Andy Goldsworthy is a British artist who’s best known for the fleeting outdoor sculptures he creates from natural materials, including petals, leaves, snow, ice, rocks and twigs. His work is often fleeting and ephemeral, lasting only as long as it takes for it to melt, erode or decompose, but he photographs each piece right after he makes it. He’s frozen icicles in spirals around trees, woven leaves and grass together in streams, covered rocks in leaves, and then left his art to the elements.

 

“Stone River,” a colossal serpentine sculpture made from 128 tons of sandstone, is one of Goldsworthy’s permanent works, and can be seen at Stanford University. The stone is all salvaged material that toppled from buildings in the 1906 and 1989 San Francisco earthquakes.