Quotes from Andy Goldsworthy

I have walked around the same streets so many times, and then seen a place that had been hidden to me. I now know the sites in a way that makes me think I could have made better use of the connections between place and snowball.

Occasionally I have come across a last patch of snow on top of a mountain in late May or June. There's something very powerful about finding snow in summer.

As with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I'm trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal energy of the stone.

The first snowball I froze was put in my mother's deep freeze when I was in my early 20s.

We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we've lost our connection to ourselves.

There is life in a stone. Any stone that sits in a field or lies on a beach takes on the memory of that place. You can feel that stones have witnessed so many things.

Nature, for me is raw and dangerous and difficult and beautiful and unnerving.

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

The things that I make are that which a person will make. They're not meant to mimic nature. They are nothing but the result of a hand of a person.

I soon realised that what had happened on a small scale cannot necessarily be repeated on a larger scale. The stones were so big that the amount of heat required was prohibitively expensive and wasteful.

It's frightening and unnerving to watch a stone melt.

People also leave presence in a place even when they are no longer there.

I think that any sculpture is a response to its environment. It can be brought to life or put to sleep by the environment.

Occasionally I have come across a last patch of snow on top of a mountain in late May or June. There's something very powerful about finding snow in summer.

The relationship between the public and the artist is complex and difficult to explain. There is a fine line between using this critical energy creatively and pandering to it.

We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we've lost our connection to ourselves.

The difference between a theatre with and without an audience is enormous. There is a palpable, critical energy created by the presence of the audience.

My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I want to see growth in wood, time in stone, nature in a city, and I do not mean its parks but a deeper understanding that a city is nature too-the ground upon which it is built, the stone with which it is made.

I take the opportunity each day offers.

Fear always accompanies the making of art, generated by the shock of seeing an idea taking its form. A sculpture in the mind is safe and secure--the actual work rarely behaves as intended.

My art helps make sense of things.

A tension develops between what I want and what is emerging. This tension is important to the feeling of the piece.

Sometimes I feel that the source of a sculpture's energy comes from the effort of trying to regain a sense of balance lost at some point when I lacked control or concentration or perhaps made an error of judgment. Such moments happen all the time in the making of a sculpture. Not to experience uncertainty or to make no mistakes would in a sense render the making of a sculpture pointless. Any new work should challenge my understanding of both how and why a sculpture should be made.

It takes between three and six hours to make each snowball, depending on snow quality. Wet snow is quick to work with but also quick to thaw, which can lead to a tense journey to the cold store.