Craft: transforming traditional crafts

Temple of Twigs

For two years, an eerie, twisted fairytale dwelling arose from a grassy meadow at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. Toad Hall was 27 feet tall, with a domed roof, windows, and doors. It was built entirely of twigs.

“Of course I’m a lightning rod for it,” says artist Patrick Dougherty, “but people tell me about their favorite sticks and trees all the time.”

Who better to tell? He’s crafted more than 150 stick sculptures in two decades, and his new works continue to decorate open spaces, indoor museums, and cityscapes in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Dougherty starts each project with a reconnaissance trip to the site. He soaks in the scenery — nearby trees, architecture, roads — and hunts for sources in the area where he can gather building materials. A willow farm in Pescadero, Calif., offers saplings by the truckload; a swath of logged land hosts plenty of exposed brush ripe for trimming.

“The fact that [the material] comes from the natural world provides a lot of associations for people — you start reminding them of their place in it and their relationship to it,” he says.

Back home in North Carolina, Dougherty sketches. He returns with the focus and determination of a weaverbird, bringing twig after twig together without glue or nails. The wood, he explains, has its own “infuriatingly capable way of snagging.”

Sometimes the sculptures are so large that they need added support, in which case he builds scaffolding out of larger branches dug deep into the earth. The works can top 40 feet high and take weeks to complete, but they’ll last years if left untouched.

“You see a kid playing with a stick and he knows everything about it,” Dougherty says. “He knows it’s a tool, a weapon, and a magic wand.”

The artist — who’s built twig renditions of castles, giant heads, and house-sized teapots — seems to know that sticks can be even more than that.
— Megan Mansell Williams

Dougherty's sculptures: stickwork.net

Photography by Patrick Dougherty