Andy Goldsworthy is an artist of the most extreme nature. He is also a philosopher I think who instructs with his actions. After watching a documentary about him called Rivers and Tides I began to think more and more about what he does.
What Andy Goldsworthy does that is so amazing to me, is build with nature. Using only materials that are found on the forest floor or washed up on a beach he creates the most amazing sculptures and pieces I have ever seen. Whether it is a long row of flowers strung together sent snaking down a river or an amazing sculpture built on a beach at low tide, only to be consumed by the incoming tide. His art is fleeting, momentary and eventually meshes back in with the nature from which it was built.
Andy's art then is really an exercise in philosophy. We all take the bits and pieces that have been given to us, attempt to create something beautiful and eventually return from where we came. The fact that his art work is destroyed by the river rapids, or the rising tide does not make it pointless or any less beautiful, it just makes us aware to see the beauty while it is there, to realize that all great works, whether delicate stone towers balanced on the sand before the crashing see or large buildings erected with all our might and strength will eventually disappear. This fact of disappearence also does not make our life any less meaningful. In fact, and Andy's work points to this, there is a beauty and an urgency to that instant where something is created but which eventually is destroyed. Andy, as we all should, embraces this idea and builds incredible art that lasts sometimes for only minutes or hours, despite the many hours of labor it often takes him to create these works. Andy's art is also then an art of living, of embracing the inevitable and still working diligently to create a masterpiece with whatever time we have. To build a work of beauty in the face of a rising tide is an act of courage and commitment. It is a declaration that no act is meaningless and that despite the inevitable we can press on and create works of heart staggering beauty in the face of a certain fate. We do not know when our tide may rise, or if our work will even be done when it does, but still we press on, piece by piece, minute by minutes assembling a work, building a life, that tells that certain fate...I was here, I tried, and I utilized every last second. So build that masterpiece, create spectacular works wherever you can, for we are all artists and our work of art is the life we live.
