But having said that, this particular piece, after it’s been - it’s fallen down now three times - so it’s three days, three collapses. The actual act of collapse and the attempt is becoming interesting enough to become the work. And I may have bitten off something I cannot make here, and I don’t know if I will be able to achieve what I want to or I will with a huge amount of luck and chance. But if I don’t, I think that act of building and rebuilding, building, rebuilding, collapse could become the work. The danger in that - how can I put this? - I mean, failure is really, really important. But failures have to hurt. And if I start making this work with the intention of its collapse and then I’ve lost that intensity of the will for it to succeed, which makes the failure that much more poignant and significant. So there’s a really odd sort of state of mind that I guess I get into when I’m making these works that is necessary for me to extract the finished piece but also extract the right kind of feeling for the work as I’m making it.

—Andy Goldsworthy, in an interview by Terry Gross. Fresh Air, NPR (Oct. 8, 2015).  (via nbr)