Searching for the window into nature's soul
A new kind of poetry is created when Andy Goldsworthy works with stone, wood and water our world never looks quite the same again
- By Kenneth Baker
- Smithsonian magazine, February 1997, Subscribe
Where does art-making begin and end? Andy Goldsworthy, a 40-year-old British artist who uses nature as a partner, raises this question with his works of breathtaking beauty, some of them ephemeral, some meant to last. A tower of stones might be hastily built during low tide, only to be toppled as the water swirls in; or icicles might be reshaped so that they form a spiral around the trunk of a tree. During his teenage days as a hired hand on farms outside Leeds, where he grew up, Goldsworthy began to explore the patterns of nature by arranging its building blocks in unexpected ways, such as these.
Equally unexpected in its impact, though intended to last far longer, is his current Sheepfolds project in Cumbria. With the help of experienced local "wallers," Goldsworthy is rebuilding about a hundred traditional drystone sheep corrals with subtle changes, such as a boulder inserted in the middle of an otherwise traditional fold. Due to be completed around the year 2000, it is one of the most extensive public-art projects in the world. "You must have something new in a landscape as well as something old," says Goldsworthy, commenting on the Sheepfolds project; "something that's dying and something that's being born."
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