March 2026

Andy Goldsworthy makes things out of natural materials – leaves, stones, tree trunks, ice, twigs – and photographs them.  It sounds simple but one glance at the sorts of things he makes immediately makes you realise that he has some very special skills: great technical ones of construction, an endless patience, a refined visual sensibility.  Part of the appeal of his work is that the pieces themselves do not survive very long.  The only record of their existence is in the photograph.  In this way the beauty and intricacy of his creations are augmented by the knowledge that they’ve returned whence they came.  It’s as though the order and exquisite care with which he rearranges his materials is a momentary gift, both to them and to us, one made all the more poignant because it cannot last. 

 There’s a wonderful film of him threading a delicate veil of twigs, suspended from a tree branch, somewhere in Northumberland I think.  This is a link if you want to watch more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC-4bedyT_k 
He’s almost there when a gust of wind starts to rattle and billow the construction.  Goldsworthy pauses, and supports it with one, then both hands.  The wind blows a little more strongly; you hear a twig ping out of position and suddenly the whole thing falls apart.  He sits there for a while, sighs, puts his head in his hands and says ‘Oh dear…’.  But after another pause he then says, ‘I am so amazed at times … that I am actually alive.’  What an extraordinary response to failure.  Just by saying that, of course, it was not failure at all.