BAR HARBOR, ME.- Internationally renowned Land artist Andy Goldsworthy will be spending his summer in Bar Harbor, Maine, creating a permanent installation on the campus of College of the Atlantic (COA). Composed of regionally sourced granite curbing (from Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire), Road Line will begin taking shape in late July at Eden St./Route 3, and meander 1500’ to the coast of Frenchman Bay. The site specific and permanent installation will be Goldsworthy’s first in the state of Maine.

“Road Line would only become apparent as an artwork after it has left the ‘straight and narrow’ and goes its own way,” said Goldsworthy. “I hope this will resonate with the students who will also pass through the college on their own journeys, and that wherever life takes them afterwards, they will always be reminded of their time in Maine whenever they see a curbstone. It would be the antithesis of the definition of curb, which is to control or limit.”

In a diverse career spanning four decades, Andy Goldsworthy has become one of the most prominent and iconic contemporary sculptors. In photographs, sculptures, installations, books, and films, Goldsworthy documents his explorations of the effects of time, the relationship between humans and their natural surroundings, and the beauty in loss and regeneration.

Founded in 1969, College of the Atlantic is the first college in the US to focus on the relationship between humans and the environment. It strives to enrich the liberal arts tradition through a distinctive educational philosophy, which is that of human ecology.
COA has ranked #1 on the Princeton Review’s list of Top 50 Green Colleges every year since 2016. The school became the first carbon-neutral college in the U.S. in 2007, and it has committed to becoming fossil fuel-free by 2030.

“One would be hard pressed to name an artist who more emphatically lives the COA human-ecological ethos than Andy Goldsworthy,” said COA President Darron Collins (’92). “Road Line is about making the the mundane exquisite. It’s about celebrating the geological and human history, and generations of stone masons whose work largely goes unnoticed.”

Goldsworthy commented about his upcoming Road Line, “It’s a water moccasin crossing a quick flowing river — graceful, strong, and in its element.”