angle of repose (n): the steepest angle at which a sloping surface formed of a particular loose material is stable.


I couldn’t resist lying down on Andy Goldworthy’s epic work, Wood Line, when we walked along it last Saturday. I am on vacation, a time of rest and relaxation, so I thought I would practice a little.

I wish I had stayed there longer. It was a perfect afternoon.

And since that afternoon I have thought that, had I done so, I might have just slipped away, the angle of my “loose material” overwhelming my repose.

Goldsworthy only creates that which will eventually return to the earth.

I think that’s what was happening to me, lying there even briefly. I felt pulled into myself, a jumble of loose material wanting to settle and be settled, wanting to reconnect to known and knowable things.

And yet, it was not to be. And I was up and walking again before I could slip away.

How necessarily, how painfully human.


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Wood Line by Andy Goldsworthy – San Francisco

Published On: July 31st, 2019 / Categories: art / Tags: , , , , /

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