Andy Goldsworthy has a great insight into the materiality of the landscape and the potential of the materials that it offers us. I am great admirer of him and his work. He too spent early childhood immersing himself in the rural landscape learning about the potential of its materials. As he says in the video its all about looking, learning & responding to the moment. The space he was inhabiting was a space full of dead trees which created waterfalls. If the waterfall had been created with stone he would not have been able to 'stick' branches into it and eventually create the beautiful suspended work he made. He calls it 'intuition' but I feel it is not only that but the great skill of observation and knowing what the materials might potentially do. He worked out that the branches needed had to have a 'kink' in them without that bend the piece would not have come together! 

I recently took a trip down memory lane and visited the village where I spent my childhood. I keep forgetting that this precious and idyllic time is the main reason I practice the way I do today. 70's childhood was a different ball game then, we were allowed to 'play' out in the landscape and interact with the environment around us. We were left to explore our surroundings and experience the joy and traumas that it presented. I was lucky enough to 'make' and play with the materials that were all around us. Building dens, playing in streams and rivers, building dams, hunting for birds nests, exploring trees, just being, and experiencing the potential of natural materials, stone, wood, grass, hay, water was a pure joy! From or successes and failures we were able to learn from these materials. The physicality and tactility of these materials still resonates with me today I can still feel the rough uneven river bed while swimming in this river and the slippery moss under my feet while running over this waterfall. Dangerous????......hell no I'm still here to tell the tale and there wasn't an adult in sight!!!