Response Paper #1 – Andy Goldsworthy and His Creativity (and why)

Andrew Manning

Matt Thomas

Language, Arts 11

September 10, 2007

Andy Goldsworthy and his Creativity

Most of the students in Matt’s class saw the documentary on Andy Goldsworthy. They all may not quite understand him, but they all saw his creative genius. They might have been wondering: why is he doing this, what made him so obsessed, and is he on something? I don’t know why he does what he does, but he obviously is mentally different from many people. And that, my friend, could be the case. But still, we must dig deeper to find out how this man ticks.

The first hint we have at solving the puzzle of this man is one of his quotes, “I enjoy being by myself… [And] to be honest, I think I am drained by people.” That quote made me wonder if Andy Goldsworthy has Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of high functioning autism). Usually people with Asperger’s Syndrome have obsessions with things that would be considered “narrow” by regular people. That would explain his obsession with his funky art. But that still wouldn’t explain why he gets so creative.

If you were paying close attention to the documentary, you could see Andy Goldsworthy study his surroundings before he went to work. He was gathering every little detail about the area, getting ideas for what he was going to do next. Sometimes he would get inspiration for his work from the environment itself. For example, when Andy was building a dome out of those sticks by the river, he said that he got the idea from the whirl pool in the river.

Let’s look back at paragraph two, when I mentioned that quote that Andy Goldsworthy had made. Maybe since he is alone and away from everyone when he is doing his work, he has time to think up what creative thing to do next. I happen to say the same thing about being alone. It gives me space to think about a lot of things, without being bothered by the social drama wars in the outside world. I tend to be the most creative and imaginative in this alone state of mind. That could also be why Andy is able to be so creative with his work.

So all in all, why is Andy Goldsworthy doing this? We can never be so sure, but with the evidence explained we can make a pretty good educated guess. Lets look back at all that was written. Andy Goldsworthy is defiantly different from us, he is obsessed with his work, he is in key with his surroundings, and he is able to work well by himself. With this evidence in hand, we are allowed to guess that the reason why he is doing this *insert drum roll*… is because he lives off of it. He is so obsessed with his work it’s unlikely that he will exist if he stops. And the fact that he does his work alone, unless his helper is there, probably makes himself more welcome to do his creative art work. Even if that is not the case, Andy Goldsworthy is an excellent creative artist, and I will now forever be a fan of this wonderful man.