Some of the works look like they could've been created by Druids.īut one of his muses at the sculpture park in Lincoln isn't quite as, well, earthy. He arranges fallen trees, boulders and lots of stones outdoors in varied terrains. They're made to last - maybe not forever, but for a good long while. Goldsworthy also designs and constructs rugged, large-scale installations like the one at deCordova.

He rubs his eyes, then his hair, with one hand. Then, with one tiny wrong move, and a quietly uttered “oops,” the artist’s precarious piece made of sticks suspended from a tree branch crashes around him. “When I make a work I often take it to the very edge of its collapse,” he tells filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer, “and that’s a very beautiful balance.” They’re made in the spirit of adventure to strike awe - then to devolve, and eventually to disappear. The delicate objects Goldsworthy conjures are magical and fleeting. He uses decaying leaves, flower petals, mud, twigs, flowing water - even icicles he breaks with his teeth. I was introduced to Goldsworthy through the award-winning 2001 documentary, “Rivers and Tides.” In it, the artist treks through marshes, streams and forests to painstakingly craft intricate, fragile sculptures. It’s not a reach to say once it's built, the fans will come. Stone by stone, the popular land artist and his team of traditional British dry-stone “wallers” have been constructing his first publicly accessible project in New England. Artist Andy Goldsworthy during the construction of 'Watershed' at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. Then he looked up, took off his wide-brimmed, khaki hat and protective face mask to say, “Hello.” It was Andy Goldsworthy.

Paces away, a man in a dark, body-length work apron hovered over a granite slab laying prone at his feet.Ĭalm as Obi-Wan Kenobi, he wielded a loud, heavy-looking wet saw to etch long grooves in the monolith. They avoided heaps of stones and each other.

A cement mixer churned at the base of a slope behind the main building.ĭusty workmen zipped in and out of a simple-looking, solid shed in process. On a sunny June morning, the plinking sounds of hammer and chisel rang through the woods at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

Andy goldsworthy stone wall