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. Occasionally I have come across a last patch of snow on top of a mountain in late May or June. Theres something very powerful about finding snow in summer. Its as if the whole of winter has drained through that white hole — a concentration of winter."

"My work comes first, reasons for it follow."

"One of the most engaging artists to emerge from Great Britain in the last decade. ~ Art in America"

"You must have something new in a landscape as well as something old, something thats dying and something thats being born."

"The skepticism of the art establishment seems to be based on, as much as anything, a kind of big-city prejudice against work so free from urban angst. ~ Lynn Macritchie in Art in America (April 1995)"

"Ideas must be put to the test. Thats why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas. There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realisation. Ive had what I thought were great ideas that just didnt work. Sometimes its difficult to say if something has worked or not. 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."

"Ephemeral work made outside, for and about a day, lies at the core of my art and its making must be kept private."

"Movement, change, light, growth, and decay are the life-blood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work."

"My sculpture can last for days or a few seconds — what is important to me is the experience of making. I leave all my work outside and often return to watch it decay."

"A new kind of poetry is created when Andy Goldsworthy works with stone, wood and water — our world never looks quite the same again ~ "Searching for the window into natures soul", Smithsonian magazine (February 1997)"