ANDY GOLDSWORTHY

A stone sculpture will be placed in the dub of the washfold, the pool into which the sheep were thrown to wash their fleeces. This pool is the focus for the movement and energy of the fold. It is where the sheep were pushed towards. I like the thought that a stone sculpture will be placed in that place where the sheep plunged. The sculpture is of descending circular holes, carved into sandstone, which will lead the eye into the stones and into the pool. I do not expect the sculpture to remain visible for a long time. It will soon silt up with mud and disappear. This too interests me, especially in the context of the memory of things that have taken place at that washfold and in the pool. Here I am making something that will also become a memory, but it is not entirely lost either, for it can always be cleaned out and rediscovered. I think that this idea of rediscovery and seeing again, knowing that something is there, even though it is not visible to us, is a very poetic expression of our relationship to our past and the places that embody that. In some ways, the silting is not to be seen as something negative, but as something positive. In a very practical way, the sooner the stone is silted up, the more protected it will become. It is not the silting that will damage the stone, but the inevitable throwing in of objects from passers-by. The river silt and mud will cocoon and make the work secure. This is another reflection of the way we relate to our past. Often things left buried are more secure than when they are supposedly rescued. There is something protective about being laid in the earth. A hidden sculpture may become more visible in the mind, because it is no longer there to be seen.