Monday, July 25, 2022 Ephemeral Art

Many years ago, my mother came to join us for Thanksgiving and brought along a DVD that she thought we might enjoy watching. It was a 90-minute documentary about an unknown nature artist – probably a no-go with six kids ages 5-15. We are a polite tribe, though, and didn’t want to disappoint, so we all settled down to watch “Rivers and Tides” about Andy Goldsworthy, prepared to stifle some yawns. And just like that, we were all hooked.

Goldsworthy creates transitory art pieces with things he finds in nature, recognizing that these works of art will be gone with the next tide, or the next rainstorm, or the next strong wind. It was beautiful and fascinating, sometimes even haunting. Sadly, Goldsworthy didn’t acknowledge or give praise to the Creator of all the things he found and transformed, but the works themselves gave God glory. We’ve seen the documentary several times and have tried to share it with others, but so far haven’t snagged anyone else to be part of the AG Fan Club.

A few members of our family have been known to do the “Andy Goldsworthy” thing when we’ve gone camping or been out in the wilderness – some of these pieces admittedly much more droll than AG would have done.

When we were in Grand Marais a couple weeks ago, I kept up the tradition.

We went back to that beach the next morning and to my surprise it was still there. I imagine by now it has been reduced back to its constituent driftwood and pebbles. The passage of time tends to do that with everything that we make sooner or later. It’s humbling.

I’ll probably not even need to delete this in the morning – the passage of time will erode it away.