Installation celebrates spontaneity

World-acclaimed environmental sculptor Patrick Dougherty’s installation at UW–Madison this month will use willow and dogwood saplings to commemorate a place, time and people, as well as celebrate the temporary.

Known for huge, defiantly low-tech pieces that incorporate the natural world into human constructs, Dougherty will be in residence during most of October in the UW–Madison Department of Art as part of the university’s sesquicentennial. He comes to Madison from exhibitions earlier this year at the Evanston Art Center, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and the Savannah College of Art and Design.

“I try to work with students whenever I can,” Dougherty says, adding that UW–Madison’s will play a larger-than-usual role in the execution of his latest piece. “The actual size of the work will depend on the number of students I have helping me. I’ve been told I’ll be able to draw from the entire art department, as well as non- art students — that’s been described as an almost limitless supply.”

Despite the fertile field of assistance before Dougherty, the core volunteers will come from associate professor Elaine Scheer’s two site-specific installation courses.

“This will be a great opportunity to get a first hand look at the creative process and what goes into making a major site-specific installation,” she says. To prepare, her students are making small temporary artworks for outside display around campus. “Look carefully, and you might find some art in unexpected places,” she says.

Dougherty’s rhapsodically swirling branch entanglements have won him awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pollack-Kramer Foundation, the Henry Moore Foundation, Art Matters and others. Previous Dougherty pieces have recalled wooden tempests, with the saplings playing the part of the wind, roiling across rooftops and balconies, billowing down staircases and around towers.

Others works have incorporated coils of nest-like structures into other vegetation.

Still others have been coaxed into freestanding structures suitable, almost, for habitation.

In every work, the site is a partner in determining the outcome with the artist and his materials. The UW–Madison installation will occupy the corner of Bascom Hill near Science Hall, overlooking Park Street, in a spot easily viewed by passersby.

Passersby also will be able to view the work-in-progress. Anyone who happens by will be welcome to express an opinion or lend a hand, he says.

“For some artists, it would be invasive, but for me it’s exciting. Improvisation and constant reaction are the core of my process. The sense of place and people will be translated into the final product,” he says.

Which should be easy and tempting: Dougherty uses no machinery to configure the boughs, preferring to choreograph them into their new environment.

“Sticks have an inherent method of joining together,” he says. “When you drag a stick through the woods the branch automatically picks up other branches, and I use that tendency in my work.”

Like the design and size of the project, the length of time it will be on display remains undecided at the moment. “I find myself romancing the temporary and playing with the tentative,” he says. Dougherty will speak about his work at a free public lecture Oct. 5 at 5:30 p.m. in L140 Elvehjem, and remain in Madison until Oct. 21.