Andy Goldsworthy

“Confrontation is something that I accept as part of the project though not its purpose.”

“People also leave presence in a place even when they are no longer there.”

“It's frightening and unnerving to watch a stone melt.”

“The stones tear like flesh, rather than breaking. Although what happens is violent, it is a violence that is in stone. A tear is more unnerving than a break.”

“Photography is a way of putting distance between myself and the work which sometimes helps me to see more clearly what it is that I have made.”

“I am not a performer but occasionally I deliberately work in a public context. Some sculptures need the movement of people around them to work.”

“People do not realise that many of my works are done in urban places. I was brought up on the edge of Leeds, five miles from the city centre-on one side were fields and on the other, the city.”

“I enjoy working in a quiet and subversive way.”

“Three or four stones in one firing will all react differently. I try to achieve a balance between those that haven't progressed enough and those about to go too far.”

“Stones are checked every so often to see if any have split or at worst exploded. An explosion can leave debris in the elements so the firing has to be abandoned.”

“I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames.”

“The first snowball I froze was put in my mother's deep freeze when I was in my early 20s.”

“The difference between a theatre with and without an audience is enormous. There is a palpable, critical energy created by the presence of the audience.”

“The early firings contained many stones.”

“The reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red.”

“A snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. I use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels.”

“I have walked around the same streets so many times, and then seen a place that had been hidden to me. I now know the sites in a way that makes me think I could have made better use of the connections between place and snowball.”

“Not being able to touch is sometimes as interesting as being able to touch.”

“A stone is ingrained with geological and historical memories.”

“Winter makes a bridge between one year and another and, in this case, one century and the next.”