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April Issue 2007
International Sculptor Patrick Dougherty Creates Installation at Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton, SC
Internationally recognized, artist Patrick
T. Dougherty has built an outdoor sculptural installation entitled,
Bend Art Into Nature, on the Village Green at Palmetto
Bluff (Resort), in Bluffton, SC. The installation will remain
on display through Nov. 30, 2007.
Dougherty was born in 1945 in Oklahoma City, OK. He lives and works in Chapel Hill, NC. Since his first one-man show in 1983, he has been invited to create his site-specific works at galleries and museums across the country and around the world. He has received many awards and grants, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
Dougherty has created sculptures at venues throughout the United States, including the National Museum of Natural History and The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC; The American Craft Museum in New York; and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA. He has also worked in Canada, England, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan, and Mexico.
Dougherty earned a bachelor's degree from the
University of North Carolina and a master's degree from the University
of Iowa.
In 1982, his debut piece, MaplyBodyWrap, was included in the North Carolina Biennial Artists' Exhibition, sponsored by the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC. The following year, his first solo show, Waiting It Out in Maple, appeared at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC.
In South Carolina, his installations included: Sittin' Pretty, in 1996, at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens in Clemson and The Path of Least Resistance, part of the exhibit Human/ Nature: Art and Landscape in Charleston and the Low Country, on view during the 1997 Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston.
Dougherty visited the grounds at Palmetto Bluff in Dec., 2006, to identify the site for his installation. Equally important was the opportunity for Dougherty to connect with the site, absorbing the subtle nuances of "place" that will inform his creative process and result in a whimsical monumental sculpture that is sure to delight viewers, young and old.
On-site fabrication of Dougherty's large outdoor sculpture on the grounds of Palmetto Bluff took place between Mar. 5 - 25, 2007. Dougherty resided on site for the month to create his monumental, environmental sculpture of interlaced sticks.
Dougherty spent an entire week harvesting enough renewable materials, willow or maple saplings to construct the sculpture. Students (high school and some college students) as well as volunteers from the community participated in the gathering process.
Dougherty's first challenge was how to make the piece stand up. Once that's solved, he conceals the structure to enhance the illusion that his forms simply appeared - poof - like ships in a bottle. The massive spokes of wood are obscured by skeins of crosshatched and interwoven sticks. The process is similar to drawing and painting. Dougherty weaves and threads sticks as if each one were a stroke of a pencil, crayon or paintbrush, filling side surfaces with crosshatched and scribbled concentrations of the wood's natural reds, greens, tans, grays and browns.
As a result, Dougherty's works usually project a disarming aura of wispy charm, yet one that's freighted with a little nostalgia about the fading life of the farm and woods. That and the gee-whiz aspect of their enormous size tend to make people who see them in progress want to shed their coats and ask Dougherty, "Do you think I can put in one of those pieces?" His answer is always, "Why not?" And that's part of his point. Dougherty's forms are as much a social art as they are a visual one. His approach is democratic.
Interlacing of branches and twigs into a large-scale, environmental form took place in weeks two and three. Students, residents and members of the community had the opportunity to watch and in some cases, actively participate in the fabrication of the sculpture. Students and teachers from Bluffton and Hilton Head Island schools and the surrounding area had opportunities to interact with the artist as he constructed the large environmental sculpture, including hands-on workshops, lectures and field trips.
Dougherty offers the following about his work: "My affinity for trees as a material seems to come from a childhood spent wandering the forest around Southern Pines, NC - a place with thick underbrush and many intersecting lines evident in the bare winter branches of trees. When I turned to sculpture as an adult, I was drawn to sticks as a plentiful and renewable resource. I realized that saplings have an inherent method of joining - that is, sticks entangle easily. This snagging property is the key to working material into a variety of large forms."
Edward Lebow had the following to say about Dougherty in an article appearing in American Craft magazine's June/July 2005 issue: "Wherever he goes, he winds up drafting volunteers to help collect and weave the truckloads of sticks that go into each work. It's Patrick Dougherty's way of bringing in every public artist's toughest critic: the casual viewer who happens to run into art on the sidewalk or in a park."
This project is being presented by the Island School Council for the Arts in partnership with Palmetto Bluff and with generous support from the Town of Bluffton. It is funded in part through an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Recognizing that art education supports academic achievement, the mission of the Island School Council for the Arts is to enhance the experience of the youth in the greater Hilton Head and Bluffton communities by presenting excellence in the visual, performing and literary arts. The goal of this project is to provide access to artistic excellence, exposing students, residents and visitors, through a series of lectures, workshops, site visits and field trips, to the extraordinary work of Dougherty. Dougherty's work seeks to re-create a sensation of simple joy and play in nature that is basic to childhood experience.
For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call 843/757-6358. To schedule a school field trip send an e-mail to (Doughertyvisit@hargray.com) or call 843/757-6358. Directions to Palmetto Bluff are available at (www.palmettobluffresort.com/about/directions.shtml). For more about the artist visit (www.stickwork.net).
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