Andy Goldsworthy Quotes - Page 4

I just see myself as an object in the final image. I know I'm experiencing it when I'm there working on it. I'm there to be worked with, as anything else that I work with.

Sometimes you need to stop doing something to really see it afresh.

When I do the permanent projects or the big projects, when a work is finished, that's the beginning of its life.

Complete control can be the death of a work.

It's just that when I work on someone else's land, it makes me aware of the social nature of that landscape.

If I'm going to understand the land, I have to understand the wind, the snow, the rain, the leaves, the ice, and changes in temperature. It just reflects a reality for me.

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.

It's frightening and unnerving to watch a stone melt.

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.

I go way beyond just the wood and stone but to the process of growth and farming and the tensions between the two.

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.

Once the fired stone is out of the kiln, it is still possible to mentally reconstruct it in its original form.

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.

The reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red.

Fire is the origin of stone.By working the stone with heat, I am returning it to its source.

I did tests on small stones before collecting and committing myself to the larger ones.

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.

The early firings contained many stones.

We leave our presence in the pavement. We're walking over it, sitting on steps.

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.

The main source of my income is through the commissions of the large-scale works and big sculptures, the projects.

I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames.

I have to understand the nature of change. And I cannot just work with stone or the more permanent materials. I need to work with leaves and ice and snow and mud and clay and water and the rising tide and the wind and all these.

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.

The British climate, although it is very wet, it is quite mild in winter. We don't get these severe - generally don't get severe winters.