Andy Goldsworthy > Quotes

“We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves.”
― Andy Goldsworthy

“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

“My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I want to see growth in wood, time in stone, nature in a city, and I do not mean its parks but a deeper understanding that a city is nature too-the ground upon which it is built, the stone with which it is made.”
― Andy Goldsworthy

“time confined into blind caves or extended through tunnels, responds to the call of infinity, which teases with its promise of freedom. outside the body, time is a pair of compasses in the hands of eternity, but inside it is a pendulum, fastened to the heart. the heart takes its measure from the lengthening swing of the pendulum surveying what time is left. in its own rhythm time spreads itself wildly here and there and is crippled elsewhere. its unequally distributed weight wounds my body - that is how the particularities of my life are manifest.”
― Andy Goldsworthy

“I take the opportunity each day offers.”
― Andy Goldsworthy

“Fear always accompanies the making of art, generated by the shock of seeing an idea taking its form. A sculpture in the mind is safe and secure--the actual work rarely behaves as intended.”
― Andy Goldsworthy, Passage

“A tension develops between what I want and what is emerging. This tension is important to the feeling of the piece.”
― Andy Goldsworthy, Passage

“When travelling I regret the loss of a sense of change. I see differences not changes. Change is best experienced by staying in one place.”
― Andy Goldsworthy, Stone

“My art helps make sense of things.”
― Andy Goldsworthy, Passage

“Sometimes I feel that the source of a sculpture's energy comes from the effort of trying to regain a sense of balance lost at some point when I lacked control or concentration or perhaps made an error of judgment.

Such moments happen all the time in the making of a sculpture. Not to experience uncertainty or to make no mistakes would in a sense render the making of a sculpture pointless. Any new work should challenge my understanding of both how and why a sculpture should be made.”
― Andy Goldsworthy, Passage

“1985 saw my first use of the spiral. It took me a long time to come to terms with this form, so evident in nature, and I still avoid the overblown spiral. I prefer that of the unfolding fern, which gives the feeling of endless growth.”
― Andy Goldsworthy, Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature