Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy, OBEis a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionSculptor
Date of Birth26 July 1956
art thinking aging
As you grow older you realize that art has an enormous effect. It's frightening sometimes to think of the effect that we can have.
thinking potatoes different
A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it. It is different than patience. It is not thinking. It is working with the rhythm.
thinking race ice
There's a huge number of things that are occurring with the ice works which fascinate me enormously, but it's driven by this kind of frantic race against time. And whilst that creates a huge amount of tension and problems, it's a tension that I think I feed off.
sleep thinking sculpture
I think that any sculpture is a response to its environment. It can be brought to life or put to sleep by the environment.
mean thinking artist
I'm an artist living in a small, Scottish village. So one would expect to be treated with some sort of caution. And the village and the farmers have shown enormous tolerance of me and interest in what I do. I mean, they don't necessarily understand what I'm doing all the time. But they, you know, I think they respect what I do and that there is a connection between what they do with the land and what I do, you know, that we're both dependent on weather and respond to that.
thinking weather forever
I think I have been fashioned by the fickle weather of Britain that it is - it's forever changing. There's no kind of constant sun or dry weather or freezing weather, and I'm always having to change and adapt to that.
art writing thinking
It's art that's taught me to think and to write.
thinking always-trying appearance
I think that I'm always trying to get beyond the surface appearance of things, to go beyond what I can just see.
origin
Fire is the origin of stone. By working the stone with heat, I am returning it to its source.
acceptable breaking fact familiar hammer response stone violent
Breaking stone with a hammer is a familiar and acceptable way of working the material, but is in fact a more violent response than firing.
sites walked
I have walked around the same streets so many times, and then seen a place that had been hidden to me. I now know the sites in a way that makes me think I could have made better use of the connections between place and snowball.
far spirit tried
The first stone was just tried in the spirit of experimentation. The opening of the stone was far more interesting than the drawing that I had done on it.
art past years
One of the beauties of art is that it reflects an artist's entire life. What I've learned over the past 30 years is really beginning to inform what I make. I hope that process continues until I die.
land discipline people
I have six acres in front of my own house, which I very rarely work on. Most of the work occurs on farmers' fields around me. And I like the discipline of working on other people's land.