Ephemeral Design

          During the lectures in Design 1, Professor Housefield mentioned ephemeral design many times in relation to Andy Goldsworthy's work. I was not introduced to his work before so I was amazed upon seeing them. His medium is nature: he uses leaves, sticks, petals, flowers, stones, etc. to create his artworks. It makes one wonder, "Why? What's the point in making art that doesn't last?" In this blog I want to compare two opposite spectrum of what is considered "ephemeral art and/or design" with Andy Goldsworthy and street art. In the video above, Goldsworthy works to create a work where he connects sticks/twigs together from a tree. His design's focal point is on a circular hole that was rendered by connecting the sticks closer together so that it appears as if it's what's holding the piece together, though that's only true aesthetically.
          This is a video entitled "One Week of Japanese Art" that I watched about 3 years ago that inspired me greatly.

The changing Japanese street art mural in the video was recorded over the span of a week. This differs from Goldsworthy's work because it is a collective project by multiple artists who added and subtracted different designs to the mural. In between the different murals, there were transitions that revealed the focal points of each design, and each focal point created a connection between the changing murals so they all flowed smoothly with unity.
          Ephemeral art seems more sacred and important just the way it is, because it's only there for a limited amount of time; it adds a certain value to a work that even money can't buy. This type of art is fleeting and can never be replicated exactly the way it was.

Credits/Links:
Youtube
[More on Andy Goldsworthy]: http://www.morning-earth.org/artistnaturalists/an_goldsworthy.html