Here’s a selection of my favorite quotes by sculptor/photographer Andy Goldsworthy.
“My work comes first, reasons for it follow“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Ideas must be put to the test. That’s why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas. There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realization. I’ve had what I thought were great ideas that just didn’t work.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“I enjoy working in a quiet and subversive way.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Not being able to touch is sometimes as interesting as being able to touch.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Confrontation is something that I accept as part of the project though not its purpose.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Photography is a way of putting distance between myself and the work which sometimes helps me to see more clearly what it is that I have made.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Movement, change, light, growth, and decay are the life-blood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“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
“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 reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“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
“A stone is ingrained with geological and historical memories.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“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
“Fire is the origin of stone.By working the stone with heat, I am returning it to its source.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Once the fired stone is out of the kiln, it is still possible to mentally reconstruct it in its original form.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“It’s frightening and unnerving to watch a stone melt.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“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
“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
“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
“I’m cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“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
“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.“ – 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
“I am not a performer but occasionally I deliberately work in a public context. Some sculptures need the movement of people around them to work.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“The relationship between the public and the artist is complex and difficult to explain. There is a fine line between using this critical energy creatively and pandering to it.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“People also leave presence in a place even when they are no longer there.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
Read more Photographer’s Quotes here.