Y A R D W O R K I N G
An Interview With
PATRICK DOUGHERTY
©Reprinted from
Artfocus/70 Winter 2001
by John K. Grande
North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty’s freeform assemblages woven together out of tree branches are visual enigmas embodied by the artist with a fanciful, fairytale quality.Internationally recognized for the outdoor installations he has made in parks, galleries, gardens and museum spaces in Japan, Europe and North America, Patrick Dougherty exploits the supple tension, elasticity, tonal and textural qualities of the wood he works with. His art has a "wildness aesthetic" rooted in the North American experience. Combining craft, and the physical practice of drawing in space with tree saplings, Dougherty gathers, cuts, assembles and weaves. Yardwork created at La Gabelle north of Trois Rivières in Québec is the first work Dougherty has ever conceived and created in Canada. A gathering of seven 20 foot towers made of braided red maple saplings Yardwork’s swirling wooden shapes, drawn in space, are surrounded by a swooping braided form that acts as an aesthetic container for this highly charged, large scale installation. The actual site situated next to the historic La Gabelle hydro dam built in 1924 is steeped in history. This was a place where French traders climbed the rapids to exchange goods and contraband with the amerindians of the Atikamekw tribe many of whom died in the Iroquois wars. The hydro dam was one of the first in Canada, and still operates. Of the village that once existed there in the 1920s only a few traces remain. Forestry, fishing and a range of primary industries associated with our colonial history took place in the region. In this interview Patrick Dougherty discusses his latest onsite installation there >>>
John Grande: Your installations have
been seen all over the world now and adapt to the specific site, location, even the
history of a place. You always keep an aesthetic edge in the way you formulate and
build your installations. They’re unique and immediately recognizable. How did you
arrive at this unusual way of working wood at the very beginning?
When did you begin to weave wood?
Patrick Dogherty: I hate to say spontaneous combustion working with these
combustible materials. As a late bloomer I enrolled in sculpture and art history
classes in the early 1980s. Eventually I returned home and wanted a way of working
that I might already know. The first works were modest efforts using sticks to build
objects scaled to my own height. I started making human forms with very small sticks
and it was like magic! It turned out something good. Like a seamstress turned sculptor
might continue to use Velcro fasteners, zippers and cloth in her work, it was not
so unusual that a woodsman like myself might see the value of the groves of small
saplings along my own driveway.
In North Carolina where I live, small trees like maple, gum, elm and willow infiltrate
into any disturbed area. These saplings are plentiful and renewable. It is like having
a giant warehouse of good material always at my fingertips. I realized that wood
had a deeper aesthetic resonance. I grew up in the woodlands of North Carolina. My
childhood home, like La Gabelle, was surrounded by undeveloped areas where kids could
play in the wild.
When I turned to sculpting with saplings, it seemed easy to co-opt the forces of
nature and play a kind of energy flow onto the surfaces of the large forms I made.
Before I could start this work, however, I had to figure out what birds, beavers
and other natural shelter builders already knew about branches and twigs. That is,
they have an inherent method of joining. If you drag a small stick through the woods
you will see what I mean. The top entangles with everything. As the opportunities
presented themselves, I began to integrate my work with architectural situations
and then to play saplings sculpture off against natural settings. For example, in
Denmark in 1996, I intertwined large flying circles through the upper branches of
a row of trees. The work here at La Gabelle is part of a new trend to build works
that stands on their own and function as architecture.
JG: How did you start this particular installation? How did the process
begin and how did it evolve over time?
PD: In May 2000, I visited Quebec as one of six artists participating in Cime
et Racines Art and NatureSymposium. I chose a site in the public park at La Gabelle
near the main thoroughfare where the work is easily seen. I imagined that viewers
would be able to follow the progress of the work as it was built and enjoy it as
the seasons changed. Initially, I made a list of word associations that related to
the site that included thoughts about fishing, fish, traps, Indian trading and cargo.
The park is also a place for teenage trysts, where you can ride off-the-road vehicles
with full abandon. In my mind, the human activity of this rollicking outback place
seem to merge with the wild natural force of water surging in the St. Maurice river
nearby.
Using my initial impressions I made a series of thumbnail sketches that suggested
a group of tall vertical forms resembling a school of fish standing on their heads.
I envisioned these "fish tails" being looped by an energetic river of sticks.
Later in the planning process, I gave up the literal imagery in favour of seven 20
foot high abstract columns, surrounded by a six foot high sheet of undulating saplings.
In completing the sculpture I developed passageways through this outer shell, so
viewers could glimpse intriguing bits of the interior. Visitors can stand inside
each of the inner structures and explore a kind of internal maze. My favourite view
is from inside one of the tall vertical forms looking at the sky through a chimney
of sticks.
JG: The La Gabelle site, located as it is right near the river bank is
uncontained, not formalized. Its purpose and significance is not prescribed.
PD: That’s right! To me this site has a kind of wildness about it. If you
drive through it onto the dam on the other side you will see it was a backwater before
there was a throughway. The river itself seems to project a kind of primal magnetism.
While working here, I have watched fishermen, boaters, lovers, bikeriders, running
children and the mad hatters who speed by on off-the-road vehicle go by. The one
way bridge and the railroad-crossing nearby regularly result in small traffic jams.
As the drivers slow down and look towards the river, they can’t help but see the
sculpture. From a practical point of view, I also felt that if the sculpture was
in full public view, it might offer some protection from climbing. The La Gabelle
site is a place which affects inhibitions and frees the human spirit. It seems like
a perfect spot for a kind of primitive sapling temple.
JG: There is always this fantastic spirit aspect to your assemblages. They
are animated and project a sense of childhood fantasy. You always work with a limited
range of materials but seem to innovate endlessly. Each configuration is different.
You integrate pure forms into your structures and the process is like drawing or
etching with sticks in three dimensions.
PD: Sticks are a common backyard material. Adults remember them from fall
cleanup, and tossing one for the dog. For most kids however, sticks are absolutely
essential and the cornerstone of much of children’s fantasy play. Kids lay sticklines
on sidewalks to describe the imagined kitchen and living room and then use the same
stick as a spear, digging tool, a fighting staff or trap. The use of sticks and the
forest from which they come are part of the oldest memories of the human race and
seem forever entwined with human fantasy. I have built a variety of abstract images
over the years, but the response from viewers is often about a remembered personal
experience with sticks, trees and wild nature in general. Lately, I have heard a
story about a tree called Big Mr. Twister and a favourite from another town called
Simple Hard and Easy. Here at La Gabelle I heard a story about a recumbent Osage
Orange tree which had fallen over and continued to grow on its side. It was a kind
of sacred tree and provided countless hours of fun for generations of children.
Sticks are both tree branch and a line with which to draw. I can employ many of the
same conventions used in drawing on paper working on the surfaces of these sculptures;
line weight for emphasis, raking diagonals and all kinds of hatchmarks. Sticks are
also tapered and massing all the tapers in one direction builds a sense that the
surface of the work is jumping and surging. The stick transforms into an animated
line. As a whole image these drawn stick surfaces characterize the wild forcefulness
of nature itself.
JG: In Yardwork there is this sense of containment, enhanced by the swirling
form that goes around the seven towers in the piece. This makes it somewhat unique
from previous works you have done.
PD: After taking full measure of the space at La Gabelle, I decided that
seven twenty foot upright forms girdled by a kind of flying fence wouldprovide the
right scale for this place. Unlike the sunny winter weather of my own home state
of North Carolina, it snows here at La Gabelle in winter. And so I used the cinching
action of the outer belt to help consolidate and protect the overall structure against
the elements. Its a kind of racing wrap around stick sheet. The openings give a better
sense that these towers are not solid, that they’re hollow inside. Though I have
made other temples and maze-like configurations, this river and the particularity
of the place brought fish sticks and thoughts of trading tobacco and peace pipes
to mind.
JG: You do not usually cut down trees to make your work. I believe the tree
cuttings were gathered from sites along the hydro line.
Yardwork, sculpture installation @ La Gabelle,
Quebec by Patrick Dougherty
PD: I say of my work that I make large scale temporary sculptures from materials gathered in the nearby landscape. Eddy Daveluy, a member of the local group sponsoring the symposium helped me locate a large quantity of small red maple saplings growing under the Hydro Quebec power lines less than a mile from the park. The area was mown three years ago and the fresh saplings that came back from the stump grew at the same rate over the entire area. This resulted in very uniform and luxurious material. Using local government trucks, a group of people gathered and transported six dump truck loads of bundled saplings. The color and flexibility of the material is wonderful, and it is by far the best I have used to date.
JG: Your work seems to play on the edge of form and chaos. Form and chaos are both present in the structures you build. You leave it all open. There is a natural and fluid flow between interior and exterior space.
PD: Maybe gathering the haphazard growth from along the powercut and manhandling the saplings into a credible temporary sculpture is the real edge between form and chaos. Its a game I ultimately lose as the weather acts upon these sticks. They decay, rot and eventually become soil again. I enjoy forming these brambles into shapes that suggest a kind of large scale three dimensional drawing. I try for a kind of line logic, an illusion where the lines seem to flow with a purpose and force along the surfaces of the sculpture. Lines that begin inside seem to twist and turn out of the openings and become the implied motion that scoots around exterior. My sculptures are shelters of transition.
JG: Working with nature and building structures in an open site involves a kind of cross-over, where aspects of the built habitat and the land are both present. In other words there is a kind of cultural modification of nature in your installations. You build and elaborate with natural form, anthropomorphizing nature in a way. Working with found natural materials, you bring a human interpretation to a site. Can you elaborate on this?
PD: It seems like humans have to continuously struggle with ideas about nature and redefining our relationship with the natural world. Domesticated gardens versus the wilderness are part of a worldwide discussion and part of my (our) inner conflict. Certainly gardens are a kind of rendition of the unfettered wilds. Shrubs, trees, flowers and grass become commodities and are forced into human geometry. I try to free the surfaces of my work using sticks as a drawing material, work them in such a way they look like they are escaping those chains of being planted in a row. I image that the wilderness lurks inside my forms and that it is an irrepressible urge.
JG: So there is humour there!
PD: At the turn of the last century people read Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad and felt a righteousness about trying to dominate and control the forces of nature be they, beast, tangled forest or weather. Natural resources were maidens-in-waiting for personal and industrial use. Perhaps my sculptures embody "nature" trying to creep out of the backyard and slip into the woods.
JG: Unlike Japanese artists who often work with nature in a precise and highly controlled way. Tadashi Kawamata’s installations are one example of this. Their conception of space is well integrated, but for them space is something you never waste when working with wood or any material for that matter. The Japanese see nature in terms of its limitations. This contrasts the way many North American artists conceive space as a free area to work with.
PD: I am sure cultural difference affect the view of space and its use. We still have an enormous amount of free space in North America and ride through it like cowboys. The fact that we haven’t had these ancient traditions allows us to get away with it. The Japanese don’t mind working in the tradition of the master and doing the slight incremental variation by focussing on that difference whereas we have the gross motor skills running. The spaces I work with are generally big and require a large scale work to have a strong visual impact. The big swath is more important than the concept or idea.
JG: The other point is also that these structures return to nature. When you build them, you know they are ephemeral and will eventually return to nature. The ephemerality adds a curiosity to the artwork. People might say: "Why would would he make this piece? What is the purpose?" The purpose is to accentuate the site in the landscape yet brings traces of the human presence into the land. Its rather like the amerindians, for whom the land was never wilderness. In a sense this kind of art is civilizing our idea of wilderness. It’s post-Cartesian, no longer rational, not a rationalization of nature, more a familiarization one could say, with the land.
PD: Sometimes I worry about that. It comes back to the anthropomorphizing. You are giving vent to a human concept of nature. I make temporary work that challenges some traditional ideas about sculpture, that it should last forever, can be bought and sold and can accrue value for those who own it. My rewards, besides being paid for the work I make, are the conversations and interactions I enjoy with the viewers during the building process. These often poignant exchanges, sometimes highly charged, allow me to participate in the larger world of ideas. It is also fair to say, that I have been allowed to use many provocative spaces simply because my work is temporary and can be removed after a set period. If a work is to remain thirty years, it requires vast amounts of consideration and all kinds of permits. A temporary work often avoids many of the pitfalls of using public space.
As to this other concern about art civilizing our view of wilderness, it probably does. Artists, naturalists, politicians, actually almost everyone I meet, view nature through a man-made window. I am personally confused by many so-called environmental efforts, as it seems difficult to understand the biggest environmental picture. My own work does not really attempt an environmental mission. It is still more about Moby Dick than about a maelstrom that takes out a city. I like the fact that nature has a will of its own that we cannot control. It seems clear that people like gardens and grass, but they desperately desire a connection to wilderness-even if that concept is not clearly defined.
JG: I find the siting of Yardwork by a hydro dam truly interesting. The St. Maurice River waters have propelled this hydro dam for 75 years, the draveurs and loggers have long worked this river. Trading took place here. Colonials exchanged goods with the natives in early times. The site is a crossroads that captures an amazing range of cultural, natural and historic cues. Wilderness surrounded islands of civilization in this region, in contrast to the United States where the wilds were always to the west.
PD: Yes. La Gabelle has a wealth of history. The park in which Yardwork now stands, is exactly where the village the crews who built the damn once lived. Once wilderness, it became the front yards of homes where flowers were tended in the 1920s. In the 1940s the village was levelled and only the trees from that era survived. To think that it has returned to a natural situation is kind of strange. It is now a community park and festival area for the nearby towns of St. Etienne-des-Gres and Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel. In fact it is a still a yard, and hence the title Yardwork.
PD: Sometimes I worry about that. It comes back to the anthropomorphizing. You are giving vent to a human concept of nature. I make temporary work that challenges some traditional ideas about sculpture, that it should last forever, can be bought and sold and can accrue value for those who own it. My rewards, besides being paid for the work I make, are the conversations and interactions I enjoy with the viewers during the building process. These often poignant exchanges, sometimes highly charged, allow me to participate in the larger world of ideas. It is also fair to say, that I have been allowed to use many provocative spaces simply because my work is temporary and can be removed after a set period. If a work is to remain thirty years, it requires vast amounts of consideration and all kinds of permits. A temporary work often avoids many of the pitfalls of using public space.
As to this other concern about art civilizing our view of wilderness, it probably does. Artists, naturalists, politicians, actually almost everyone I meet, view nature through a man-made window. I am personally confused by many so-called environmental efforts, as it seems difficult to understand the biggest environmental picture. My own work does not really attempt an environmental mission. It is still more about Moby Dick than about a maelstrom that takes out a city. I like the fact that nature has a will of its own that we cannot control. It seems clear that people like gardens and grass, but they desperately desire a connection to wilderness-even, if that concept is not clearly defined.
JG: I find the siting of Yardwork by a hydro dam truly interesting. The St. Maurice River waters have propelled this hydro dam for 75 years, the draveurs and loggers have long worked this river. Trading took place here. Colonials exchanged goods with the natives in early times. The site is a crossroads that captures an amazing range of cultural, natural and historic cues. Wilderness surrounded islands of civilization in this region, in contrast to the United States where the wilds were always to the west.
PD: Yes. La Gabelle has a wealth of history. The park in which Yardwork now stands, is exactly where the village the crews who built the damn once lived. Once wilderness, it became the front yards of homes where flowers were tended in the 1920s. In the 1940s the village was levelled and only the trees from that era survived. To think that it has returned to a natural situation is kind of strange. It is now a community park and festival area for the nearby towns of St.Etienne-des-Gres and Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel. In fact it is a still a yard, and hence the title, Yardwork.
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Artist's Website: http://www.stickwork.net/