ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME (2001) - FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

RIVERS AND TIDES:

 ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME (2001) - FULL TRANSCRIPT

Art, for me, is a form of nourishment.

I... I need... I need the land.

I need it.

I want to understand that state

and that energy that I have in me

that I also feel in the plants

and in the land.

The energy and life

that is running through the...

Flowing through the landscape.

You know, that intangible thing

that is here and then gone.

Growth, time, change,

and the idea of flow in nature.

There's two big influences

in my work...

The sea and the river...

Both water.

You would think that time would be

more compatible with the tide.

Time and tide...

This daily up and down.

But somehow, I think there's

a lot to be learned about time

by the river.

There are always

these obsessive forms

that you cannot get rid of.

I don't like the sensation

of traveling.

I feel dislocated, uprooted,

and it takes me time

to re-establish roots again.

And when I arrive at a new place

I have to begin work

almost immediately.

There's no period

of research or resting.

I go straight to work.

The tide is quite extraordinary...

To have that liquid movement

backwards and forwards.

And the cold,

and its relationship to stone

and fluidity.

But I'm a stranger here.

I'm a stranger, so...

I am so out of touch with it.

I've shook hands with the place...

and begun.

And the work's going well.

I feel warm, but...

Then there's a collapse.

I think I've got this cold,

and it's right through me.

Yeah...

I think good art keeps you warm.

I've mistimed it today.

I got up early, very...

You know, 4:00.

And I couldn't see anything.

The moon was out, but...

But it cast a shadow down here.

And then once you lose your heat,

it's gone, you know.

Have to get it back.

And I have to work

with my bare hands.

Because my gloves stick,

and I don't have the sensitivity

to do it with gloves.

I lose feel of it.

I always like to touch, you know...

You never shake someone's hand

with a glove on.

It is hard... hard going.

And it is cold sometimes

on the hands,

and I do get up very early.

And all that effort

is ultimately going into trying

to make something

that it is effortless.

I wish I had reached this point

about an hour ago

before the sun had risen.

What is extraordinary

that I didn't expect

but I would have... could only

have dreamt of happening

is that the sun coming from there

shines completely

on both sides of the rock.

So all that icicle is illuminated

and against that cliff.

And I never had any idea

that that would happen.

So the potential...

The potential here is fantastic!

You know, it is water.

The river and the sea made solid.

And there's so many works

that I've made that the thing...

The very thing that brings

the work to life

is the thing

that will cause it death.

My first view of the beach

was a river,

and a pool that was being turned

by the river.

So I'm trying to touch

and understand that motion...

The flow and the meeting

of the river with the sea.

I mean, these two waters meeting.

- Hello.

- Fantastic!

- Do you need any help?

- No, I'm done for the day.

When I was a boy, we used to stand

on those rocks and dive in.

- The water was a little deeper then...

- Yeah?

I think.

Must have been.

Do you have a name for this?

This a salmon hole. Yes.

- So, you caught salmon from here?

- Yeah. Well, many times.

Many times. Salmon.

They were touching each other,

they were so thick.

Yeah.

But I'll need such a strong

connection to Scotland.

You know, we have

a lot of salmon holes, too.

I like that. I like that feeling

of the fish there underneath.

- Yes.

- You know that?

It has a sense of a whirlpool,

you know.

And that's exactly what I wanted.

So I fed off that motion

into this piece.

So, what's gonna happen?

What do you expect is gonna happen

when that tide hits that?

- Don't worry.

- It's just gonna float away!

It's gonna float away.

It'll move into the...

- Will it stay intact?

- It'll move into the pool there.

No, it won't stay intact.

- Absolutely not.

- No.

It feels like it's being taken off

into another plane,

taken off into another world

or another work.

It doesn't feel at all like...

destruction.

That moment is really part

of that cycle of turning.

You feel as if you've touched

the heart of the place.

That's a way of understanding

for me...

Seeing something

you never saw before

that was always there

but you were blind to.

There are moments

when it is extraordinarily beautiful

in a piece of work.

I mean, though it happens,

that is...

Then those are moments

that I just live for.

Well, it's quarter to 8:00.

And I think the tide's due in

at around 3:00.

And, well, you know,

there's not a lot of time.

And I think you should stop filming

and collect stones instead,

you know.

Do something useful.

The stone is not so bad.

But the...

We're having to walk

quite a distance to get it,

So, all the time we're losing...

Losing time.

And...

So that makes

for an interesting work.

Maybe I quite like that,

that tension.

And there's a risk, you know,

that maybe only this half way up,

and the tide's here.

And, you know,

it's like a marker to that time

that's coming up behind me.

I began working on the beach.

It's where I began.

And it was a great teacher.

About time.

I think the relentlessness of it...

There's no getting away from the fact

that sea is going to be here.

I was at Art College at Lancaster,

and all the students were

in their cubicles, as they are,

and in that cramped space.

And every day I'd catch a train

to Markham, where I was staying.

And you get off the train,

and you see this big expanse...

The space...

In such stark contrast

to the Art College.

And one day, I went off

and worked on the beach.

What struck me

was that sense of energy

when you were outside

of the Art College.

It was very secure

in the Art College.

As soon as you made

something outside,

there was this almost

breathlessness and an uncertainty.

Total control can be

the death of our work.

Oops.

The stone's speaking.

I've never had one do this before.

And I think it possibly...

It's either the sand

that's settling, and...

Or the weakness of the stone.

Or even the combination of the two.

But I don't think this is going to...

I think that I'll make this

the widest point

and just try to get some weight

back in the middle

to start securing it.

Damn it all.

Shit!

This is my work, you know.

Too many unknowns.

I think its chances of survival

are a bit slim.

Shit!

No.

Let's go.

We need a very heavy stone

right here.

Can you bring me

a very heavy stone,

a kind of lumpy squarish one?

Maybe I shouldn't

have put that one on.

- Can you get one end down here?

- Yes.

Just put it gently on this.

- Ready?

- Down.

You okay?

That's the fourth...

The fourth collapse.

And the tide is...

coming in.

I think it would be better to wait.

The moment

when something collapses,

it is intensely disappointing.

And this is the fourth time

it's fallen,

and each time I got to know

the stone a little bit more.

I got higher each time.

So it grew in proportion

to my understanding of the stone.

And that is really

what one of the things

that my art is trying to do.

It's trying to understand the stone.

I obviously don't understand it

well enough yet.

People make small piles of stone

to mark pathways in hills,

mountains in Scotland,

and I think all over the world.

So all the cones

are related in some way,

and they have become markers

to my journeys

and places that I feel

an attachment towards.

And then it has a quality

of this guardian,

the way that it stands and feels

as if it is protecting something.

I like the connection

the form has with the seed...

Very full and ripe.

I think to look at stone

and find growth,

and is expressed in the seed

within stone

is a very powerful image for me.

The sea came in

and the cone just disappeared.

And then it was gone.

But it was still there.

The work that I had only

just finished making,

so my contact with the stone

was still very, very strong.

So I was with it down there,

but I still couldn't see it.

What I have touched on this time

is that I haven't simply

made the piece

to be destroyed by the sea.

It is... the work has been given

to the sea as a gift.

And the sea has taken the work,

and made more of it

than I could have ever hoped for.

And I think that if I can see in that

ways of understanding those things

that happen to us in life,

that changes our lives,

that causes upheavals and shock...

Can't explain that.

That deeper rhythm of change

I can't see other than in my home.

And, well, this is why my homeplace

is becoming more and more

important to me.

Bracken is a material

that I have always enjoyed

working with.

But it's a very hard...

It's a very tough plant

to work with.

It's very aggressive on your hands

when you're pulling it.

It's like razors.

And I always associate the material

with bleeding hands.

And it's one of the few plants

I use a knife on.

And it's a very toxic plant, too.

When it's sporing,

you shouldn't really inhale

at that time.

And I think we misread

the landscape

when we think of it

just being pastoral and pretty.

There is a darker side to that.

Where they've been in the ground,

they've gone black.

And I really like that idea

that the contact between...

The alpine cows with bells.

I like the idea,

that feeling that the contact

between the plant and the...

Sorry.

The flavor of the fire makes

the energy of the fire visible.

Well, it's the same with this black.

It's like a result

of the exchange of energy

that has taken place

between the plant and the earth.

And that... through that process

there is an exchange of heat

that gives it this...

Well, it looks charred.

It looks painted, but it's not.

That's just the root as I find it.

And I think at this time,

when spring is beginning,

that it doesn't begin on the surface,

it begins below, you know?

So this idea of finding evidence

of that heat within the ground

is something that I... in a way,

is my way of understanding

what's going on at the moment.

And even though these are stalks

from last year's plants

and will not grow again this year,

they are still connected to that root

system underneath the ground.

And the idea

of what happened last year

is being repeated this year,

and it's going to come through this.

I am fascinated by those processes

that are happening in nature

over time

and connected to the sun,

the light, the tide, growth.

The real work is the change.

Bacon will be ready.

Okay.

Want some?

Yes?

No, it's a surprise.

Yeah, it's cooling out.

Probably you guys can get it.

I called you stupid.

Guys, you don't say that.

Will that do?

Yes.

You want some bread?

Here we've been cooking...

Frying bread all morning.

The rabbits.

Don't forget to give him

some green leaves, Holly.

I won't.

No, thank you.

Pull it out then.

Fun.

Pete, come on. Pete.

I'm coming.

- Pete!

- This is a little...!

I'm gonna hold you. You sit.

- I'm gonna hold your fingers.

- Okay, hold my fingers.

Pete, Pete! Come on!

The pupil is dropping.

Floppy. Floppy ears.

Yeah, I think we're good.

And then there's the...

I do my first one of the day's two.

Each are underneath here,

and these all turned out.

Check them for spelling.

The images are coming

from Charlie Sorkin.

Okay.

I began taking photographs

when I was a student at Art College

when I first began working outside,

and I had to explain to my tutors

what I was making.

And the way to do that

was to take photographs.

So it still is a little bit like that.

Photography has become

the way I talk about my sculpture.

And Brancuzzi once said

about sculpture,

"Why talk about sculpture

when I can photograph it?"

It's the language through which

I talk and describe what I've made.

It's also become the way

that I understand what I have done.

When I've worked all day in the rain,

and I'm tired,

I get visually and physically numb

to what I've made.

And I need that time

between the making

and the return of the images

to be able to see afresh

what I've really done.

And I have in here everything...

Good work and bad work.

Everything is put into here.

I'll see you later, then.

Just to work with the tree,

if you want to.

The tree. Okay?

- Okay?

- All right.

See you later.

What you going to make?

Where are you going to make it,

the tree on, Dave?

Who are you working for?

You know, but what are you

going to make at the tree?

I work intuitively.

Most days I don't know

what I'm gonna do.

I have no idea.

I haven't worked there

for a while, so...

Is Wallis going to help you?

I think Wallis is there, yeah.

So we'll see.

I came here I think 12 years ago.

All my children have been born here.

Most of my good friends are here.

I make my best work here,

and I think those are indications

of how strongly I feel for this place.

Yeah!

Take the ball away!

Fine, Johnson!

- Hey, Audrey.

- Hello.

I've lived in places for four

or five years and moved on,

and that is not enough time.

It really isn't enough time

to understand the changes

that happen in the place.

You have to live on the same street,

the same village

for a long period of time,

and seeing children

when they're waiting at the bus stop

grow into adults

and have children of their own.

There was an old lady in the village

who since died.

She was quite a doer Lady.

And she'd had a tough life.

And she used to walk up and down

the street that I lived on,

and I said, "Well, you know,

think about it this way."

Since I've been on this street,

my son...

Well, all my children

were born there.

My eldest son was the first child

"to be born on that street

for 21 years."

And she said,

"Well, you see only births,

and I see only deaths."

From her perspective,

she just knew all the people

who had lived in those houses

and who, you know...

Who had died.

And I hope I never forget

either those people

who have been born,

and those people who have died.

Somehow the river

is that line that I follow.

The river has

an unpredictability about it.

It really is unpredictable.

And that line running through,

yet, at the same time,

having its own cycles

related to the weather and the sea.

It...

So if I had to find something

that would join the year together,

it would be something like the river.

The river is a river of stone,

a river of animals,

a river of the wind,

a river of the water,

a river of many things.

A river is not dependent on water.

We're talking about the flow.

And the river of growth

that flows through the trees

and the land.

And here's the other lamb

on its own.

Just place it up there.

Make sure it's most clear.

Check that her udder's okay.

And that was all over very quick

and painless.

And if we just retreat,

and they'll get back to the lambs.

Can you bring the lamb to drink?

I think this one would be safe here.

The sheep is very brutal

to any young growth.

And the way it rips and tears

the grass.

They are, at times,

like a river of sheep.

The flow and movement

in their own way.

The reason this landscape

looks as it is,

with no trees,

is because of the sheep.

So the sheep have had

this very deep impact on the land.

And...

So I do feel this need

to work with the sheep.

And, yet, our perception of sheep

is so different to the reality

of the sheep.

You know, we...

In that it makes it an incredibly

difficult thing to work with

because we perceive it

as being a wooly animal.

And to get through that wooliness

to the essence of the sheep

is very, very hard

because sheep are incredibly

powerful animals in their own way.

They have been responsible

for social and political upheavals.

The Highland Clearances,

when people were put off the land,

the land lords put sheep on the land

and moved the people away.

And they've left

their story behind them.

And it's written in the place,

in the landscape.

But there's an absence

in the landscape

because of the effects of sheep.

People have lived, worked,

and died here,

and I can feel their presence

in the places that I work.

And I am the next layer

upon those things

that have happened already.

I don't think the earth

needs me at all.

But I do need it.

To just go off into the woods

and make a piece of work

roots me again.

And if I don't work

for a period of time, I feel...

I do feel rootless.

I don't... I don't know myself.

And it's very odd

if I've not worked for, say,

two, three weeks,

and then I give a lecture

and I'm talking about my work,

and it feels like I'm talking

about somebody else.

I do need to be on my own at times.

I enjoy being by myself.

There are people's company

I do enjoy.

And there probably is

a social nature, too.

And that I feed from that

to some extent.

To be honest, I think I do.

I am tired. I am drained by...

people.

But of all the subtleties

that I am aware of,

like the fact the wind has just now

got a little bit stronger,

and although, you know, I look

as calm as I did 30 seconds ago,

there's these little warning bells

inside going.

When I make a work,

I often take it to the very edge

of its collapse.

And that's a very beautiful balance.

Oops.

Dear.

Well, that was close.

I am so amazed at times

that I am actually alive.

Well, that happened occasions.

Well, on occasion, when someone

very close to me died.

It was my younger brother's wife.

Very young.

And the image of...

The image of somebody dying...

Julia dying...

Was just very burnt in your mind.

And the day after Julia's death,

I worked with the tree.

It seemed the right place to go.

And made, the work...

La work with a hole on the tree.

I've become to see it

as a kind of entrance,

a visual entrance into the earth,

into the tree, and stone.

That entrance between which

life both ebbs and flows.

Looking into a black hole,

I've often described

as like looking over a cliff edge.

There's this sense

of being drawn into the black

as you're drawn into the depth,

the distance.

But the other side of that is

out of that comes growth also.

And that was my way

of trying to understand that...

And not just the death,

not just the absence,

because the black is the absence.

It's the...

It's the intangible,

but it's in a context of a tree

that I know will come back to life.

And there's nothing

more potent to me

than a black hole that I've made,

and returning later, and seeing

a little finger of growth...

Growth, a blade of growth

growing out of that black.

That is such a potent image.

You and Maxwell were saying

that Scotland's a lot better

than England.

I have never, ever said that!

When have I ever said that?

I'm not going to...

There's a brilliant rock.

The first wall that I made

with a waller...

You know, my idea was

that I would work with him,

to make the wall.

I used to gap... that's repair,

broken walls a little bit.

But he kept taking

my stones off the wall.

And, you know,

he was right to do that.

I've learned that I have to respect

their work, their life, you know.

And when I work with a waller,

it's not just the time

they spent with me,

but they bring their lives to it.

They don't want me

to touch the walls,

playing at being a waller,

just like I don't want them

to start playing at being artists.

That we both each

have our roles in this.

And my role is

to find the line of the wall.

And I work the space.

Their dialogue with the stone

is what makes the wall.

The stones are laid on,

and on, and on,

and the work makes itself

to some extent.

And it's that fluidity of working

that gives the sculpture

a sense of movement and energy.

When I was asked to make a work

at Storm King...

And I spent a lot of time

walking around,

just getting to know the place.

And I see these walls,

that's now derelict,

that are a link back to my home.

Because these walls

were probably made by people

who came out from Europe,

possibly even Scotland...

Who came out here as settlers,

made farms, made walls.

So that was the first interest.

I wanted to redraw the line,

remake the wall,

so that it talked about the place

as it is now.

The walls here came out

of that process

of cutting down the trees

and turning the forest

into farmland.

But then farming has shifted away from

this landscape.

And trees found shelter in the wall

and grew.

So it was this dialogue

that was of interest to me.

That each bast of wall is a line

that is in sympathy

with the place

through which it travels.

And that sense of movement

is very important

to understanding the sculpture.

While the movement,

the passage of people,

the movement of the wall,

the river of stone,

as it runs round the trees,

the river of growth

that is the forest.

And it has made me aware

of that flow around the world,

the veins that run around the world.

The reason why the stone is red

is because of its iron content.

And that's also the reason

why our blood is red, too.

I do feel a...

There is a special energy

about the red.

I mean, it's probably

its relationship to blood.

But probably something

that I can't really explain entirely.

I think it's the color is

an expression of life.

Even though things die,

they're part of that flow still.

You know, they become part

of the river of red.

In Japan, you'll see a red maple tree

against a green mountain

and this incredible red.

And it's like a wound.

It's like a wound in the mountain.

There's such an energy and violence

about that color.

And I will al...

I am in a continuous pursuit

of the red.

And I have this feeling

that as I approach its source,

the more I begin

to understand the color.

You know, there are many lessons

to be learned by that color.

And I think that when the realization

was that I...

The color is also in me,

you know, then it's this feeling

of both a color and an energy

flowing though all things.

I must have worked here

several times

before realizing the red here.

You know, it's not so obvious.

And just looking underneath stones,

you find these small, red,

soft iron stones.

That something so dramatic,

so intense, could be so...

At the same time, so hidden.

It's so underneath

the skin of the earth.

And there's a real shock

at seeing that color.

Something very alien to the river.

In fact, it is so rooted

and about that place.

You know, here I am

working with the stone,

grinding them down, and...

You know, I spend all this time...

Several hours...

Making a little pile of pigment

that I will make into a ball,

and throw into the river,

and there'll be a splash.

And that's just an instant

in that cycle of stone

as it goes through its process

of solidification,

of then becoming fluid again,

and then being solid...

Made solid once again.

And I think it's one of the...

It's a little memory

in the life of a stone,

but very much in the spirit of that...

In the nature of stone.

We set so much by our idea

of the stability of stone.

And when you find that stone itself

is actually fluid and liquid,

that really undermines my sense

of what is here to stay

and what isn't.

When I work with a building,

I try to use the whole wall...

To touch on a landscape contained

within and behind the building.

It's almost a memory

of the building's origin

contained in the walls,

and it's drawing out that memory.

I wanted the clay either from Dean

or a clay from Scotland.

What I didn't want was a sort

of anonymous, processed clay

that came from some ceramic shop

somewhere.

The clay is dug raw

from the ground,

and I sift out some of the stones.

It's dried, then it's crushed,

and mixed with human hair,

and mixed with water...

Reconstituted.

And the hair is necessary to bind.

And I could use sheep, cow, horse,

but I do like that feeling of people

being bound up in there.

The hair came from the hairdresser's

in the village near to where I live.

So my village is in this work.

I discovered when I made

the first clay walls

that the architectural geology

of the building where beams were

affected the drying rate

and formed cracks

and patterns within the cracking.

So what lies bellow the surface

affects the surface.

Of course, it feels alive, yeah.

If anything, it's an expression

of the stone alive...

Almost back to its origin

as in a volcano,

you know, when the stone was alive.

I mean, it's always alive,

but that visible evidence

of movement

and eruption of the stone.

There's that feeling

of energy within it.

And that's life.

I cannot then explain beyond that,

but I know that there is more

than just a simple collapsing

and arrival of material.

I struggle to say these things,

and I know I can

just about get them out,

but there's a world beyond

what words can define for me.

Words are... do their job,

but what I'm doing here

says a lot more.