Sunday, January 10, 2016

A New Hope

Doorway to nowhere on Patterson Ave.




I watched a documentary called "Rivers and Tides" featuring the work of Andy Goldsworthy.  Goldsworthy works with natural elements in natural landscapes.  His work is fleeting, sometimes lasting only until sunrise or the next tide.

Placing leaves in this frequently passed-by doorway, my mind wandered.  About what I would say if someone asked what I was doing (no one did).  About stereotypes and realities of mental illness.  About public art.  About not caring what people think.  About some Jehovah's Witnesses who reminded me recently that the tradition of the Christmas tree is pagan in origin.   

Creating a formation out of icicles and realizing water will cause its demise, Goldsworthy remarks that as is frequently the case, the very thing he makes is the thing that causes its death.

 A sample of his work below (See more at https://www.artsy.net/artist/andy-goldsworthy-2):


pinned with thorns to rosebay willowherb stalks
held above the bluebells with bracken forks
Brough, Cumbria
8 June 1985
"At its best a wall is a line in sympathy with the place it travels."

http://visualmelt.com/Andy-Goldsworthy


Frozen patch of snow
each section carved with a stick
carried about 150 paces, several broken along the way
began to thaw as day warmed up
Brough, Cumbria
March 1984

Here's to a sprouts, growth in new places, greenery on a gray, January day. 

"We confess to being fools and we wish we were more so." - Dorothy Day