The Definition of Ephemeral Art

What's the Point?

What is ephemeral art?

Youghiogheny Vine art by Erika Johnson

I can google it for you. Or Wikipedia it for you.

I find it fascinating that the spell check suggests that I capitalize the latter but not the former. I guess this means that google has officially turned itself into an all-powerful verb.

But instead, I think I will resist the path to an immediate answer and luxuriate in the getting there on my own.

For arriving to my definition, I will narrow the category and call this new term Ruins Ephemeral Art.

I will start by looking to The King of the Ephemeral for my generation of artist, Andy Goldsworthy. His rock walls and branching portals, his layered leaf color studies and weather dependent sculptures, his commitment to working with the earth, not simply on it; Goldsworthy has created a lifetime of art and ended up defining a new category.

Goldsworthy communes with the earth. He ha…