Arts

The inspiration for building larger-than-life sculptures from sticks has roots in Dougherty’s childhood spent near the woods in North Carolina. “I had lots of experience as a child playing. I’ve always loved making things, and somehow different forces came together and I realized the potential of these saplings to build things,” says Dougherty, whose somewhat unruly shock of white hair and boyish grin hints at the child inside. Yet he’s very serious about his work; he even built the log cabin where he lives with his wife and son in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

It couldn’t be more fitting that the site he chose for his sculpture is near the spot where groups of school children enter the Children’s Garden. “Kids know everything about sticks. They can be weapons and tools, and [children] kind of relive our shadow life as hunters and gatherers,” says Dougherty. “What initially captivated me was the idea that this is how people used to make things, how people used to build things. As a child, you have some of those very same deeper impulses, so they came together in the material.”

The material itself costs nothing, courtesy of Mother Nature. But to bring his ideas to life, Dougherty relies on the resources of the organizations that commission his work—mostly museums, universities and gardens. Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden organized a team of 70 volunteers to help hand-select the red maple and sweet gum sticks and saplings from private land and assemble the structure over the course of three weeks. Thanks to donors, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden also coordinated the hauling of several tons of collected material and provided scaffolding, among other costs involved in the creation of Dougherty’s larger-than-life sculpture.

Wherever he goes, there are plenty of volunteers eager to work with Dougherty. “It turns out that people know a lot about sticks, so it’s like they need an excuse to work with them,” he says. “A lot of people have low-level thoughts about building a chair or making a trellis. It’s not so conscious that you recognize the need, but when someone gives you the chance to do it, you’re right on it.”