Winners of GreenCine's Rivers and Tides Essay Contest, 2004:

I've always been enamored of both art and artifacts left by humans in a natural setting, from footsteps across a sandy beach and contrails in the sky, to the works of Robert Smithson (Spiral Jetty). I like the artifacts because they are largely unintentional, and even if they were built on purpose (sand castles, a snowman) they have a quality of impermanence that to me still defines them as part of the natural environment. When an artist creates a work of art out of natural materials, situated IN a natural setting, I see it as a tribute to the forces of nature... It might sit in the water very much like a natural sand bar, but looking at it you would see very clearly that it has the imprint of a human mind. Those are usually more permanent, but they are still subject to the tides, the weather, the forces of nature in the setting around them.

Another way I think of them is as a gift, or offering, or a sacrifice man makes to Mother Earth. As part of ritual, Navajo Indians make elaborate paintings on the ground with colored sand. At the end of the ritual, the grains of sand are scattered to the winds and rain, and the creative human force and spirit that went into creating it is released to the universe. Even a cairn of flat stones, despite its solemn weight, has an unfinished look that declares that it's still a part of the environment rather than a purposeful structure. It's as if the artist or builder is saying, "Look, this is something man built to be part of nature, not something he built to stand apart."

Once I was working on a film on Baffin Island... there was a day off and I trekked out to do a bit of exploring on my own. I made it to the top of a ridge, and I could see our camp, our tents and vehicles just visible against the place where flat snow-covered land gave way to a sea of bumpy ice, just starting to break up under the warmth of perpetual late spring daylight. Other than our camp, there was no visible sign of man in the miles and miles of arctic vista stretching out all around me. I could have walked back down, but the slope below me was impossible to resist, and I sat and slid all the way back down to sea level on my butt. As I walked back to camp I kept looking back to see if the diagonal scar I left in the pristine snow down the side of the ridge was still visible. With binoculars I could still clearly see it, even from our tents. It made me happy because it was like a giant calligraphy stroke... it was gone the next day of course... the arctic "nights" were windy.

Today I watched a PBS show about the history of the Earth, and the beginning of life... Some of these events happened billions of years ago. It set me to musing that the art of people like Andy Goldsworthy is a reminder... that man's existence in this universe has been just a blip in the history of even just our planet. Some day, even the biggest, most permanent of the structures and monuments we build will crumble and fall, leaving just the howling of winds and the flow of rivers and tides. Some people believe that art confers a kind of immortality on the artist, but I'm not so sure... Maybe the beauty of art is that it shows us that there is a human spirit that's alive right here, today. Each human life is relatively short and impermanent but it's still wonderful, and art is how we celebrate that...
-- Hamano

Seeing an Andy Goldsworthy feels like the discovery of an ancient civilization. Macchu Picchu and Angkor Wat have been stripped by rain, plant growth, and wind to the essence of engineering--one stone stacked on another. Goldsworthy's sculpture captures this--humankind's first sorcery--in a way that reminds me of what is best (or at least most enduring) about us. -- Wes2666

What I find most inspiring about Andy Goldsworthy is that he seems to have a profound understanding of how to experience a moment as it occurs and then to accept and embrace the changes that immediately follow. It doesn't seem likely that the anxiety and disappointment that most people feel when they watch their snowman melt under the sun or their sand castle crumble into the sea is shared by Andy Goldsworthy. On the contrary, he and his work seem to celebrate the inevetible transformations that take place in nature, and in life. Its as if he writes novels that cannot be read more than once. If you flip back to re-read the pages you've already read then you'll find that they are now composed of something completely different. It is now a different book altogether, and will continue to be each time that you re-read it.

What truly sets AG apart from most artists is that his work (with the aid of mother nature) can evolve before your very eyes. I don't know of any paintings, sculptures, structures, poems, books, films, or songs that can do that, and that to me is very inspiring. The closest I have ever come to creating art like this in the natural world was when I once wrote my name in snow using only my urine (natural graffiti, if you will). After ten minutes of melting and steaming "Kasey" soon looked more like "Rosey." What can I say, I'm no Goldsworthy. -- KGunn