Andy Goldsworthy and Success:
Winter, Spring, Summer, and Success.
By Ben Lindahl | Communications Major, Bethel University
In the documentary, Rivers and Tides, world-renowned nature artist, Andy Goldsworthy stands, almost completing his elaborate sculpture made from sticks of all shapes and sizes. When he gently places one of the final pieces of his intricate work of art, the entire sculpture crumbles like a delicate house of cards. As Goldsworthy muttered how close he came to being done with his piece of art, he stepped back and looked at the blank space that held his art moments before. He then spoke of how amazing it felt to be alive.
At another point in the documentary, Goldsworthy spends hours piling rocks on top of one another, only to see the pile collapse from an uneven base. He slumps his shoulders, tosses a large flat rock aside, and begins to rebuild. Once again, the impressive rock cairn collapses onto itself. With that collapse, Goldsworthy utters, “The moment something collapses, it’s intensely disappointing. And this is the fourth time it’s fallen. Each time, I got to know the stone a little bit more. It grew in proportion to my understanding of the stone. That’s really what my art is trying to do. It’s trying to understand the stone. I obviously don’t understand it well enough…yet” (qtd. in Rivers and Tides).
Artists like Andy Goldsworthy possess incredible talent and vision. However, people often refer to artists as starving because of the lack of success they see in their lifetime. Goldsworthy, an artist worth over $240 million dollars, came to success due to his many special opportunities, putting more than ten-thousand hours of training and practice into his unique art, and knowing he creates meaningful work. All of these characteristics of success, written about in author Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success, helped to make Andy Goldsworthy successful in this field where success can be nearly impossible to see in one’s lifetime.
Goldsworthy, born on July 25th, 1956, in Cheshire, England fell deeply in love with nature as a young boy. He disliked the indoors because of its restrictive qualities, and instead chose to spend his days outdoors in the rural green belt of the United Kingdom, in Harrogate (“Who is Andy Goldsworthy?”). Hired at the age of thirteen as a farmhand, Goldsworthy began to see nature as a medium that he could use to create unique works of art. He continued his work outside as a groundskeeper, further growing in his admiration for nature (Widewalls). Goldsworthy explains his fascination with farming by saying, “Farming itself is a sculptural process. Fields are ploughed, bales of hay are stacked, walls are built. The day is spent shaping and recreating what is around you” (qtd. in “Andy Goldsworthy Biography”). Goldsworthy, a man that sees nature as a potential but temporary canvas uses rocks, flowers, snow, ice, twigs, cow dung, and any other items from nature in his work.
The Goldsworthy family held formal education in high esteem. His father, F. Allin Goldsworthy worked as a professor at the University of Leeds as Andy grew up (Widewalls). Goldsworthy’s university education began at Bradford College of Art in fine arts. Later, he received a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Central Lancashire. While education mattered to Goldsworthy, he found that he still preferred using the outside world as his canvas rather than spending time in the studio and in classes (Widewalls).
Goldsworthy’s childhood and education is a lot like Gladwell’s book, Outliers and how special opportunities lead to success. Microsoft founder, Bill Gates received incredible opportunities to work for hours on computer programming as an eighth grader at a time in his private school when virtually nobody had access to computers. Gates had only recently transferred to that school and that school’s Mother’s Club just happened to invest in a computer terminal soon after he arrived there. As a high school student, Gates began spending time programming at the University of Washington. Gladwell explains, “Bill Gates got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader in 1968” (Outliers 51). Gladwell identifies Gates’ numerous and extraordinary opportunities combined with his talent and interest as key factors on how he has achieved his overwhelming success (Outliers 37–39). Goldsworthy’s opportunity of being born into a family that pushed him toward education helped him learn what he needed to about art. More importantly, having the chance to spend an abundance of time creating art in nature gave Goldsworthy unique opportunities for great success.
Most consider Goldsworthy to be a phenomenally talented artist with an unrivaled creative streak in the world of sculptural art. While he did get some special opportunities, he devoted thousands of hours to creating and discovering his work from the time he was barely a teen. In Outliers, Gladwell speaks about The Beatles, one of the world’s most accomplished rock bands of all time. While The Beatles were tremendously talented musicians, they did not become successful musicians until they put in thousands of hours practicing their art. When The Beatles arrived in the United States, they seemed to magically appear on the scene and bask in instant fame and wealth. However, they had been working and practicing together as a band for seven years prior to arriving in America. While still in high school, John Lennon and Paul McCartney travelled to Hamburg, Germany to play in strip clubs. Lennon talks about that time, saying, “In Liverpool, we’d only ever done one-hour session, and we just used to do our best numbers, the same ones, at every one. In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours, so we really had to find a new way of playing” (Outliers 49). Their frequent trips to Hamburg in less than two years, resulted in two-hundred and seventy nights of performing live. By the time most people discovered The Beatles, they performed in over 1,200 live shows. The Beatles’ song writer, Philip Norman, spoke of those years with many hours spent performing live. He states, “They were no good onstage when they went there and they were very good when they came back. They weren’t disciplined onstage at all before that. But when they came back, they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them” (Outliers 50).
Much like The Beatles, Goldsworthy put in thousands of hours to become a massively successful artist. Goldsworthy began exploring nature and how he could incorporate it into art when he had barely become an adolescent. Over many years, Goldsworthy continued to improve his art, explored new ways to create, and connected more deeply with his canvas, nature. When asked about the passage of time and the time he spends creating, Goldsworthy explains, “Time give growth, it gives continuity, and it gives change. And in the case of some sculptures, time gives a patina to them” (Solomon). Goldsworthy gladly gives time to his work and he does not put time restrictions on creating. When asked how much time an upcoming piece of art would take, Goldsworthy stated, “It could be two minutes. Or it could be all day. On a day like today when I’m feeling the pressure of these stones coming, it would be unlikely if I made good work. Sometimes you do a touch, just to keep yourself going” (Solomon). In 1997, Goldsworthy built an over two-thousand foot wall in New York. He used rocks from the Hudson Valley, created it without mortar, and instead employed the drystone method. Building the massive wall using a tedious technique took a significant amount of time (“Andy Goldsworthy Biography”). However, Goldsworthy cared more about the beauty he brought forth than how long the work took. For nearly five decades, Goldsworthy has devoted thousands of hours to becoming such a phenomenally creative man.
Louis and Regina Borgenicht arrived in America in 1889, expecting their second child, and with only enough money to last them a few weeks. They were unsure about how they would make a living and support their growing family. Louis started off in this new land selling fish. Frustrated, he knew this would not lead to the success they needed to make it in America. He persisted, selling a variety of things from his pushcart (Outliers 139–140). Soon after their second child came into the world, the Borgenichts began sewing girls’ aprons to sell after Louis saw a young girl wearing one over her dress. After researching what would sell, Louis decided clothing, and especially these aprons would be just what could bring them success. They sewed endlessly and sold girls’ aprons all over the city. Eventually, they expanded to women’s aprons and to dresses. They worked brutal hours and were exhausted. However, when they learned about the industry, they became successful. In Outliers, Gladwell explains, “When Borgenicht came home at night to his children, he may have been tired and poor and overwhelmed, but he was alive. He was his own boss. His work was complex; it engaged his mind and imagination. And in his work, there was a relationship between effort and reward” (Outliers 149). He later says, “Those three things — autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward — are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying” (Outliers 149). Money cannot be the goal of success if we hope to be successful.
Meaningful work propels Goldsworthy toward success. He spends his days doing what he loves while connected to nature, which rewards him greatly. In Rivers and Tides, we see many occasions where he watches his work float away, crumble, or break. He knows his art will be temporary, but he finds great satisfaction in watching it come to life. When asked about creating, Goldsworthy states, “Oh, I love it! The process of it is the attraction. I need to touch, I need to make. That’s what provokes the next work” (Brunton). In addition, Goldsworthy feels passionate about the mission of his work. His adoration of nature and his desire to have other people value it drives him and brings him satisfaction. He states, “The fact that someone has walked in a place where I work, has lived and died in it, gives what I do its context, its depth” (“Andy Goldsworthy Biography”). He says nothing about his wealth or how much money each piece of art will be worth. Doing meaningful work brings Goldsworthy satisfaction and therefore success.
Goldsworthy intrigues millions of people around the world with the fascinating work he creates. A life full of special opportunities evolved Goldsworthy into a person who sees things in a way the rest of the world takes for granted or often ignores. Through those special opportunities, he enthusiastically pursued his art, devoting tens of thousands of hours to making beautiful, temporary sculptures from the world of nature he adores. Finally, Goldsworthy lives a life of high satisfaction. He finds his work meaningful and important. As he created eighteen one-ton snowballs for an exhibit, of course he knew they would be gone in a matter of time (Midsummer Snowballs). To Goldsworthy, that fact was not as important as the work itself. For the most part, his work lives on through photographs, documentaries, and books. However, Goldsworthy finds deep meaning in connecting with nature through the process of creating his art. Goldsworthy has gained wealth and fame through art. One gets the sense that Goldsworthy would be just as satisfied as a farmer, working in nature with animals, and the world as a canvas all around him.
Work Cited
Abrams, Amah-Rose. “The Stunning Land Art of Andy Goldsworthy.” Artnet News, Artnet News, 18 Nov. 2015, https://news.artnet.com/market/visually-stunning-land-art-andy-goldsworthy-365327.
Adams, Tim. “The Interview: Andy Goldsworthy.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 11
Mar. 2007, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/mar/11/art.features3.
“Andy Goldsworthy Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2007-Co-Lh/Goldsworthy-Andy.html.
“Andy Goldsworthy Quotes.” BrainyQuote, Xplore, www.brainyquote.com/authors/andy_goldsworthy.
“Andy Goldsworthy.” Widewalls, www.widewalls.ch/artist/andy-goldsworthy/.
Brunton, Michael. “Q & A With Andy Goldsworthy.” Time. 13 April, 2007, http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1610464,00.html.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown, and Company, 2008.
Goldsworthy, Andy. Midsummer Snowballs. Thames & Hudson, 2001.
“National Gallery of Art.” Art Object Page, www.nga.gov/press/2004/andy-goldsworthy/andy-goldsworthy-bio.html.
Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time. Directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer, Mediopolis Film, 2002.
Solomon, Deborah. “Stone Diarist.” NY Times. 16 May, 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/magazine/stone-diarist.html.
“Who Is Andy Goldsworthy? Everything You Need to Know.” Childhood, Life Achievements & Timeline, www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/andy-goldsworthy-708.php.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ben Lindahl
Ben Lindahl, a freshman from White Bear Lake, Minn., always wanted to become a nature artist like Goldsworthy, but haven’t had the time to get out there and create art like him. Lindahl likes to fish, hang out with friends, and really really loves to play frisbee golf.
What I’ve Learned
Susan Cain has taught me that being an introvert (like myself) is a good thing.
The movie Moneyball has taught me to never give up on my hopes and dreams.
I have began to learn from my mistakes in speeches.
I love the way Malcolm Gladwell talks about success in a different way and that really speaks to me.
Inquiry Seminar has made me into a writer I didn’t think I would ever become.
I learned that selfies can be part of school assignments.
I love how we got to learn more about our a hero of ours and that we got to write a whole paper on them.
Google Drive was so confusing to me before I took this class; now I’m a pro.
I love the way Inquiry class is taught and I would definitely take it a second time if I could.
Overall, this class made me feel special in my own way.
