Andy Goldsworthy - Rivers and Tides

Today in Variable Topics in Drawing we started watching Rivers and Tides (2001), a video following Andy Goldsworthy, a site-specific sculptor and land artist.  I've already seen the video twice, but it hasn't gotten old yet. 
In the video, Andy's musings are so personal!  He seems so in touch with himself and with nature.  One of the things he said that really touched me was that "taut control can be the death of a work."  For the majority of the time, I am precise, organized, and extremely controlled in my artwork.  I almost constantly have on hand scissors, tape, a ruler, and a Sharpee pen, my choice tools for an exacting work method.  I have found, especially this last year in college, that this particular work method of mine has killed stone dead many of my art ventures.  Sometimes it works to have a plan and to carry it out.  However, I'm beginning to learn that my creativity is at its best when I don't impose upon myself such strict rules and ideas that I unconsciously stifle my creativity and imagination.  Art is often about the process and the evolution of the piece and not always about the final product.  In constructing one of his cairns of stone that took quite a few tries to complete, Andy talked about how each time he had to start reconstructing the cairn, his understanding of the stone grew a little bit more, and that each new attempt he got further than he had before, until finally he completed the cairn.  In the same way, if I allow myself to explore the process of creating a piece of art, getting to know my materials and deepening my own understanding of the concept, my success in creating the piece will be more than I could have imagined in the first place.