It is spring, the time of year I prowl my yard daily searching for signs of life - a swelling bud, a spike of green poking through the ground. I clear the dead stalks of last year and pull the weeds first in places I know certain plants will soon emerge, because if I don’t they will be choked out by the weeds and grass that already have a head start and are thriving. 
Last night on my nightly prowl I came across my crude barren circles in the weed choked flower beds and thought of Andy Goldsworthy. His book Andy Goldsworthy, A Collaboration With Nature was published in 1990. I thumbed through it anytime I saw it in bookstores, but I didn’t buy it until last Christmas. It is remarkable that it stayed in print all these years. I sometimes day dream of coming upon one of Goldsworthy’s pieces in nature, by happenstance, or of sitting mute and still watching him create.
Unlike my want-to-be gardener attempts to bring color and seasonal variety to my yard, Goldsworthy is a master collaborator with nature, in tune with the landscape and weather; pushing the limitations of individual materials, yet maintaining balance within his individual pieces, within nature itself.
I garden to stay connected with nature, to get outside and be reminded that life is cyclical and fleeting. I make sculpture to ponder and capture life's lessons, hopefully with sufficient complexity that they will continue to intrigue and give insight long after they are finished. I want my sculpture to be able to stand the test of time. I want my garden to grow and renew itself year after year.
But much of Goldsworthy’s work is as fleeting as life itself. He uses plant materials that decay, ice that melts, stones that the tides will tumble to create a moment of balance and beauty that from the moment it is finished continues to evolve and decay in a natural life-cycle. I have always been in awe of his ability to create such exquisite moments of perfection knowing that for the most part they would only be seen and experienced through the photos he took to record their life cycles. Only in his later stone work, can we experience his work for ourselves. 
But most of the art I treasure I hold onto, return to through books and pictures. It really doesn't matter whether a piece still exists or has long since decayed or collapsed from the forces of gravity, wind or rain. Most of Goldsworthy’s pieces were never expected to survive past the turn of the tide or rising sun, but through pictures, they will continue to delight and inspire generations.
Goldsworthy has many books and DVD's chronicling his work. In March, he completed a new stone installation for the Doerr/Hosier Center in Aspen, Colorado. The wall combines the beautiful red Colorado sandstone of my childhood with red sandstone imported from England, China, India, and Jordan. I can't wait to see it when I visit Colorado in the fall. It is a permanent wall, requiring a team stone masons and architects, but I hope it still captures the essence of Goldsworthy's earlier, solitary work made when his only collaborator was nature itself.
