In his Snowballs in Summer series, Goldsworthy makes large snowballs in winter and preserves them until the summer. Inside of each snowball, he "hides" different materials such as chalk, old pine needles, and dogwood [pictured above]. For this project, Goldsworthy is interested in how different snow melts, the patterns the materials inside will melt into, and the relationship between a city and the imposed natural form.

Goldsworthy is also interested in the creation of what he calls "holes." The interruption of natural materials creates a black space the Goldsworthy regards as "the earth's flame - its energy." These works vary in size and medium, but each interruption of space is powerful.

I have seen the film, Rivers and Tides a few times while being in art school. I have a sincere appreciation for the work that Andy Goldsworthy does, even though I am not necessarily the biggest fan of the movie. But every time I watch it, I become more and more interested in his work. I like that idea of ephemeral works, and seeing Goldsworthy do such incredibly things makes me feel compelled to make my own attempts at such works.

One of the things about Goldsworthy that I greatly respect his strong commitment to his work, specifically the time he dedicates to his pieces. He wakes up incredibly early in order to go out into the world and create before the sun comes up to melt his ice sculptures, or to beat the tide before it comes back.  He has to have a good understanding of the environment he is working with in order to plan accordingly. At the beginning of the film, Goldsworthy is talking about how forms and presences repeat themselves so there is a sense of comfort in knowing that things are going to be relatively the same anywhere you go. However, he still doesn't like being "uprooted" from his normal surroundings. This is something that I think everyone can relate on, whenever we travel to a new place we look for the similarities between this foreign space and our home. It makes this new place not so scary, and more familiar which is what we want.

In order to familiarize himself with this new place, he immediately beings working. We see him build and sculpture that consists entirely of icicles on a rock. He is finished and the sun begins to rise over some hills and he is filled with excitement. The way that the sun shines through the piece on both sides manages to illuminate the entire structure which is something he was not expecting. However beautiful this sunshine makes the piece, it is also going to cause its destruction. It is ironic that his happens, what created the ice is the temperature and what destroys it is also the same. Which is something else that he discusses in the film. He doesn't feel like the pieces he is creating is being destructive in anyway, that is not why he builds them. Just like anything else in the world, they are always changing and becoming something new. "The real work is in the change." With ephemeral works, there are plenty of things that happen that you aren't necessarily prepared for and cannot predict. Like excessive wind, or rain which can also be said for the human experience. There are always things that come up that we were not planning for in anyway, but we have to deal with it the best we can and sometimes the best things come from that. Mutations of an idea don't make the idea any less valid, it just makes it different from the original plan which often times makes it better.

This leads into another talking point of the film in regards to failure.  Goldsworthy doesn't think of these as totally negative experiences, but ones that he can learn from.  The more 'failure' that you encounter, the more familiar you are forced to become with the materials and processes at hand.  I think that this is something that every artist can relate to, and can also be seen with everyday life.  For my mural photography final this semester I went through a lot of different process and techniques that didn't exactly go as planned.  I wanted to physically alter the surface of the photographs but couldn't achieve what it was that I wanted to see.  I also had this problem with trying to alter the images, I felt guilty destroying these images but wasn't entirely sure why and then realized I had grown to have a sentimental attachment to them all.  They were found negatives that I printed, and the images reminded me of my own childhood.  So instead of my original plan, I ended up making a series of juxtapositions between the found imagery and images of my childhood which was ten times more successful then I could have imagined.
 
Another point in Rivers and Tides that is constantly being brought up is time.  He works outside so time is constantly a factor for him.  So many things are out of his control, verses the art school world he was in so long.  "Everything is very secure in art collage."  I thought that that was a really great statement, and a very true one.  School is a very nurturing environment which effects the art making process, there are not nearly as many uncertainties within those walls as there are in the real world.  Another way the real world affects art is in the viewing, which is another talking point in the film.  Goldsworthy says that he views his projects as markers of his journey, but when they are placed in a museum setting that changes.  In museums, I view them as signifier of his career, not necessarily of the growth he has had as an artist.  There is also such a physicality to his pieces, they are just begging to be touched which is totally forbidden in museum spaces.  So that automatically changes the piece, in nature they are exposed to the elements and will exist for as long as they can withstand them.  Verses museums, where they are in a temperature controlled space and do not have to fear destruction.  I'll admit though, when I saw one of the cones at the La Jolla MOMA I touched it.

One final talking point is how the landscape is impacted by animals and people.  The sheep are discussed as being creatures that need to be looked at more in depth than their "wooliness" but as creatures that are capable of social and political upheaval.  They provoked the government to kick people off of the land and let the sheep roam the country sides instead.  This absence of humans lead to the landscape turning out how it did, no trees in sight.  This idea of working with absence can be seen not only in Goldworthy's work, but also that of Joe Sternfels who manages to combine landscapes with photojournalistc qualities. 

The thing that I like so much about Goldworthy is his perspective on how things exist in our world.  "I am the next layer upon the things that have happened already."  I feel like that is a very profound statement, he acknowledges that he is not the first to be in the environment he is in.  He is not the first, and will not be the last, to appreciate the environment.  He creates these beautiful sculptures that may or may not crumble moments after he has created them.  So much time is spent working on these pieces that are made to look effortless.  "The real work is the change."  He has fulfilled his role as the creator but leaves it up to fate to decide what will become of it.  "I have given it to the sea and it made it even better then I could have ever imagined."  I like this idea that you don't have to have total control over a piece, and that once you let go it is able to have a life of its own.  It has become a living thing, in a sense, and no longer needs you to guide it.  Just start it off, and let the rest happen as it will.

Process, decay, impermanence, transition are all words that I would use to describe Andy Goldsworthy's art. What is so wonderful about this man’s work is that it completely abandons all pretense that is traditionally part of our embedded notions of what art is supposed to be: as a child, I learned that art was something that was finished, complete, totally preserved, prevented from erosion, from death, decomposition or even aging. Museums were the teacher and I grew up believing in this model. Goldsworthy employs exactly all of the things opposite of the techniques that I learned. His materials are organic (such as the leaves or the thin vines woven through the foliage), his method is lengthy and exposed (he is outside, in a public place, taking all day long to assemble something that will go away in hours such as the icicle rock sculpture), and his completed pieces are impermanent (they begin to change form the minute he is done with them such as the spiral of sticks in a pile that the river washes away).

The documentary makes watching Andy Goldsworthy very exciting. In the realtime of his constructions, however, the process is most likely boring, tedious and even painful. When gathering up the reeds from the pasture sculpture, he mentions how the plant has brutal thorns that rip the flesh. As he was creating the icicle structure, he paused often to blow on his hands which were frozen from being exposed to the cold since early in the morning before dawn.

As I was watching the film, I tried to figure out what held my attentions so intently. I think that the thrill is from the opportunity to witness with our eyes the amazing moment at which the piece has been done and the fact that it will no longer be there for anyone else to see. We understand the excruciating patience and physical demands that may have gone into the piece, but we get to skip that part and witness the beauty and perfect elegance of the form against the picturesque backdrop of the landscape — places where we most likey will never get to in our whole lives.

The work is at the same time NOT scultpure. Like photography or film, Goldsworthy’s pieces are simulacra reproduced by secondary visual media for our viewing pleasure. As viewers, we are removed from the pieces themselves — we do not get to see what Andy Goldsworthy or the person behind the motion camera see. We are only secondary observers.

I love this work for its simplicity and its successful return to a time in our lives when we weren’t burdened with critics or money or art school. I remember a time when I took great efforts to draw these elaborate pictures in the sand with my stick only to see the ocean waves erase the drawing. It made me giggle hysterically because it was like a game against Great Ocean: it would dare me to make another drawing before deciding that the slate had to be clean again!

After spending a good amount of time wandering the schoolyard, the students broke into small groups.  For the first time all year, there was no whining or fighting over working together.  Students seemed to naturally gravitate towards working alone or with a small group of friends.  They gathered materials together, brainstormed ideas, and even claimed their area without an ounce of anger or annoyance.  They quickly got to work and produced some amazing art.

Tomorrow, I will print out their artwork and we will use the pieces to inspire poetry and prose.  The words they write will then be combined with the photos before becoming a book on Shutterfly.  Through the Voices...From the Land project, we will share our book with another school and will receive one from another school.  We are very excited!

His sense of recognizing what he is creating, as well as his need to do the work he creates, really hit me in the gut.  It is hard to explain to people what an artist's work is about; harder still for some people to see it as work.

The film is terrific; it is photographed exquisitely. And there are extra short films as well on the DVD.

The Cairn at Walderton

Originally uploaded by dog walker2008

I know that this just looks like a pile of stones but in my eyes its more than that! 

Before Christmas the Husband started a project on his favourite walk. He didn't tell me about it at first - I was introduced to it in the new year as it took him a while to get it going - a ring of flints marked the start of what is slowly evolving into a kind of work of art. I suspect that Andy Goldsworthy was his inspiration as both he and I love his work.  While the flints were only one or two rows high, people seemed to kick them about. Then as it took on another level, it appeared to be left alone - in fact other walkers started adding to it.

I could be really pretentious by saying that as the Cairn had now become a piece of public art with contributions from an invisible group of walkers - a physical form of social networking! I wonder how many people have put a flint or two onto it... what are they like... what have they thought when they've seen it for the first time... do they come back to check up on progress?  All these questions spring to mind.

Working on it consumes you as balancing each flint takes time - its easy just to pile them onto the outer walls but they need to be fully supported so that it forms a robust sculpture.  Now its grown to quite a height, about 2 foot, taking on some permanentency as the weeds weave in and out of the bottom flints. But this has created a challenge - ideally its just an outer wall, curving inwards to an apex, but this needs patience and skill - and it was becoming apparent that the wall wouldn't be strong enough to grow to its full height. So we're cheating by filling in the middle to widen the walls and make them stronger. Part of me feels guilty for cheating and not doing it properly, but is it better to create a shape which everyone, however skilled, can contribute to, so it really becomes a piece of public art?

I'm looking forward to seeing the cairn evolve and watch what happens to it in the months ahead.  And dare I ask if it will it be worthy of being inspired by Goldsworthy.

This forms is in the window so that people can see the grass seeds grow over the course of this residency. I raked the sand first , very Japanese. Sand is used in Japanese gardens to represent water so it is raked to resemble the waves.  The peat balls were rolled in grass seeds so hopefully they will grow!!! 

Over the course of this residency the forms on the ground have often been walked on. People expect work to be displayed on the walls and not on the ground. I had just finished making this piece and it was walked on. This seems to be part of making work on the ground. I read that Andy Goldsworthy had just finished a piece using leaves and a dog ran right through it.        

I have always loved Andy Goldsworthy's work.  The forms he creates are circles, spheres and holes. He uses materials from the envionment. I enjoy looking at his work and this gives me some inspiration for my own work.

I decided to continue on with the peat forms. I like repetition of form so I decided to make the peat balls and arrange them in rows. There is something calming about looking at rows of objects.

This week’s guest blogger is Thomas Persson, the editor in chief and creative director of Acne Paper. Founded in Stockholm in 1996, Acne — perhaps best known for its omnipresent pipe-cleaner-thin jeans — is a diverse creative collective, working within the worlds of fashion, graphic design, magazine publishing, film production and advertising.

With the opening of the Acne stores in New York and Paris I attended so many cocktail parties and met so many people that I started having strange dreams at night. When I told a friend that I was concerned, he laughed and sent me a Youtube link: Anne Bancroft’s fantastic sketch "Yma Dream" from 1970, adapted from a New Yorker piece by Thomas Meehan.

Like a public audiovisual library, Youtube is as much about entertainment as it is a tool for reference and inspiration. One of the great things about living in a technological age is that for the first time in history all these cultural archives are accessible to us. So for today’s blog I decided to invite friends and creative people I admire to entertain us by sharing their current favorite Youtube link. Enjoy!

MATTIAS KARLSSON
Stylist for T, Another Man, Acne Paper and Dazed & Confused, among others
Diana Ross show opening Central Park, July 21 1983. Wish I could have been there.

KAY BARRON
Contributing writer for The Independent, The Telegraph, The Observer and British Vogue
There is something very traditionally British about this low-budget production The 1979 Disco Dancing Championship. It is refreshing that the competitors have obviously never stepped foot inside a drama or dance school, there is definitely nothing polished about them. They are just really delighted that they can high kick to Donna Summer. Then there is also the hilarious reality that only 30 years ago this dance style was acceptable.

Click here to watch the 1979 Disco Dancing finals.

HANNES HETTA
Fashion Editor of Vogue Homme International
On this first day of spring, one of my favourite artists, Andy Goldsworthy, came to mind. He performs his work in nature, with the help of nature only. Such a real and pure expression!

BENJAMIN ALEXANDER HUSEBY
Artist and photographer
Erik Satie's work "Vexations" (from around 1893) is a pre-dada surreal piece of music, that is considered by some to be the birth of avant garde music. On the score Satie, obsessed with numerology, instructed that a passage should be repeated 840 times. The first time "Vexations" was performed, in its entire length of roughly 18 hours, was by a gang of musicians and composers including John Cage and John Cale (before the Velvet Underground fame) in New York, in 1963. This Youtube clip is not of this often referenced concert, but of John Cale appearing on the American quiz show "I've Got a Secret" shortly after. Towards the end, when Cale gives the quiz show audience a sample of "Vexations," the atmosphere in the TV studio is nothing but electric. A true clash of avant garde and mainstream culture this clip sent chills down my spine and truly cements, at least to me, Youtube's importance.

RICHARD NICOLL
Fashion designer
I love "Laughter in Wartime" by Talking Heads, the live show from the tour.

MEERA SLEIGHT
Print designer

When I want to cheer up, I look at the video of Dennis Brown, singing "So Jah Say" at the Montreux festival in 1979. The most handsome man in the world jumping about in a pair of tight yellow dungarees and singing like an angel.

KIM JONES
Creative director of Dunhill
Kinky Gerlinky was really the best club in London. One of my favorite clips for the moment is the end sequence from the Kinky Gerlinky Christmas party, 1990.

CHRISTOFFER LUNDMAN
Menswear designer of Acne
I realized that I was 12 when I first saw Bruce Weber’s "Being Boring" video for Pet Shop Boys! 12! That's more than half my life ago. By this stage I already knew of Pet Shop Boys, but of course I had never heard of Bruce Weber. I remember sitting completely mesmerized in front of the TV screen. I had never seen anything like it before. It was so beautiful and so cool. In fact, it came to define what I saw as cool and I remember thinking: This has to be my life when I turn older. Of course that didn't happen, instead I spent most of my twenties as an impoverished student, but my love for Pet Shop Boys and my love for Bruce Weber's aesthetic remained. A shoot he made together with Grace Coddington for Vogue in the early 80's, came to influence my final collection on the Ma.

RACHEL THOMAS
Set Designer

Richard Serra's “Boomerang” from 1974. I think this was one of the first searches I did on Youtube. I was so surprised and excited when I found it was there. It is pretty obscure and I had only ever seen it once before in a gallery and probably wouldn't have had a chance to see it again. It's even more mesmerizing if you pull up two or three windows at the same time and stagger them, then you have endless echoes and overlapping of her voice.

ANDREAS LARSSON
Photographer

Grace Jones' "A One Man's Show," directed by Jean Paul Goude is an amazing and a visually stunning show. I'm have an old copy of it on VHS bought in a charity shop in Bournemouth in the south of England.

MARIE CHAIX
Stylist at Self Service, Another Magazine and Acne Paper

"We Are The World" reminds me of when I was younger, and it’s still such a great positive message.

It's the way they cross boundaries, merging living plants and foliagey nature with practical, pragmatic design and real building solutions. 

It's all part of my slight obsession with Peter Zumthor and his deliciously earthy, enigmatic architectural design.

Like the art of Andy Goldsworthy, Richard Lang or even Anthony Gormley (in particluar, Ironmen at Crosby Beach), Zumthor's architecture flows from the land, it takes a lead from the crinkles or sweeps of the earth, the local materials and natural watercouses that define and shape the area.

Zumthor's buildings hum with energy and life, but sit serene and mysterious. His Thermal baths at Vals (with their seasonal living roofs) look and feel as if they have been hewn out of the surrounding mountain rock and water, reflective and flowing, binds it all together.  The brand new building and the prehistoric land merge and fit each other. It draws us in to the landscape and connects us to the space, adding another dimension to the constantly changing transcience of a natural scene.

Back to grass roofs. I hear that the UK's largest grass roof is being built at Hemel Hempstead. Yards and yards of lovely elevated green grass and I feel strangely unexcited.

The reason? It is crowning an indoor ski slope. I know that we are not blessed with the geographical loveliness of Graubunden, but it's just so horribly poetic that our largest grass roof will be sitting on top of a few hundred tonnes of atmospherically controlled, energy-intesive, chemically-laden, not at all natural man-made snow. In Hertfordshire.

Infact, I have been purposefully avoiding the blogging world for a little while because I have so much uni work on at the moment. I finished my essay about the Surrealist's last week but I am struggling with this last one about art and agency. It requires my full concentration! And even then, none of it seems to make sense...

I'm persevering though and have nearly finished the plan which, for me, is the most work when I'm writing an essay. I decided to do a quick blog anyway and bring to your attention one of my all time favourite artists.

Andy Goldsworthy is a spectacular artist who lives in Scotland and often works in my home county Cumbria. I have always loved art which works directly with nature and to this day, Goldsworthy's work still takes my breath away. His pieces are so simple but never permanent - photography is essential in immortalising his works. Here are just a few of his wonderful pieces:

Snow and stone arch, Langholm, Dumfriesshire, February 1986

Leaf horn, Penpont, Dumfriesshire, 15 November 1986

Woven branch circular arch, Langholm, Dumfriesshire, April 1986

Rainbow splash, hit water with heavy stick, bright, sunny, windy, River Wharfe, Yorkshire, 22 December 1980

Balanced ice column, Helbeck Craggs, Cumbria, 5 January 1985

Line to follow colour in stones, St. Abbs, Scotland, 31 May 1985

He includes little diary entries which occasionally accompany the photographs. It's amazing how much patience he has and he often has to re-do his works when the elements (and sometimes people and animals) have their wicked way with them!

"[Revists next day, new page in diary] 2nd Dec -
What a difference - yesterday
so cold - freezing.

Overnight - wind - overcast went to arch - early - still there!!
but melting quickly.
Lifted out supports - very
easy!
Very beautiful
- a melting
ice arch.

would have perhaps
preferred it not to have melted so much
-softened it somewhat.
However melting
made it easy
to remove stone
supports.

Visable from long distance - attracted someone from long way - good to show it.
Went back later to draw it - arrived just in time to see a very old man knock it down
with a gun - sad."

Anyway, my silly essay calls. Thankyou for all your comments while I have been temporarily away, I will be back for good soon!

Happy Tuesday! (And for those who have caught the Goldsworthy bug, visit here for more)

Here's a short excerpt on Youtube:

Goldsworthy is an artist who works in and with natural environments. He assembles things he finds in a place - stones, leaves, branches, blocks of ice - virtually anything - into sculptures that have a strangely organic quality to them. The works are often ephemeral; the forces of nature melt, scatter, or cover them.

Goldsworthy is a soft-spoken Scot with an innate sensitivity to the energies of the natural world. He works with the natural materials he uses, understanding their forms, structures, and properties and following their lead. This resonates with me. I've always imagined making a garden in this way, by gently enhancing and following what was already there in the land and its creatures. I've learned to do that, somewhat, over the decades. Goldsworthy, though, inspires me to take it to a different level, to play with patterns in nature wherever I find myself.

Goldsworthy, it seems to me, has a deeply Pagan sensibility (by whatever name it may be called). The natural world is both his inspiration and his medium. It nourishes him, and he becomes a vehicle for nature's self-expression. And he understands that to work with nature is to surrender to time. Everything he makes, he makes with the knowledge that it will dissolve and return back to its source. Perhaps his rock walls, arches, and cairns are more permanent by human standards, but they are still made with their return in mind, it seems; they are just more slow, more patient, in their transformation.

I would like to own a copy of this film, to share with friends and to renew my spirit from time to time.

When I first found the Pagan path, I was overwhelmed by the difference it made in my approach to life. I described it as going along the grain, living with the natural patterns of the world rather than struggling against them. I've never seen a better visual expression of that feeling than in Goldsworthy's work.

For me, Rivers and Tides is a deeply spiritual film posing as an art documentary. If you haven't seen it, you should.

I'm not sure exactly how well this site (http://www.pooktre.com/) fits into the sustainable category but I love the idea of living furniture and art. I've heard of manipulating trees so that they can be houses and I've thought about planting bamboo in a pattern so that it grows into the walls of the rooms of a house. I think it would be wonderful if we could find practical ways to make our homes out of trees without cutting them down; if we could integrate our lives into the tree's life. How beautiful would that be? Anyway, I thought this was a very interesting site and concept. Sort of reminds me of the art of Andy Goldsworthy. See some of his work here http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/1049936558039909072XdMbZv

A Yorkshire farm was where, from the age of 13, British artist Andy Goldsworthy first learned his trade: how to use a shovel, skin a hare, build a dry-stone wall. It’s also where he saw a painting in the lines of a plow on the land, a sculpture in a haystack, and where he realized that the idyllic landscape of rural England is one fashioned by sweat and privilege and kept green by death and dung.

Goldsworthy is a sculptor, photographer and environmentalist living in Scotland who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. His art involves the use of natural and found objects to create both temporary and permanent sculptures which draw out the character of their environment.

The materials used in Goldsworthy's art often include brightly-coloured flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole." Goldsworthy is generally considered the founder of modern rock balancing. For his ephemeral works, Goldsworthy often uses only his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to prepare and arrange the materials.

Photography plays a crucial role in his art due to its often ephemeral and transient state. According to Goldsworthy, "Each work grows, stays, decays – integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its heights, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit."[

"Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. Nature is in a state of change and that change is the key to understanding. I want my art to be sensitive and alert to changes in material, season and weather. Each work grows, stays, decays. Process and decay are implicit. Transience in my work reflects what I find in nature."

Rivers and Tides is a 2001 documentary about the artist, directed by filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer. The film received a number of awards, including the San Diego Film Critics Society and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle awards for best documentary. Now with this deeply moving film, shot in four countries and across four seasons, and the first major film he has allowed to be made, the elusive element of time adheres to his sculpture.

The director worked with Goldsworthy for over a year to shoot this film. What he found was a profound sense of breathless discovery and uncertainty in Goldsworthy's work, in contrast to the stability of conventional sculpture.

There is risk in everything that Goldsworthy does. He takes his fragile work - and it can be as fragile in stone as in ice or twigs - right to the edge of its collapse, a very beautiful balance and a very dramatic edge within the film. The film captures the essential unpredictability of working with rivers and with tides, feels into a sense of liquidity in stone, travels with Goldsworthy underneath the skin of the earth and reveals colour and energy flowing through all things.

Rivers and Tides

Artist/naturalists

Review at Yorkshire Sculpture Park website

If you enjoy Andy Goldsworthy's work, check out Devon-based environmental artist Linda Gordon: The Art of Place and her blog Opening Spaces

Firstly, I really want to thank each and everyone who has contributed and made this a meaningful conversation.

I remember struggling to come up with a title for the proposed blog. I chose "soundandsilence" initially because it related to music and to contemplation. But as things went, I wrote less about sound and more about light and imagemaking, not to mention much theological musing. I guess it might have been named lightanddarkness just as easily.

Anyway, here is a summary of what has gone on with some things I have learned.

My top 5 postings:

• The scandal of bishop Carlton Pearson (94 comments / 4,762 views): When I came out in support of Carlton Pearson in his bold evangelical refutation of hell, I had no idea that the debate would become the most heated of all my posts.
• Being hit on the head with a pulpit.  (36 comments): People do seem drawn to sleaze and scandal. Mind you it's not pleasent being nutted with a heavy sacramental object, if it had been you I would have wanted a piece of the gossip too. Go in peace, all 36 of you, as well as all you untold voyeurs.
• Universal Restoration (31 comments): Perhaps the most significant shift of faith I have ever had was coming to view G-d as able to save all, and finally getting down and dirty with the theological idea of "Hell".
• Shamanism, interview 1: Anthony Paton (29 comments) : Well my brother Ant is a handy conversationalist, so all you need to do is interview him and then watch the hitcounter rise.
• Andy Goldsworthy at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park  (1854 views): A bit of a mystery this one, but people seem to search for "Goldsworthy" all the time. And so they should - he is a hugely inspiring artist whose work is really grounded in the creation.

My own favourite posting.
The winner is a baptism of joyful fire : Afrika Burns synchroblog : Why I am especially proud of this report is that is not the result of academic abstraction, but rather the outcome of a powerful, transforming encounter. Roll on, Afrika Burns 2008!

My most controversial post : When you first comment is

"Say what you will Mr Pearson, but a literal hell awaits you………..in the mean time do us all a favor and get lost…………….shut your fat blashemous mouth,,,,,,,,,,,,,so you and satan will have something to talk about when ya get there"

you know your "conversation" has been kick-started. Once again, it’s the old chestnut, The scandal of bishop Carlton Pearson. 
 

Some things I have learned

• Posts don't "live" very long.
  As a blog writer your thoughts stay with you, because they are yours, but to the reader, who looks in occasionally through the window of your soul, they disappear from view when they hit 3rd place in "Recent posts", or when they become over familiar via inaction to the browsing visitor. One needs to be aware of the massive bias in favour of what is perceived to be "current".
• The conversation museum.
  Blogs can help retain thoughts and threads of conversation meaningfully. It's very helpful to have a conversation or process "held" by technology and a participating community. This reminds me of the therapists role: to listen, record, and reflect your thoughts back to you.
• Visualise, mediarise.
  Images, as well as movies or sound clips, as opposed to raw text, are great (current posting excepted). Use them, borrow, steal, share and best of all make multimedia. I have been known to go 2-3000 deep on Google Images just to find one that is right. Of course when I say "steal", I mean share and credit - always give credit where due.
• Be journalistic.
  A blog post is journalism, albeit personal. Make it readable, keep paragraphs short. Of course I am not a tabloid sort of guy, and my blogs can run into several thousand words, but that's how I am and not everyone will like it.
• Define a blog's social scope.
  I write my personal journey on soundandsilence, my local communal one on CapeConversation, a national communal on emergentafrica.com and then have a presence on friends' blogs. Help people to know if they are being hosted in your personal space or a more shared one. Communal blogs have great potential, one of the most promising (and potentially messy) approaches is the "wiki" - see how IKON do it , which is really moving beyond blogs.
• Focus the flavour and direction of a blog.
  One real advantage of expressing or externalising your thoughts is that you can see the shape of you life. You will see whether you are broadly or narrowly focussed. Look at the categories or keywords that describe your thoughts. When I look at my blog I can see a pattern, moving from Worship to UR to Paganism to Shamanism, reflecting my recent journey.
• Offline is online, and visa versa.
  I've started to get confused between what is online and offline, in a good way. At the moment, by online I mean face to face, and by offline I mean "not in real time", on the computer, queue'd conversation. I've enjoyed carrying on a computer based conversation in parallel to a regular F2F, such that when I meet a friend we simply bring "online" (into spoken dialog) what was already happening via the internet. The best of both worlds.
• A blog needs to be curated.
  I've posted one or two controversial posts, and in handling them there has been a great opportunity to deal with peoples toxins in a constructive way. In most cases, however I see the role of the traditional (and quaintly antiquated) "pastor", at work.
• Hold everything lightly.
  When you publish your heart to the world, you will be appreciated, misunderstood, and ignored. The former is great, but you need to be prepared to explain and clarify yourself, as well as deal with no response. You need to expect nothing. I see a great many blogs with very good content, and 0 replies. This for me shows good detachment.
• Not all blog providers are equal.
  Blogger vs. WordPress vs. Typepad? Well I don't know too much but just know that WordPress works for me. My least liked feature in blogs I have visited is Bloggers roadblock approach to commenting - new window, doesn't remember your details. I don't mind antispam, but I find that on WordPress it is handles on the server not the client and its a lot more inviting that way.
• Organise events, but sparingly.
  Synchroblogs (multiple, simultaneously published blogs) are great when the time is right, when there is a critical mass of writers partaking in one theme. Also Tags (I write something maybe based on some rules then "tag other" to do the same) are a new game, which are like synchroblogs in chain formation with a random spin thrown in. But all this can get a bit onerous if overdone. (It took me some days to trawl though all 26 contributors on the Halloween SB)
• Dive bombers waste time.
  The most controversial comments are often left by bitter, sad and largely stupid people who somehow imaging that dropping a stinkbomb and fleeing is going to change anything. Change only comes by engagement. I generally try to give smelly opinions a little space, believing the best, inviting a return, but they almost always never do.

So the second mitt is done, and I really like how it's come out. Far better than the first, in fact, and now I'm thinking I want to redo the first! The person who took this picture for me says she likes how the fan pattern shows up more on the first (I did 'too many' stitches in each fan, so they puff out) but does agree it doesn't fit half so well.

So I think I'll be crocheting on the bus again tomorrow morning! (I can't bring myself to begin tonight - I want a bit of feeling good about 'finishing'!

I read another couple of books at work today (where I've also had some compliments on the mitts, as well as bemusement from the people giving me lifts):

38. Wood by Andy Goldworthy

I really didn't know anything near so much about art before I began this job, and I'm very much enjoying the extra knowledge, especially of artists like Goldsworthy. I'd really like to see some of his works in person, although many are of course ephemeral and meant for others to appreciate through photographs and his wonderful books. (I've also read Stone and Wall.)

39. Usborne Famous Lives: Alexander the Great by Jane Bingham

I like this book rather better than the one on Cleopatra, as it seems a bit more about his exploits and rule than his love-life. I'll admit that my knowledge of Alexander has largely come (a very long time - could it be eighteen or so years? - ago) from Mary Renault's The Persian Boy and its sequels. Let's just say that those don't paint his first wife Roxanne as the love of his life, the way this one hints (but not very strongly) at.

So, here's what I made yesterday - Feb 1st. We've been sick around here lately and as Autumn and I were melting over the couch in a languid feverish state, trying to figure out how to find Reading Rainbow on PBS, we switched by Martha Stewart. She had lizards on her show and Autumn said; "Wait, I want to watch the show with the animals in the kitchen." I figured one Martha Stewart show wasn't going to turn her into a craft-o-holic or jail bait, so I paused and we watched Martha - go figure.

After the lizards were put away and the dumplings were eaten, Martha made a heart scarf out of felted wool. I had all the materials on hand, so we made one too. Autumn loved it but it felt too itchy for her, I think I'll make her one out of fleece. The hearts will be a little more floppy but that's okay.

Day 1 - Feb 1st - A-Thing-A-Day- Felted Wool Heart Scarf

And Autumn made red-onion art - she's highly influenced by Andy Goldsworthy. Hey, we can do Martha Stewart and Andy Goldsworthy all in one day!

NCLB is cited as the root cause of art budget issues because this Act is squeezing districts where they have to make difficult choices. Because art education is low on the totem pole funding is naturally going to be pulled or reallocated. The author noted "the quality of art instruction and learning" is impacted by art budgets. Furthermore, "how can students create art if they lack clay, paint, or paper?"

The article goes on to list a few budget-limited ideas. "Earthworks" is a genre that utilizes natural objects and the landscape to create short-term, biodegradable art. Andy Goldsworthy is cited as an contemporary "earthworks" artist. I have never explored this though I know a little of Andy Goldsworthy's work. I struggle with trying this type of project because my students are incredibly lazy. Given my past experience with this group of kids, I can pretty confidently say that they would take the path of least resistance and throw something together versus thinking through the design and materials challenge and go with it. I'm definitely going to think about it, though, having read the article.

Another idea they put forth was creating pigments with earth materials. I like this idea because it would provide perspective for the students on what artists prior to our time period had to go through in order to create their work. Namely, they did so much with so little.

The last idea they promoted was using recycled materials to create pieces that reinforce environmental consciousness. This idea definitely has prospects for my own class as well as cross-curricular work with a science teacher who mentioned she'd like to work with me on a project. I'll have to do some research on environmental artists who I could leverage for ideas. If you have any ideas please send them my way.

Obviously, teachers make do with what they have. I would love to know how teachers who find themselves in this space cope and make do. So, please, give me your cheap art ideas. They can be environmentally focused or not.

On Cribs they always show you their cars.  Here is what I would have:

• A retro Morris Traveller Van thingy, you know the ones with the green paint and the wood panelling.
• A purple bubble car just big enough for me and a packet of hobnobs
• An ordinary Morris Minor for every day purposes
• A tandem
• A really old car, like Brum, made big.  I don’t care what type it is really, I just think they look lovely with big old headlamps and stuff.
• A penny farthing (just for a laugh)
• A routemaster bus (and all the outfits. I want to work the ticket machine)

No twenty four inch rims or industrial sized Hummers for me thank you very much.

They always show you their fridges too.  I have a pale blue Smeg fridge which I love.  It’s wildly impractical, but I love its bulbous shape and its general pale blueness.  If I were rich I’d get them to make me a bank of blue fridges and freezers which would mean they were actually big enough to hold all the food, but would still look funky and retro.  I would also have an ice dispenser, because I like ice and I like having it dispensed.  I always feel decadent when someone dispenses ice about my person.

Inside the fridge they always have either:

• Organic food pre-prepared by their chef who follows their every move in his own customised Bentley
• Disgusting amounts of junk food, sausages on sticks and t.v. dinners
• Only drinks
• Nothing at all because they never eat in

My fridge would be a walking advert for Ocado and Selfridge’s food hall.  There would be a lot of San Pellegrino, because it’s very nice.  There would also be a lot of food. I mean, a lot of food.  I like food A LOT.  It would all be nice food (Jason and the kids can have separate fridges), but I would be going for quantity AND quality.  People would win competitions to come and nibble things out of my fridge, that’s how good it would be.  I'd have an ice cream maker too because I've always fancied one of those.

There would be no fridge magnets of any kind.

Alex James has a library.  It looked like a great library.  My only problem with it was that it was rather small.  I would like a library, but when I have a library it will be an actual library, with a librarian, and fires and big step ladders and huge chairs and bean bags.  There will be no television of any kind.  It will not just be full of old books, it will be full of every kind of book.  There will be an Amazon delivery every hour.  I will definitely have the entire Oxford English Dictionary for starters, and not on CD Rom.  I’ve always wanted to own the OED.  That would be so cool.  I will have a separate kids section with smaller shelves and chairs for midgets.  I will leave the library to the nation when I die.  It will be fab.  I will have library stamps too.  I like the idea of doing the stamping.

I’m definitely having a pantry too.  A big one with slate floors and interesting looking cupboards full of stuff that you might want to snack on in the night.  It will have a big table with a marble top in case I want to roll pastry, or make cheese, or just lounge about on a big marble topped table in my Manolos, wearing my Philip Treacey hat.

My kitchen will not have granite work tops I don’t care how fashionable they are.  I think they’re naff.  I’m having real tree wood, gently oiled by my horny handed gardener and man about the estate.  As far as oven’s go. I’ll have whatever Gordon Ramsay’s got thanks.  We won’t bother with a separate dining room, we’ll just have a huge fuck off kitchen which would be the size of most people’s houses.  There will be sofas and comfy chairs and a big no nonsense wooden table, none of these round circular things with matching napkins and plates the size of Mars.

There will be a huge integral tea urn with hot water on tap for endless hot beverages, sod the Kristal champagne.  There will be mugs for everyone (except my best friend Rachel who prefers a cup and saucer).  There will be much Emma Bridgewater.  It is likely there will be quite a lot of Nigella.  There will also be extensive trips to that lovely cookware shop I can’t think of the name of which is now on Marylebone High Street but which is also near Bibendum (Ah! Divertimenti).  We will need a lot of cupboard space.

There will be lots of paintings and arty stuff.  I may even get Tracey Emin in to do an installation in the hall, as long as it doesn’t upset the children.  Andy Goldsworthy can sculpt the garden and Diarmuid Gavin can prune the hedges into the shape of space ships.  I want a daguerreotype, preferably that one that Chuck Close did of Kate Moss if it’s available.  I’d also like a Stanley Spencer because they’re very soothing.  I’d like that Epstein sculpture of Jacob and the Angel, but I don’t think that the Tate have finished with it yet.

I’m having an artist’s studio so that I can give it a go.  I want one of those potter’s wheels and a potter to teach me how to pot as well.  I had a go once, it was brilliant.

I detest the gym, so we’re not having one of those.  I am having a proper swimming pool though.  An indoor one with non hairy floors and lots of fun stuff.  I’d quite like one like they’ve got in the Sanctuary in Covent Garden.  It’s got a swing over it.  How cool is that?

In Cribs there are invariably rooms for show where nobody actually goes in them.  These always seem to be dining rooms.  We won’t have that problem as we always use every room in every house we’ve ever lived in, usually for several conflicting things, all at once.  We will have lots of useless furniture though.  I am mad for Charles Rennie Mackintosh, although I prefer his painting to his furniture.  I do love his chairs though, even though they are bloody uncomfortable.  I will have to have some of his chairs so that we can all avoid sitting on them.  I might have a chaise longue as well in some ridiculously expensive material.  It won’t matter about the material, because you can’t actually sit on them properly anyway.  They just look louche and fabulous.

I will have a walk in wardrobe.  I know it’s very common, but there’s something brilliant about the idea of having whole rooms devoted solely to your extensive clothing collection.  Mine will have lots of lovely things in it including:

• Lots of Dior by John Galliano
• Lots of Alexander McQueen
• Lots of Armani
• Ozwald Boateng suits
• Philip Treacey hats
• Christian Louboutin shoes
• Manolo Blahnik Shoes
• Paul Smith everything (and some carpets and stuff)
• Alice Temperley things of great beauty
• Ghost exquisiteness
• Coast and Fenn Wright and Manson just for mucking around in
• Hundreds of pairs of Fat Face socks
• Mulberry handbags
• Undies courtesy of Agent Provocateur

I don’t do jewellery so you’re safe from my list of blingtastic stuff.

I’m having a big bathroom but you can keep your whirlpool jets and gold taps thanks.  Jason and I once stayed in the suite at the Malmaison in Leeds which has a giant square bath bigger than a king size bed which is so deep you can almost swim in it. You had to fill it with a big stand pipe thing and it had huge shower heads in the ceiling in clusters.  I’m having that one.  It even had waterproof pillows.  I’m having those too.

I’ll have another bathroom with a huge roll top bath in it for the days when I feel like being Victorian.  I’m also having another bathroom with one of those baths I saw when Boy George had money and wasn’t selling t-shirts down the market.  He had a huge copper bath that looked a bit like the one in the painting The Death of Marat.  And I’m having a wet room and a Hammam and loads of Jo Malone stuff to put in them.  In fact I will be known as that batty old lady with a hundred bathrooms but who still smells of wee and Yardley Lavender.

They always have cinema rooms in Cribs.  Given the fact that Jason has spent the last twelve months cannibalizing our living room into a cinema it is inevitable that we will have one too, despite my lack of enthusiasm.  I’m decorating it though.  I want it to look like a Fin De Siecle Paris brothel, but with comfier seats.  That’ll learn him.  I think we’ll have a theatre too, and invite travelling theatre troupes to come and perform Ibsen after breakfast.

We will have a branch of Starbucks just off the hall, where most of the Cribsters seem to put their non usable Versace themed dining rooms.  I will not have Versace themeing anywhere.  I think Versace is cheap and nasty.  Nor will we be having any Swarovski crystal anywhere in the house.  Instead we will have one wall of the downstairs loo painted in that blackboard paint and a box of chalks handy so people can write down their thoughts as they pooh.  It will be very therapeutic.

One of the other loo rooms will be wallpapered in tube maps of the world.  I like to think of travelling while I am on the toilet.  It helps to pass the time.  My mum and dad have their downstairs loo decorated in ordnance survey maps.  It’s very restful.

Floors will be stone and wood, not shiny.  I don’t do shiny.  I like hand woven rugs.  Kilims are nice even though they aren’t very fashionable any more.  I don’t care.  I’d like some Bill Amberg leather flooring as well, with underfloor heating.

Other important features of the house include:

• High ceilings
• Lots of windows and light
• Secret passages (but not naff old fashioned ones, cool, Napoleon Solo type ones)
• An underground lair
• Underground passages to access underground lair
• Swings indoors (but not in bedrooms, just for mucking about purposes)
• Corridors you can ride a bike down for when it’s wet outside
• A room with a bouncy castle and a trampolene in it
• An orangery, one with real oranges in it, and pineapples and lemons and ferns and cool, hairy plants, with glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly.
• A Bat pole
• Some kind of slide for when the hips are too knackered for the Bat pole.
• An indoor stream with loads of pretend ducks and sticks for hooking them out.  I like those themed ducks.  We'll have one of each.
• An entire soundproof floor of the house for the children
• A ballroom with a great sprung floor and fabulous acoustics where I could have nights of excessive dancing.  It must have a glitter ball
• A sound proof room with the biggest drum kit in the world in, so that I can take drum lessons at last.

Outside the house would be:

• Woods with wildlife
• An entire play village like Petit Trianon at Versailles
• Lots of watery based stuff
• Walled gardens with a secret garden for the kids
• Orchards
• Organic fruit and veg
• A herb garden I can wander around with my trug wearing my Philip Treacey hat and waving secateurs.
• A huge playground for the kids with tree houses and dangerously cool stuff like they used to have in playgrounds when I was a kid
• A sculpture park
• A potting shed where Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Diarmuid can plan their next move.  Hugh will be my advisor on the estate and provide me with piglets and chicks and such like.

And that’s just for starters.  It’d be so cool they’d have to do a week’s worth of Cribs just on me!  It’d be awesome, and I’d invite you round for tea if you asked nicely.

The book, a 12x12 photobook made on Shutterfly

The awesome back cover, a collage of the art created in our schoolyard.

One of the photo/poetry spreads. (Made smaller because I don't want my students to be recognizable!)

Another photo/poetry spread

One of the poems that a student wrote after creating his group's artwork.

Another poem.

The final page in the book- a photo I took inCape May coupled with my favorite quote (and mantra).

I am completely in love with this project. It is a great marriage of art, science/ecology, language arts, and technology. We will also receive books from two other schools (including one in New Zealand!). How cool is that?  Even cooler?  The fact that I might get to meet that teacher from New Zealand at a workshop this summer.  Talk about making global connections in a new world, huh?  Absolutely amazing.

My favorite quote from today was, "Wow, Miss M!  I am published in a real book!"