Red & Andy Goldsworthy
[Red] as the earth’s vein — a description confirmed by the realisation that the earth and stone are red because of their iron content which is also why our blood is red.
The beauty of the red is its connection to life — underwritten by fragility, pain and violence — words that I would have to use in describing beauty itself. This sense of life draws me to nature, but with it also comes an equally strong sense of death. I cannot walk far before seeing something dead and decaying. Uprooted trees, fallen rocks, landslides, flood damage . . . A grip on beauty is necessary for me to feel and make sense of its underlying precariousness. So many of my sculptures are within a hair’s breadth of failure. I often see works — a balanced column of rocks, stacked icicles — looking stronger with each piece that is added, but also know that each addition takes it closer to the edge of collapse. Some of my most memorable works have been made in this way, and some of my worst failures could have produced some great pieces. Beauty does not avoid difficulty but hovers dangerously above it — like walking on thin ice.
—Andy Goldsworthy, from Time (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008), p. 25.
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