Arch - Tapa dura

Renowned for creating art outdoors and from natural materials, British artist Andy Goldsworthy here offers an inside look at one of his most intriguing projects. Beginning in his home territory of southwest Scotland, Goldsworthy traces the ancient routes along which sheep were once driven over the border to markets in England, building, dismantling, and rebuilding along the way a red standstone arch. Goldsworthy's color photographs record the arch's progress southward, as it is constructed, often in the evening, and taken down early in the morning in a rich variety of locations: on the site of a vanished stone sheep pen in a town center, on land high above a six-lane highway, and half-in and half-out of a stream. While Andy Goldsworthy lives close to the start of the arch's route, writer David Craig lives near its end. Craig shares with Goldsworthy a deep concern with the history of the land, and his text touches both on its ancient geological origins and on the lives of the people who have lived and worked on it over the centuries. All those interested in Goldsworthy's work will appreciate Craig's evocative account of the arch's travels and its reception in the various communities through which it passes.

David Craig taught creative writing at the University of Lancaster.