Introduction to A Collaboration with Nature

For me, looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. Place is found by walking, direction determined by weather and season. I take the opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves; a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches.

I stop at a place or pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here is where I can learn, I might have walked past or worked there many times. Some places I return to over and over again, going deeper—a relationship made in layers over a long time. Staying in one place makes me more aware of change. I might give up after a while. My perception of a place is often so frustratingly limited. The best of my work, sometimes the result of much struggle when made, appears so obvious that it is incredible I didn't see it before. It was there all the time.

Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue.

The energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space within. The weather—rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm—is that external space made visible. When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space around it. It is not independent of its surroundings and the way it sits tells how it came to be there. In an effort to understand why that rock is there and where it is going, I must work with it in the area in which I found it. [see also Goldsworthy on holes]

I have become aware of how nature is in a state of change and how that change is the key to understanding. I want my art to be sensitive and alert to changes in material, season and weather. Often I can only follow a train of thought while a particular weather condition persists. When a change comes, the idea must alter or it will, and often does, fail. I am sometimes left stranded by a change in the weather with half-understood feelings that have to travel with me until conditions are right for them to reappear. [see also below on change]

During the one persistently cold period that I have had to work with in Britain I was able to pursue ideas only hinted at in previous winters. It is difficult to predict where good ice and icicles will form. In summer I saw potential in the dripping walls and small pools at Glenmarlin Falls on the River Scaur in Dumfriesshire.

When the cold arrived, that is where I went—disappointed at first because it was too sheltered by overhanging trees. One small pool was barely frozen. I used this precious ice—the work was not good, but it gave me a feel for the place.

As winter progressed, it became colder. Different pools started to freeze on different days, depending on how sheltered they were or whether they were fed by running water (these pools were the last to freeze). Always a range of thicknesses to work with—as a pool froze solid and became unworkable, I moved on to the next.

I worked in the shadow of the gorge where the sun only reached for a dangerous half hour each day. In this cold shade I tentatively began to stick ice to ice to icicle to rock—making works in pairs—going from one to the other—giving time for each new piece of ice to freeze.

As the cold intensified, my work became more ambitious and demanding—one work a day, with the ice sticking in just a few minutes. What had taken days in previous winters was now being made in a single day. I cannot explain the feelings of that short time—working the cold, hot with excitement.

What I learned that week went beyond the ice in my hand. It was as if the previous twelve years' work had prepared me for such a place—work-bench rocks, a pool to hand in which to dip ice before freezing it to the work, sheltered from sun and wind, the fast-flowing salmon river, geese flying overhead in a V, otter tracks on the ice below . . . [.]

When I work with winter, I work with the North. For me, north is an integral part of the land. I can touch it in the cold shadow of a mountain, the green side of a tree, the mossy face of a rock. Its energy is made visible in snow and ice.

I have followed north to its source—the North Pole—the place from which winter is generated. Going there has given me a better understanding not only of the nature of winter and north but also of the place where I live. I enjoyed the luxury of constant freezing. So much that I have made in ice has been frustrated by a rise in temperature. I have held ice to ice seemingly for ages waiting for it to freeze, only to let go and see it drop off,

Working in Britain means working close to change: a clear day can soon cloud over, snow melts quickly, a calm morning turns windy. These qualities give urgency and energy to what I do.

Sometimes a work is at its best when most threatened by the weather. A balanced rock is given enormous tension and force by a wind that might cause its collapse. I have worked with colourful leaves, delicate grasses and feathers made extra vivid by a dark, rain-laden sky that cast no shadow. Had it rained, the work would have become mud-splattered and been washed away.

Each work concentrates on a particular aspect of material and place. The grass stalk is hard, brittle, hollow and fractures at angles; the seed-head is supple, thin, strong, whippy. It takes many works to come to some understanding of 'stalk' let alone 'grass', and the process never stops. Should I ignore the geometry in grass stalks fractured by the wind?

All forms are to be found in nature, and there are many qualities within any material. By exploring them I hope to understand the whole. My work needs to include the loose and disordered within the nature of material as well as the tight and regular.

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.

The ball, patch, line, arch and spire are recurring forms in my work. It is as if I find myself in deep water and these forms are familiar rocks that I can always put a foot to. In that respect they are important and probably necessary. They are also an effective way of exploring and extending a work over time, materials and locations.

The hole has become an important element. Looking into a deep hole unnerves me. My concept of stability is questioned and I am made aware of the potent energies within the earth. The black is that energy made visible. [see also below on holes]

Recurring forms are discovered in unlikely materials. Snow becomes as sand, rock as ice. One teaches me about another and gives an understanding of the qualities that are fundamental to the way nature functions.

Some works have qualities of snaking but are not snakes. The form is shaped through a similar response to environment. The snake has evolved through a need to move close to the ground, sometimes below and sometimes above, an expression of the space it occupies. This is a potent recurring form in nature which I have explored through working in bracken, snow, sand, leaves, grass, trees, earth. It is the ridge of a mountain, the root of a tree, a river finding its way down a valley.

At its most successful, my 'touch' looks into the heart of nature; most days I don't even get close. These things are all part of a transient process that I cannot understand unless my touch is also transient—only in this way can the cycle remain unbroken and the process be complete. I cannot explain the importance to me of being part of a place, its seasons and changes. Fourteen years ago I made a line of stones in Morecambe Bay. It is still there, buried under the sand, unseen. All my work still exists, in some form.

My approach to the photograph is kept simple, almost routine. All work, good and bad, is documented. I use standard film, a standard lens and no filters.

Each work grows, stays, decays—integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its height, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit. [see also below on photography]

That art should be permanent or impermanent is not the issue. Transience in my work reflects what I find in nature and should not be confused with an attitude towards art generally, I have never been against the well-made or long-lasting.

Of course there are opposites and conflicts in my work, uncomfortable though creative tensions, which I use to sharpen my relationship with nature, I refuse to resolve them prematurely to make my own position easier. Discomfort is a sign of change. Every so often I feel as birds must before their first migration—a gut instinct that something is wrong where they are, a strong sense that they must now go where they have never been before. The one contradiction I won't tolerate is having an art that binds me.

I need to work in a wide range of scale, reflecting what I find in nature. Working small with grasses or leaves is a strain. A sudden gust, a hungry robin, even a worm can cause collapse. I enjoy these delicate tensions, but they cause an occasional need to work large and physically hard. One scale releases energy for the other.

My approach to larger, more permanent work is longer-term. There is a process of familiarisation with site through drawings that explore the location and the space. This is the only time I use drawing to work through ideas; for me it represents a change in approach. I often live with a site at the back of my mind for months, sometimes years—a target for energies and ideas.

I dislike gigantism for its own sake, but small works can grow into large. By this I don't mean a coarse scaling-up, but a maturing and development of forms and feelings—often in only one material, or rediscovered in another, changing during the process. This is not planned, it happens over years.

By working large, I am not trying to dominate nature. If people feel small in relation to a work, they should not assume that there is an intention to make nature itself small. If anything, I am giving nature a more powerful presence in the mass of earth, stone, wood that I use. I do not change the underlying processes of growth, and nature's grip is tightened on the site that I have worked.

The earthworks in County Durham are made along the route of a disused railway line which I have begun to see as a river of earth. If the Lambton Earthwork is made on a fast-flowing part of the Iine, then at Leadgate the earth has formed a deep pool, dammed by the road. The rings are as ripples from a thrown stone—an echo of a maze formed by the coal-mining directly below it, deep down.

The social nature of these large works interests me. The people I need to work with are a strong element in the making. New demands can provoke creative solutions.

I have been given a small piece of woodland in Dumfriesshire by the Buccleuch Estates. I call this place Stonewood. Part of the lease required me to build a dividing wall. I have made a give-and-take wall between the farmer and myself. Two sheep folds are incorporated into the wall: one opening on the farmer's side for sheep, one opening on my side for sculpture. The sheep will in effect be on my land and the sculpture on the farmer's.

The work itself determines the nature of its making. I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and 'found' tools—a sharp stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I am not playing the primitive. I use my hands because this is the best way to do most of my work. If I need tools, then I will I use them. Technology, travel and tools are part of my life and if needed should be part of my work also. A camera is used to document, an excavator to move earth, snowballs are carried cross country by articulated truck.

Nature goes beyond what is called countryside—everything comes from the earth. My work made indoors or with urban and industrial materials is an attempt to discover nature in these things also. It is more difficult to find nature in materials so far removed from their source, and I cannot go for long before I need to work with the earth direct—hand to earth. What is important to me is that at the heart of whatever I do are a growing understanding and a sharpening perception of the land.

Andy Goldsworthy, from Hand to Earth: Andy Goldsworthy Sculpture 1976-1990 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), ed. Terry Friedman and Andy Goldsworthy, pp. 9, 24, 73:

My approach to the photograph is kept simple, almost routine. All work, good and bad, is documented. I use standard film, lenses and no filters. Taking the photograph is not a casual act. It is very demanding and a balance is kept in which documentation does not interrupt the making. Each work grows, stays, decays—integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows as its height, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit in that moment. A drawing or painting would be too defined. The photographs leave the reason and spirit of the work outside. They are not the purpose but the result of my art. As Yves Klein said of his monochrome paintings: 'They are the left-overs from the creative process, the ashes. My pictures, after all, are only the title deeds to my property which I have to produce when I am asked to prove that I am a proprietor.'

That art should be permanent or impermanent is not the issue. Transience in my work reflects what I find in nature and should not be confused with an attitude towards art generally. I have never been against the well made or long lasting.

The photograph does not need to shrivel and fall to the ground for change to be part of purpose. It is an outdoor experience expressed in an indoor place which uses the conventions of that place to keep its meaning clear. It is appropriate to that space as it would be inappropriate to hang a framed photograph from a tree in a wood.

If the photograph represents the work alive, then work brought indoors becomes its husk. Much of the energy is lost: stones become isolated and leaves dry out . . . yet there is still enough meaning left. Not only does such work explore the relationship between indoor and outdoor alongside the image, it emphasises the physicalness of what I do. [more on photography]

The black of a hole is like the flame of a fire. The flame makes the energy of fire visible. The black is the earth's flame—its energy. I used to say I will make no more holes. Now I know I will always make them. I am drawn to them with the same urge I have to look over a cliff edge. It is possible that the last work I make will be a hole.

I have lived for most of the time within sight of the Lake District, although this is due more to circumstances than any great wish to be there. The mountains have become important to me not only to visit and work but as a place by which I orientate myself. It has taken on the significance that all mountains, hills, mounds and single trees have to people living nearby. It has become a landmark which creates a sense of presence and location, defining the surrounding landscape.

Many of the early works on Morecambe Bay were made in response to the space over the bay and the distant mountains which enclosed that space. I often made holes in rocks, ice, snow which usually opened out into and examined that space. The mountains were bait for the eye.

When I first visited the Lake District I was impressed by the mass and space—and the things that made that space active. It offered new experiences on a massive scale, being able to walk up into the clouds and touching snow when I thought winter was over. If there is such a thing in my work as a range of locations that have influenced the scale of my work the Lake District must rate as the place most instrumental in causing the largest things I have made.

I think the Lake District is a place where some of my basic interests were formed—a love of the last remaining patch of snow, becoming aware of the mass and energy of a mountain culminating at the peak manifesting itself in many of my works with tapered rocks, icicles and most recently seven 35-47' tall pine spires at Grizedale Forest in the Lake District—my first permanent work.

Having said all this I have to add that I am still very committed to the common place. My way of working developed in small works on the outskirts of Leeds. I have worked in ever smaller woods since and for a time worked under the Big dipper at Morecambe. I can work anywhere there is growth and I enjoy adapting to different environments—the Lake District is one of several places that are of special importance to me.