Monday, February 09, 2009

Patrick Dougherty's Civic Center Trees 2



The sculptural project by Patrick Dougherty in Civic Center Plaza, which he started building on Thursday...



...started taking shape by Saturday afternoon...



...with multiple sycamores sprouting otherworldly treehouses.



There's a wonderful interview with Dougherty from last year in an online journal called "Chief" (click here) where he explains how his projects evolve.



My favorite Q&A was the following:
"So do you spend a lot of time teaching the volunteers?

I’m fond of saying that everybody knows about sticks. They were our first building materials—when you’re a child you go through your building phase. So you know everything there is to know about sticks. Even adults collect sticks. It just takes somebody like me to bring it out of them. People feel the instinct—most people can just walk up to the site and start working."

2 comments:

Matthew Hubbard said...

The angle of the third picture down looks like the giant stick thing might be behind the building that is below it, making it a Godzilla sized object threatening the city.

I don't know why that occurred to me. Actually, I do know why, but for the sake of this comment, let's pretend I don't.

Very nice, by the way. How long do they plan to keep the stuff on display?

Civic Center said...

Dear Matty: It's all a mystery to me. I'm going to try and do an interview with Dougherty & Assistants at the end of the three-week construction period.