Sticks Sculptor Begins Work at UC

Artist Patrick Dougherty began construction April 4 on a temporary sculpture that will be made of sticks of all sizes. As he worked nearby the UC main gate, passersby could not resist asking what was going on.

Some watched as he and assistants from the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning dug a hole and placed a tall sapling without roots into a hole. Others advised the artist that this was not the proper way to plant a tree.

Dougherty spent most of Day One on what will be a 16-day artistic project leading a team in building scaffolding, marking off the sculpture's outline with construction flags and plotting out his project. DAAP students assisting him were Taylor Moore, fine arts; Matt Myers, graduate student in sculpture; David Hug, post-baccalaureate student in sculpture; and Leigh Waltz, graduate student in print making.

Dougherty plans to incorporate an existing large tree into the design. He calls the preliminary drawings a hedgerow of houses, which he plans to build from maple and willow saplings now sitting in piles. The sculpture will stretch across the lawn in front of Blegen Library and Teachers College. "It will probably look more like a bush but have a house sense to it," he explained. Many of his previous works were incorporated into natural surroundings, too. Some look like whirlwinds; others like urns.

Working each day from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. including weekends, he will work with a team of students. Questions will be encouraged as student team members will be prepared to tell pedestrians about the work in progress.

Dougherty is a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based artist. The idea of involving UC in a temporary sculpture as part of its growing public artworks program originated with Anne Timpano, director of DAAP Galleries and curator of the university's Fine Arts Collection. For more information, see www.uc.edu/news/sticks.htm and www.stickwork.net.