A Stickworks Display For Campus

Artist Patrick Dougherty ’67 has created nearly 300 sculptures all over the United States and the world, from Scotland to Japan to Brussels to France. He’s constructed stickworks for botanical gardens, children’s museums, universities, a winery, a zoo, even the U.S. Embassy in Serbia.

“It has involved a lot of rental cars and meeting thousands of people and working with hundreds of organizations,” he said.

His latest work — five larger-than-life stick sculptures inspired by a clay animal-shaped pouring vessel in the Ackland Art Museum’s permanent collection — titled “Step Right Up” is featured on the front lawn of the Ackland and is the museum’s first major site-specific outdoor art installation by the museum in nearly 20 years.

Read the complete Carolina Story from the College of Arts & Sciences…

This is story number 155 in the Carolina Stories 225th Anniversary Edition magazine.

The saplings used to make “Step Right Up,” were donated by Duke Forest and Triangle Land Conservancy and harvested with the help of a network of volunteers. Their support in gathering sticks by the truckload and then preparing them for use in construction helps to “embed the work in the community,” Dougherty said.

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