Quote

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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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
Violence
Collapsing
Knew
Farmers
Gone
Tremendous
Sense
Shock
Become
Absence
Cutting
Tree
Firewood
Grew
Attendant

More quotes by Andy Goldsworthy

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If I had to describe my work in one word, that word would be time.
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It's art that's taught me to think and to write.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole. I find nature as a whole disturbing. Nature can be harsh – difficult and brutal, as well as beautiful. You couldn't walk five minutes from here without coming across something that is dead or decaying.
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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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The first snowball I froze was put in my mother's deep freeze when I was in my early 20s.
Andy Goldsworthy
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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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The main source of my income is through the commissions of the large-scale works and big sculptures, the projects.
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Everything has the energy of its making inside it.
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 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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The early firings contained many stones.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Occasionally I have come across a last patch of snow on top of a mountain in late May or June. There's something very powerful about finding snow in summer.
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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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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A stone is ingrained with geological and historical memories.
Andy Goldsworthy
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A snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. I use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I have worked with this red all over the world - in Japan, California, France, Britain, Australia - a vein running round the earth. It has taught me about the flow, energy and life that connects one place with another.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I soon realised that what had happened on a small scale cannot necessarily be repeated on a larger scale. The stones were so big that the amount of heat required was prohibitively expensive and wasteful.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The stones tear like flesh, rather than breaking. Although what happens is violent, it is a violence that is in stone. A tear is more unnerving than a break.
Andy Goldsworthy
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We often forget that we are nature.
Andy Goldsworthy