Artist Statement
Andy
Goldsworthy’s documentary we watched about his art and the process of making
his pieces inspired me to make pieces similar to that myself. I took the
opportunity presented to us and created art inspired by his work and the nature
surrounding us. His work inspired by the rivers and tides gave me the idea to
do the same type of work giving back to nature and the Earth. Although my art
is much smaller and not as complex or elaborate as Goldsworthy’s, we came up
with ideas making sketches, trying and failing, and producing art truly
satisfactory.
Our
first piece was a nest type thing. We used sticks and twigs weaving them around
the tree and its branches. Although it proved difficult in the beginning, once
there was a base, the nest finally came together. Using different sized sticks
was helpful, balancing out the weight to different parts of the nest somewhat
equally. Smaller twigs often broke or fell off the nest while bigger sticks occasionally
weighed the nest down too much causing it to mildly fall apart. Once the weight
was spread out fairly evenly, the nest stayed in tack pretty well. Then we
added a few leaves to make our nest look a little more natural.
Our
second piece looked a little bit like a target or a bulls-eye. There were rings
around the bottom of the tree in the shape of circles. First we sketched a
design for our piece and then we began. After deciding what the best and most
effective material would be to make this piece of art was, we gathered the
materials. We used the stems or the bottom of dandelions. Most of the flowers
had already fallen off the top of the stems. Once a fair amount of them were
gathered, we laid them out and picked the best ones. Then, we started laying
them out around the base of the tree to create rings. Capturing the whole
process, we put the stems end to end in ring shapes. To top it off, we lined
dandelion tops right around the tree at the top of our first ring. Our
inspiration for this piece was the rings inside of the tree used to determine
the age of the tree. We tried to bring the inside of the tree to the outside.
Our
inspiration was nature and life. We tried to give back to the earth. Nests are
places where more creatures and organisms come to life. Birds and other animals
bring their offspring to life in nests. To me, nests symbolize life. Using art,
we wanted to give back to the earth with nature. The “Ring Around the Rosy” piece was also
inspired by life. The rings inside of
the tree are used to tell how old the tree is. They also tell a story of the
tree’s life, the conditions it lived through with weather. We wanted to bring
the tree’s story to life and show it for the world to see. The rings we made in
our piece were symbolic of the rings inside the tree.