WALKING THE LONG WAY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY
MEDITATIONS ON YOU AND YOUR EARTH.
Each of us has a relationship to the Earth, what we know of her, how we’ve traveled her pathways, what doors we might have seen and how, perhaps, we have opened them.
Others walk that way, all the time — they walk in a search for patterning, the sensing quest of a synaesthetic rhythmic resonance.
As an early-bred naturalist, that’s one thing I was trained to do — by my father in the art of seeing.
As a student of the [hypo]natural — you look for variegations in patterning that might be the, outline of a single bird in a tapestry of trees, the warbling of the voice of color in the skin of a salamander, the rhythmic *patternality of
I’ve been exploring, studying the work of Andy Goldsworthy for a couple of decades, really. I was struck, immediately, by the work.
What I found compelling was the idea of finding patterning in pattern. That is, if you see something striking in nature, it’s a surprise, a revelation, an epiphany. And maybe this can last only for a moment or two. Sunlight, just glinting — glimmering on water. Mist appearing in a moment. Stones stacked by some random beauty. Driftwood like calligraphy on the shore. And that patterning can be seen anew — if you take the time to dig into those arrangements. Play with them. Tune them. And to be willing to simply let that arrangement move on, shift with time. Like everything else.
That is the key learning, for me, in watching the evolutions of Andy Goldsworthy over the course of the last 20 years. That movement has been steadfast. Beauty full, in its strength of conviction and rich character.
I’ve woven some Goldsworthy here, and some Timothy Shaw Girvin, in the intermingling of the imagery shown below. I’m sure that you can tell which ones are which.
And some Girvin, and some story.
I’d been at TED, April, 2008, — this time in Aspen. I wrote some things there, that you can find here: timgirvinpersonal
And being there, that experience, renewed and reconnected me with Andy Goldsworthy.
He’s an artist lauded by the Aspen Institute. So there’s art by him all around. Perhaps a show of his works, that filtered the grounds. Here are some photographs that I’d taken at the Institute:
And the nature of the making, that he does — is simply about looking for the right place, the right alignment, the right objects. And a willingness to create something of beauty that will, truly, not last.
From the history of my life, I started stacking stones maybe about the same time that Goldsworthy did.
Perhaps before.
Andy began in the 80s.
I was stacking in the mountains, the Sea, waterside, late 70s.
Where I’d seen this was up in the mountains. And what you’d experience, is to come wandering across some opening snow field — where the scree is hard to find from the snow covered path — and where the snow obscures the way. And then people will put up the cairn as a kind of marker. This cairn building doesn’t need to be on a snowfield either. Scrambling paths are similarly — vague.
And you can get lost. Cairns fit in. But they tell the way, as well.
Actually, I didn’t think that this was something that was about marking, more about something that was there — as a kind of art. Something kind of mysterious. Who made them, and how? Why?
Is, still mysterious,
I suppose.
That’s part of the history, for me, of putting things up. Putting anything up — rearranging things; fostering surprise and discovery.
Getting it out there — and in front of people.
Show them something different.
I’d written about that, here. And I’d written about my daughter, here.
But Andy, born three years after me, is far more than just about the idea of stacking stones: it’s more about how to create entrancements in nature. To re-invite the tourist to a reexamination of a special moment — just that instance, of looking differently at patterning.
And while there is a story in a story well-told, so too is there a journey to look inside the sequencing and tiering of patterning, in patterning. An arrangement of wood is not only the small collection of objects, but perhaps the larger stream of driftwood that lies around it, which is framed in the longer view of the beach, and the shoreline…extending outwards.
One pattern is only the microcosm of another, and yet another.
If you look.
Things that are patterned, a kind of natural rhythm, merely belie other things that vibrate to other resonant patterns. So it’s about patterning that you find on one level, that is also speaking to other patterns, that lie on another level, in turn — that lie on another level.
And another.
Just look. Farther. Deeper.
Entrancements — for me? To the notation of litany of natural entrancements — trance-producing moments of discovery, it is about the idea of creating entrances to seeing. You look at something, there’s surprise, and you’ve seen something that you’d not seen before. You are suddenly seeing a patterning that you didn’t see before; it’s like hearing, or sensing, another rhythm that reaches into you in a new way. I’d written about the concept of enthrallment — being enthralled is a kind of enslavement; you’re experiencing a new entrapment.
I suppose, for me, it’s about that.
Dawn Clark, AIA
That curiosity for me is about:
compulsion — with the pulse of a new force or rhythm;
passion — I’m drawn into the moment, the momentum of pain and commitment;
bewitchment — I’m magically transformed; I don’t see the way I did before — plane jumper;
surprise — the prize that is beyond, the next level
transmigration — I was there, now I’m here.
I find that this is the place that is best for me: in change — surprise | transformed view | something opening that is just like beginning, anew | and that’s a good thing:
beginner’s eye.
I believe that Andy’s curiosity is all about that exploration. Luring and alluring people to see patternings that they’ve not seen before.
Beginner’s eye.
More
soon.
Stack something. Yourself.
Set a patterning in a pattern, that — to start — only you can see.
*patternality — an invented word that GIRVIN uses in examining the repetitiousness of sequencing and patterning — which might be: archetypal, it might be decorative or ornamental, symbolic or an occult obscuration of a deeper idea, subtly patterned for those who see more deeply.
Tim | Commonwealth Basin
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I’d gathered some other treatments by Goldsworthy, that expand on the ideas of arrangement. And color. And patterning.
And some of them, I’m sure that you’ve seen.
Others, perhaps not.
It’s a rich legacy of work — all made by hand, all shot by Goldsworthy.
All beauty, found in seeing into the patterning of nature.
And you can do that, too.
And maybe you have.
Maybe you can tell me
about what you’ve done
?
Tim, This was a beautiful piece about Andy Goldsworthy and his work. I just had the pleasure of seeing one of his commissioned pieces located along a walking path on a private estate. I appreciated your encouragment for others to try their own hand at creating art in the environment. I find these blog entries a delight. Many thanks…
The themes that are brought out in this post resonated poetically and deeply… themes of pattern, finding rhythms and pattern in nature, learning, beauty, how we see, and how we can lead others to new ways of seeing. I was reminded of Inge Druckrey… “You can’t come up with ideas if you don’t see first.”