes from the artist:

"I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and "found" tools--a sharp
stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I take the opportunities each day offers:
if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves; a
blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. I stop at a place or
pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here
is where I can learn. "

"Looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the
resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. The
energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space
within. The weather--rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm--is that external space
made visible. When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space around
it. It is not independent of its surroundings, and the way it sits tells how it
came to be there."

"I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick,
it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of
life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue."

"Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature,
the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the
resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. Nature is in
a state of change and that change is the key to understanding. I want my art to
be sensitive and alert to changes in material, season and weather. Each work
grows, stays, decays. Process and decay are implicit. Transience in my work
reflects what I find in nature."

"The underlying tension of a lot of my art is to
try and look through the surface appearance of things. Inevitably, one way of
getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into what lies
below."