March (Web-only) 2003

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Some people look at God's creation and see a resource for practical uses. Others stand back in awe at its beauty. For artist Andrew Goldsworthy, nature is beautiful but it is also full of possibility.

The idea of seeing yet another movie about an artist may turn away moviegoers tired of the theme. To look at recent films about artists—Frida, Pollock, Baquiat, Surviving Picasso—you might think artmaking is all about alcohol, drugs, spousal abuse, infidelity, madness, and political activism. But in Thomas Riedelsheimer's new documentary, Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time, Goldsworthy's work reminds us of an artist's true focus: a meditative commitment to discovery, creativity, and the enhancement of God's own invention.

Goldsworthy does not present himself as a Christian, or even particularly interested in God. In fact, his contemplative monologues about his own thought processes have annoyed some of the critics who have written about the film. (After all, the first rule of art is "Show, don't tell.")

But his work may well draw viewers towards profound questions about how such beauty and possibility can exist in nature without a Grand Designer. Further, each exhibit seems a testament to what is possible when, in spite of the unstoppable forces of the elements and the passing of time, his work holds for a few triumphant hours. Goldsworthy's constructions seem to defy natural laws, but they hold precisely because he is willing to test the limits of those laws. He builds complex, gravity-defying walls by joining the tips of twigs; he builds a precariously balanced column of stone that becomes the submerged secret of a rising river; and he braids leaves into long colorful ribbons that wind their way down rivers ...