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I take the opportunity each day offers.

Andy Goldsworthy

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Andy Goldsworthy
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: July 25
Artist
Environmental Artist
Environmentalist
Land Artist
Photographer
Sculptor
County Palatine of Chester
Andi Gōruzuwājī
Andrew Goldsworthy
Offers
Opportunity
Take

More quotes by Andy Goldsworthy

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When I make a work, I often take it to the very edge of its collapse, and that's a very beautiful balance.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Generally in New York, people just walk over you with no problem about that. Other countries, people want to resuscitate you, like, after a bit.
Andy Goldsworthy
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As with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I'm trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal energy of the stone.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The difference between a theatre with and without an audience is enormous. There is a palpable, critical energy created by the presence of the audience.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I knew the tree when it grew, and the tree is now gone. The farmers cut it up, and it's become firewood. And there's this tremendous sense of absence and shock and violence attendant to that collapsing tree.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I'm dealing with the most important things there are: life and nature. If this doesn't work, if this doesn't sustain me, I can't go back to nature. I'm right there. There's nowhere to go, and that frightens me.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Understanding the materials I work with... gives me a deeper understanding of my place. And it's helped me make sense of the changes that are happening to me as I grow older.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I enjoy working in a quiet and subversive way.
Andy Goldsworthy
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When I’m working with materials it’s not just the leaf or the stone, it’s the processes that are behind them that are important. That’s what I’m trying to understand, not a single isolated object but nature as a whole.
Andy Goldsworthy
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My sculpture can last for days or a few seconds - what is important to me is the experience of making. I leave all my work outside and often return to watch it decay.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I'm very fortunate to be able to do what I do and live the way I do.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Stones are checked every so often to see if any have split or at worst exploded. An explosion can leave debris in the elements so the firing has to be abandoned.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The process of growth is obviously critical to my understanding of the land and myself. So the process is far more unpredictable with far more compromises with the day, the weather, the material.
Andy Goldsworthy
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People do not realise that many of my works are done in urban places. I was brought up on the edge of Leeds, five miles from the city centre-on one side were fields and on the other, the city.
Andy Goldsworthy
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If you lay in the rain, every rain shower, storm, whatever, is different. Every surface is different.
Andy Goldsworthy
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There are occasions when I have moved boulders, but I'm reluctant to, especially ones that have been rooted in a place for many years.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The hardened mass of liquid stones had much stronger qualities than those which had simply torn. The skin remained a recognisable part of the molten stone.
Andy Goldsworthy
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You must have something new in a landscape as well as something old, something that's dying and something that's being born.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Three or four stones in one firing will all react differently. I try to achieve a balance between those that haven't progressed enough and those about to go too far.
Andy Goldsworthy