Wit in the Willows

Photo by Jakob Schiller

Artist Patrick Dougherty works on his sculpture at Turtle Bay Exploration Park. The structure is expected to last two years.

Photo by Jakob Schiller

A landlocked beaver dam? Housing for Hobbits? The mother of all bird nests? Make what you will of the large, weird, whimsical willow sculpture at Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding. Patrick Dougherty’s task is to make it.

Environmental artist Dougherty started working on the piece early this month. It rises some 20 feet into the sky and encircles a valley oak at Turtle Bay’s McConnell Arboretum & Gardens. Dougherty, 62, of Chapel Hill, N.C., has created more than 150 large-scale branch pieces for display throughout the United States and the rest of the world — places like Washington, D.C.; Honolulu, Hawaii; Scotland; France; Germany.

And now Redding. The sculpture here is being made entirely from willow branches. Dougherty has worked with willow before, but not all willow is the same.

“This material is unique to the area. I’m struggling with the branching patterns,” said Dougherty, who recently came down from his scaffolding to answer a few questions. “ ... Some of them are kind of cantankerous.”

Dougherty uses thick limbs as well as thin, supple branchlets. Bending and weaving this plant material is a time-consuming, intricate process. With the thick branches, it can require a certain oomph. Volunteers come in handy too. Dougherty is getting help from Turtle Bay staff and community volunteers. They’ve cut and gathered branches and are helping build the structure.

“It’s very fun to be involved with,” said volunteer Karen Taylor, who has been weaving branches into place. “People don’t realize what a world-class artist we have here.”

Turtle Bay horticulture manager Lisa Endicott said the willow sculpture is the type of thing north state residents would normally have to travel to a larger city to see. It’s a special treat to have it here, she said.

“I think it’s just magical,” Endicott said.

Each of Dougherty’s creations is different. The oak tree is driving the design of this project — and providing structural support. When the three-week project is done, there will be three woven-willow towers with doors and windows around the oak.

Creating the structure is a problem-solving adventure. Dougherty begins with an image in his mind but the branches don’t always want to conform to that image.

Dougherty graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill with a bachelor’s degree in English. He went back to school in the 1980s to study art. Going from English to sculpture is not that much of a stretch, he said. Great literature is the result of individual words lined up in powerful ways, he noted. A drawing is lines arranged to make an impression. With his work, willow branches create the lines and patterns that give the sculpture its character and meaning.

Intertwined in Dougherty’s sculptures are his appreciation of nature and his creative wit. He said there is no heavy-handed message to his pieces.

“I’m trying to capture people’s imaginations,” he said.

He hopes viewers are drawn in, examine the form and think about what they are seeing.

The branch sculptures often resonate with people because of their link to nature. They look like something an animal might have made or that the wind blew in, Dougherty said.

There is a bit of childhood-fort nostalgia to them too, he added. And they can serve as reminders of earlier eras when people relied on sticks to make shelters.

Unlike artists in studios, Dougherty is on display when he creates. That’s something he enjoys. People ask him: “Why are you doing that?” or “Are you allowed to do that?”

“I get instant feedback,” Dougherty said. “Artists need to be able to have a conversation about why they are making something.”

There’s still time to catch Dougherty in action. He’s working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Friday, when the sculpture should be complete. Once it’s done, Turtle Bay visitors will have up to two years to ponder the project. That’s the typical life span of Dougherty’s sculptures.