Quotes from Andy Goldsworthy

The photography is not the aim of the work; the articulation of the work through photography is another way of understanding what's going on and what's happening outside.

I see my work plagiarized in gardening programmes and decorating programmes and car adverts, and I suppose I have to accept that's just the way art gets assimilated into culture.

A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it. It is different than patience. It is not thinking. It is working with the rhythm.

When I do the permanent projects or the big projects, when a work is finished, that's the beginning of its life.

It's just that when I work on someone else's land, it makes me aware of the social nature of that landscape.

I am not a performer but occasionally I deliberately work in a public context. Some sculptures need the movement of people around them to work.

A stone is ingrained with geological and historical memories.

The reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red.

Once the fired stone is out of the kiln, it is still possible to mentally reconstruct it in its original form.

Fire is the origin of stone. By working the stone with heat, I am returning it to its source.

The early firings contained many stones.

Three or four stones in one firing will all react differently. I try to achieve a balance between those that haven't progressed enough and those about to go too far.

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.

I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames.

Photography is a way of putting distance between myself and the work which sometimes helps me to see more clearly what it is that I have made.

Ephemeral work made outside, for and about a day, lies at the core of my art and its making must be kept private.

I just see myself as an object in the final image. I know I'm experiencing it when I'm there working on it. I'm there to be worked with, as anything else that I work with.

Complete control can be the death of a work.

I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole.

My work comes first, reasons for it follow.

I have six acres in front of my own house, which I very rarely work on. Most of the work occurs on farmers' fields around me. And I like the discipline of working on other people's land.

The essence of drawing is the line exploring space.

My art recognizes the human place, the human context - especially in Britain, which is a landscape so worked by people for thousands of years, written, deeply ingrained with the presence of people.

It's art that's taught me to think and to write.