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Twig serpent snaking through Wegerzyn

Noted Artist Patrick Dougherty In Town for Community Project

Chris Stewart/Dayton Daily News Staff Photogra Patrick Dougherty works on a "woven wood" sculpture at Wegerzyn MetroPark. Staff photo by Chris Stewart

ENLARGE PHOTO

Chris Stewart/Dayton Daily News Staff Photogra With the help of local volunteers, artist Patrick Dougherty, began work on "Serpentine Hallway" at Wegerzyn MetroPark. Staff photo by Chris Stewart

Video: Stick Art at MetroPark

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By Meredith Moss, Staff Writer Updated 12:42 AM Sunday, April 10, 2011

DAYTON — When his mother sent him outside to play, 6-year-old Patrick Dougherty gathered sticks and built forts.

Six decades years later, Dougherty has become a famous itinerant artist whose massive twig sculptures, made from thousands of woven saplings, grace art museums, universities and botanical gardens throughout the world. Most, like the project currently underway at Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark in Dayton, are created in collaboration with the local community.

As he makes his way from town to town for his three-week projects, Dougherty is aided by a band of enthusiastic volunteers.

“In general I want to use space in a way that excites people when they see it,” says Dougherty, here through April 22. His preliminary sketches show a serpentine structure that will stand 14 feet high and 200 feet long — the largest of the 225 creations he’s made over the past 30 years. It was inspired, he says, by Ohio’s effigy serpent mounds and will “slither in and amongst the bushes and trees” and suggest “ a coiling action.” Visitors will be able to step inside.

The two-year planning process for the Wegerzyn Gardens Foundation involved raising $50,000, recruiting and scheduling 109 volunteers, and planning related programming.

Dougherty is hoping the experience will trigger reminiscences of the “good old days” — not unlike his own childhood — when people could be out in the woods and play, enjoying simple moments.

In preparation for his arrival, volunteers and staffers cut down and carted three-and-a-half semi loads of black willows harvested over a two-week period from Englewood’s North Park.

“This is really a conservation story,” says Bob Butts, assistant volunteer manager for Metro Parks, who said the young trees are invasive.

Volunteer Sonnie Kasch, dragging bundles of willows in each hand on Tuesday morning, said she was excited about having an artist of Dougherty’s caliber in town. Oakwood High School students Austin Erbe and Hank Beyer, drilling holes to accommodate larger branches that will provide structural supports, wrote directly to the artist to plead their case when they heard participants were required to be 18 or older.

Dougherty apparently creates that kind of excitement wherever he goes. In Palo Alto, Calif., there was standing-room only at his talk, says Linda Longstreth, who grew up in Dayton and was excited to learn her hometown would also be getting Doughtery’s “magical” twigs.

“I find the whimsy very appealing as well as the organic, somewhat ephemeral nature of the twigs as sculpture, “ she says. “And it is a visual and experiential treat to enter the sculpture.”

A former hospital administrator, Dougherty — who resides in North Carolina — says his current career is a perfect fit for him. It’s physically hard work that keeps him healthy; the year-round schedule forces him to produce a creative new work every month. He travels the world and will soon create an installation at a French castle and an Italian park.

The process begins with a structured base made of larger branches. Then comes a “kind of rough weaving through the whole structure” after which it is “aestheticized” with another stick layer. Finally, there’s a cosmetic process and what’s unnecessary is removed.

“You don’t want it to look like a fort but a credible sculpture with polish to it,” explains the artist whose creations last about two years, after which time they return to the earth as compost. That’s how it should be, believes Doughtery.

Dougherty’s arrival into a new community is always a new problem-solving opportunity. He never knows what he’ll encounter in terms of volunteers, staff, community, twigs.

“Each place is different, and there’s always the potential of failing,” he says. “I can’t relax, there’s always an edge.”

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