Here’s Looking at You, Patrick Dougherty installation at Bosque School,
Albuquerque, October 2009, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
One evening last week I went to see North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty give a talk to an audience of parents, students, faculty and staff of Bosque School, plus a few members of the broader Albuquerque community. The turnout was solid. All seats were filled, yet I couldn’t help but lament how tucked away this globally recognized, soft-spoken artist was—how very hidden his presence in our city was to the public at large. And just how much they were missing by not being here.
Dougherty was guest artist at the independent Bosque School (grades 6-12) from October 5-23. According to the multi-arts organization collaborative LAND/ART, which sponsored the sculptor, Dougherty was here to create “a site-specific work on the grounds of the school adjoining the Rio Grande Valley State Park, using willow saplings harvested from the site and involving the students and teachers in the process.” (Bosque School is known for the way it incorporates study of the adjacent cottonwood forest—also known as “the bosque“—and river into its Science curriculum.)
This was Dougherty’s first time working with students this age. He’s done installations at museums, university and college campuses, and on sites of all types, from Ireland to France, Connecticut to California—over 200 works in the US, Asia, and Europe over the past two-plus decades.
He wasn’t in New Mexico to create art in a highly visible public space. His primary job was to work with students and teachers. The installation was open to the public most days and weekends during his stay, and many people took advantage of visiting hours. But still, hearing him speak on a late afternoon in October was like stumbling upon the city’s best kept art secret.
Patrick Dougherty poses for a shot after his talk (left), building the installation
required scaffolding (right), which visitors were sometimes allowed to climb,
October 2009, photos © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Drawing with sticks
Dougherty began his talk by walking the audience through a slideshow, starting with images of the log cabin home he built by hand, then moving to samples of his installations. He was funny and charming and deep in an unassuming way. He told us that he thinks about sticks as drawing material. “Consider the stick as a line,” he suggested, talking to us as if we were fellow artists.
His favorite piece, which he said he liked precisely because of its good lines, was “Tension Zones,” installed in Sheboygan, Wisconsin in 1995 at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. (Unfortunately, the only image I found was in a hard-to-read archived article from the Milwaukee Sentinel.)
He went on to talk about his work in three ways, showing examples of each:
- Architecture: Many of his installations have an interplay with buildings. Stick sculptures climb walls, cap towers, or lean into buildings.
- Trees: Dougherty often uses trees as “a matrix.” He might make use of the limbs, trunks, or the canopy of the tree, building his installation in relation to one or all of those parts. He showed us pieces that seemed to sprout leaves in spring and shed them in winter.
- No thing: Many of his installations, he said, were built in “just space,” indoors or outdoors.
After the talk, members of the audience had many questions. “How did the students catch on?” someone asked. “Great,” Dougherty said, “we know all about sticks; it’s the Hunter-Gatherer in our blood.” He reminded us that the stick is a universal play thing for all children. They use sticks to draw in the dirt, as instruments, building material, weapons, and utensils.
Drawing-with-sticks details from the Bosque School installation,
October 2009, photos © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Two Years and Three Weeks
Dougherty’s pieces generally have the same lifespan as that of a stick, which is about two years. After two years, most installations come down.
In an interview (date unknown) on Don’t Panic Online, Dougherty talked about the temporary nature of his work:
I think that part of my work’s allure is its impermanence, the life cycle that is built into the growth and decay of saplings. My focus has always been the process of building a work and allowing those who pass to enjoy the daily changes or drama of building a sculpture as well as the final product. However, the line between trash and treasure is thin, and the sculptures, like the sticks they are made from, begin to fade after two years. Often the public imagines that a work of art should be made to last, but I believe that a sculpture, like a good flower bed, has its season.
Other highlights from Dougherty’s talk include (italics direct quotes; the rest paraphrased):
- On Art and Being an Artist: The art world is not a wall; it’s a loose-knit group of people. Artists are just normal people who are looking for their place in the world.
- On finding that Place in the world: Hysteria rides on the shoulder of every creative person.
- On building his own house, a log cabin: He wanted to build a house that was functional, with no maintenance once it was done. That way he could live and work there when the money wasn’t rolling in.
- On living in North Carolina: Lots of maples in North Carolina, and the stones there have color. Some places have a lot of stones, but they’re not different colors like they are in North Carolina.
- On using willows to build art: Every time you cut the base of the willow, you get twice as many sticks that grow back. (Which was good to hear, given that my daughter was worried that nature was being sacrified for art. It wasn’t.)
- On how long it takes: Dougherty stays for about three weeks in each locale, which, he joked, is about the maximum amount of time before his hosts get sick of him.
- On climbing the pieces: Please don’t. Even though the structures are solid due to the layers and layers of sticks, as well as the stick foundations that gird them, climbing tends to destroy the surface over time. However, people (drunk adults, especially!) love to climb the sculptures.
- On whether the students liked it: They loved it, although they felt at times constrained by doing things the way Dougherty wanted. In order to give the kids some freedom, there were three experimental installations where the students could do whatever they wanted.
Long view of the installation (left), and looking out from inside an experimental
sculpture, October 2009, photos © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Brown meets Green
After the talk we were invited to go outside to see the installation and walk around and inside of it. The piece is made up of three two-sided heads, like masks with eyes and noses, which, according to Dougherty, are a combination kachina and Green Man, who often can be seen adorning ancient cathedrals.
The masks were much larger than I had expected. I’d seen them just a few days before during an admissions open house at the school, but my viewing was brief plus I was distracted by the other goings-on. In my mind’s eye, the sculptures were about twice as large as a person. Wrong! They are many times taller than the average person, as you can see by the photo below, which shows someone standing in the doorway/mouth of one of the masks.
The best part of the event was watching people of all ages marvel at the creations. Inside, outside, peeking around corners. A father dressed in a suit and tie (he must have come straight from work) played a sort of hide-and-seek tag with his two daughters, running in and out of each structure. I walked slowly into the giant heads, looking at elegant lines of the willows and taking in the most wondrous fragrance of sage and willow. One woman turned to me and exclaimed, “If only we could bottle that smell!”
The sun was sinking as the visitors scattered. I went over to the experimental installations. The sticks were not nearly as tightly layered as in the giant masks, but they had shape and structure. What an opportunity to learn with a master. Art in the Schools like it’s never been done before.
More information on Patrick Dougherty
- Patrick Dougherty’s Incredible Nest Houses, on Environmental Graffiti
- Patrick Dougherty: Artist in Residence, University of Kansas Spencer Museum of Art
- Stickwork: Interview with Patrick Dougherty, Don’t Panic online magazine
- Yardworking: An Interview with Patrick Dougherty, ArtFocus Online
WOW!!!
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These are so cool!! Almost makes me want to head back to ABQ for a weekend.
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My sentiment exactly, Heather, when I saw the work. Hey, R, you should head back to ABQ. It’s nice and cold today. Winter got here early.
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Roma
What a lovely tribute to a long hard months work. Thank you for visiting and enjoying Patrick here at Bosque School. He has titled the piece “Here’s Looking at You”
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Thanks, Colleen, for providing the title. I think I’ll change the photo caption to read that. Really enjoyed it. Whoever at Bosque who came up with the idea and/or jumped at the chance to participate should be commended!!
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Oh my, that is an amazing story about art in your school. I do love artists like Dougherty – environmental and experiential. And what an opportunity for the kids. I’d love to explore in person.
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ybonesy, wonderful artist piece on Patrick Dougherty. He seems like a humble man, one who gives back to the community. I love the way he works with the kids. How sticks are universal hunter-gatherer symbols. I had read the piece on my BlackBerry over lunch this week. But wanted to take the time to go to the links and read more about him.
I’m struck by the scale of his work. You wouldn’t know it except to look at your last photo with a person standing in the door of one of his masks. I’m also drawn to the way his stick sculptures break down after a couple of years. Back to the Earth. That can be very satisfying.
At one time, I made these red tile grid pieces. I traveled with an artist friend up to Thief River Falls and left one of the tile installations outside in the woods behind an old country church. Then photographed it in stages as it disappeared. I’m sure it’s long gone now. Back to the Earth. I still think about it becoming part of the dust and dirt behind the church.
I like his advice to artists. I have a question for you. When he says:
On finding that Place in the world: Hysteria rides on the shoulder of every creative person.
What do you take that to mean? Did he elaborate? Cool post.
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Oh, yb, forgot to mention. How great it is that he had a piece in the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin and that was one of his favorite pieces. I can just picture his work there. It’s a great place to visit and see art. I want to get back there someday.
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I thought of you and your recent visits to Wisconsin, QM, when Dougherty mentioned that particular installation.
My sense of that quote was that he was making the point that artists are not some sort of magicians. They struggle, just like everyone else does occasionally (and maybe always) with their work, finding the inspiration, and worrying that there’s nothing out there that hasn’t been done before. He mentioned some extremely high number of people who define themselves as artists. So it’s hard to be original, and every artist has that challenge. That was what I took away.
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Thanks for the wonderful post! I almost feel like I was there.
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This is amazing. This has GOT TO BE the same artist who did an amazing installation here at Brown University. I walked through it a few times last year….amazing, beautiful, thoughtful work.
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