Washington Diary 2003

Andy Goldsworthy created “Washington Diary” using photographs and handwritten text on paper. I wonder, what does it feel like to use words in this way? For me, writing is like painting—a way of thinking through stuff. But here the words are small, dense, and evenly distributed, like he’s trying to fill the entire page, making the writing itself like a kind of mark-making. I can see a stream of consciousness, a recording of observations, and it feels like the artist has attempted to capture a fleeting moment. The photographs at the top, little glimpses into the outside world, are acting as a kind of visual annotation, but it's the text where he is really trying to ground the images. It makes me think about the relationship between language, nature, and art. How we are constantly trying to translate our experiences, to find the right words or images to capture a feeling or idea. Ultimately it speaks to the power of art as a way of engaging with the world and making sense of our place within it.