“Stickwork Artist” Patrick Dougherty Commissioned for Artosphere Festival

Walton Arts Center will host “Stickwork Artist,” Patrick Dougherty, during the 3rd Annual Artosphere Festival.

Dougherty has been commissioned to create a site-specific art installation on the Walton Arts Center campus during his residency from May 10-28. He will create a semi-permanent, large-scale installation that fits and reacts to the unique space and as a part of the process he will guide volunteers through the construction. For information about volunteer opportunities visit the Artosphere Festival website.

During his residency, Dougherty will also participate in the Great Hall Lecture Series at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art along with artist Robert Tannen. “Looking at Nature: As Art, as Object, as Community” will take place on Saturday, May 19 from 2 to 3 p.m. followed by a question and answer session. The lecture is free, but reservations are required and can be made online here.
 
Dougherty combines his carpentry skills with his love of nature, to create works that explore the intersection of nature and structure. Around 1980, he began building small works in his backyard using primitive techniques, but he quickly moved from single pieces to monumental site-specific installations.

Dougherty has built over two hundred space specific massive sculptures all over the world including Japan and the Scottish Highlands. He has also won numerous awards, including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Fellowship.
 
Dougherty has said, “sticks are something we all have in common. Everybody knows sticks – the twigs and branches picked up on grandfather’s farm; the branches woven in grandmother’s basket. Somewhere threaded in all the public mass is a common thread, and that thread is the human spirit.”

Dougherty will be an integral part of the 3rd Annual Artosphere Festival and their mission, which is to celebrate artists who are influenced by nature, and who also inspire people to live more sustainable lives. Artosphere is an arts festival where the arts, nature and sustainability come together. The festival features music, art, theater and dance performed in traditional and non-traditional indoor and outdoor venues throughout the Northwest Arkansas region. For more information about Artosphere, visit their website.

The piece Doughtery will create will be at the Walton Arts Center, which is Arkansas’ premier center for the performing arts and entertainment. Each year more than 140,000 people from Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma and beyond attend over 350 public events at Walton Arts Center, including performances, rehearsals, community gatherings, receptions, graduations and more. To learn more about Walton Arts Center visit their website.

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