Stone River at Stanford

Stanford, CA, Sept. 4, 2001?In late August, British artist Andy Goldsworthy (born 1956) completed Stone River, a 320-foot sculpture on the campus of Stanford University. Constructed of sandstone from university buildings destroyed in the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, Stone River is the largest work of outdoor art at the university. In addition to Goldsworthy, a team of eight professional dry-stone wallers from England and Scotland worked 11 hours a day, six days a week, for three and a half weeks (1848 hours) to complete the sculpture on schedule.

I must admit I did a double-take on this piece, and then went rooting for an old notebook of mine from 1989, where I found this oil crayon sketch. It’s quite likely that this sketch was originally inspired by something of Goldsworthy’s, though – I’ve been an admirer for a long time. (via gordon coale again – who has an excellent bunch of other links to Andy Goldsworthy’s work on the web along with this…)