Andy Goldsworthy Cairn near Grinnell, Iowa

This Cairn is part of a project by Andy Goldsworthy. It is on the Conard Environmental Research Area which is a part of the Prairie studies center at Grinnell College in Iowa.

From a review by Ann Wilson Lloyd in the New York Times: July 21, 2002
"Within singeing distance of a wind-whipped prairie fire in the spring, the Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy huddled over camera and tripod, shooting frame after frame of his fieldstone sculpture. The pine-cone-shaped form, called a cairn, was engulfed by flame and smoke and left standing on stark, blackened ground. Afterward, he described — with glee, it seemed — how the camera had become hot enough to burn his fingers. Mr. Goldsworthy's cairn was built deliberately in the path of a prairie burn conducted by Grinnell College."

"Mr. Goldsworthy started the project in 2000 by building three smaller, temporary cairns. "I wanted the first layer of the project to develop the connections," he said. Built of local, uncut stones, the temporary cairns served as a way to mentally and physically sketch in the bigger project. The cairns on the coasts were built on beaches on Long Island Sound and at La Jolla, Calif. He worked during the three or so hours between tides, and then left the cairns to be destroyed by incoming waves. On the Iowa prairie, however, the temporary cairn remains, relatively unscathed by the prairie fire."

You can read more about the cairn project at: http://www.roxie.com/NYTSun.html