sacred sticks

I find Dougherty's yard works intriguing in many ways, as play itself, as garden craft, as art that embodies the ephemerality of play capturing the wildness of nature for a short time in the stories and techniques of cultural give and take. The recumbent osage orange of la Gabelle has its sacred counterpart in a Mississippi pecan tree, pulled from the earth by a storm but surviving ship-like, parallel with its earthen dock, half its roots exposed , limbs still bearing fruit even as children walked casually among its vertical branches, up into the prow of its canopy. "Be It Ever So Humble" in Savannah reminds me of garconnieres (would it if not in the marshy, humid south?), or perhaps the more modest but secret and equally sacrosanct suburban treehouse. "Spin Offs" look like tiny tornadoes tearing away at the fortress-like architectural turrets of DeCordova. All these works remind me of the alternate realities created in child's play, those imaginary worlds formed in and of nature beyond the reach of adults.

(with apologies for the late posting)

Irland Response LATE!

Sorry forgot to post this. 

Do you accept late work, Catherine?

Sandra Postal's introduction sounds like a middle school paper, constant "we..." 

Anyways I like Basia Irland's ideas but she must be a scientist or is she just crazy about research, how can she study water so intently?  

I really like the picture of all the bottles of water, it is so captivating knowing they are full of water from so far away from each other.  Their close proximity on the shelf is great, and yet they are water which is so fluid and if combined would become one and thus unable to separate.

I really liked that the waters we then returned to a water source but not their own, it defiantly underlines that cyclical cycle.  It creates this beautiful feeling of oneness.

Response to Yardworking

Patrick Dougherty

Yardworking

I liked his analogy of a seamstress turned sculptor to him a woodsman turned sculptor.  I think its interesting to be able to see what else besides art interests an artist, through their art. 

I find it interesting that he thinks of his work as wild in concept in the wild, although it on another level cannot be wild, since he transforms it.  I love when he calls his work at La Gabelle a "primitive sapling temple," I didn't at first think of his work as primitive but I can see the comparison.

What an ingenious idea to work with found sticks on a large scale.  

I would love to experience one of Dougherty's sculptures.  I liked when they talked about drawing with sticks because of their shape.  I can defiantly see drawing aspect although he is obviously working in 3-D.

Victoria

yardwork

I love the idea that Patrick's works convey of the union of form and chaos. It is a metaphor for this wild crazy existence and its ever changing relationship with the constant of nature. Nature taking on a new form by the hands of chaos or is it the other way around? Perhaps a dance of taking turns leading by both.
I think the way he described them as being "shelters of transition" harmonized with what I think I am personally experiencing in my life in academic ways, personal ways, spiritual ways. Like an open-air cocoon. There is something about his work that is deeper than I can perhaps express, a knowing-ness I can't wrap around just yet. I can't tell if it is a very primal display of communication between himself and the elements around him, no matter where he is, or perhaps it is some kind of fantastical child's play that has been matured and honored by giving a visual voice to these young saplings. Baudelaire's "Morale du joujou" comes to mind. The child's toy introduces the child, just by its play, into the world of art, music, poetry, inviting it with its bright colors and curious shapes. The play of artists is very similar to the play of child with a toy. Perhaps all artists have an intimate memory/connection to their toys this way which lead them down the path of their rapture into creation. Daugherty makes us these brilliant toys to invite us to the world of nature and we become the creation in a sense, in our childlike awe.
I feel his work brings all the elements into play without literally doing so. Fluid like water, warm like fire, cool like the wind, with roots of the Earth.

Dougherty's Yardworking

There is a continuity in Patrick Dougherty's work that I love. His vision of himself as a woodsman first makes the relationship to his material, site-gathered trees and vines, more intimate.

The concept of "drawing in space" with materials found on site is marvelous. He says, "Sticks are both tree branch anda line with which to draw." That kind of 3-dimensional awareness is translated as he is working and making each installation site-specific allows for his energy to join with the site. I was particularlyl drawn to "Holy Rope" which is at Rinjyo-in Temple, Japan. The contrast that the author makes between Japanese artists and American artists is thought-provoking. The author talks about Japanese artists working with nature in "a precise and highly controlled way. ... This contrasts the way many North American artists conceive space as a free areas to work in." While I understand what the author is saying, I think there are many North American artists who approach their artwork with precision and control.

I also like the idea Dougherty presents on the transience of his work. It speaks to value, both intrinsic and concrete, and presents a question that I struggle with constantly. Who is the authority that assigns "value" to a piece of artwork, in essence, giving a definition of artwork.

the unfettered wild

“Certainly gardens are a kind of rendition of the unfettered wild” – P. Dougherty

Patrick Dougherty’s work inspires me. I love the way he articulates the cultivated and the wild. Also, his discussion of Japanese artists like Tadashi Kawamata and the Japanese perception of space is fascinating. What they have in common is an abiding connection to site and the tectonics of expression. I think there must be a similar voice running through Southwestern and traditional Japanese architecture.

I often find myself rebelling against those seemingly strangulated and coerced geometries that many architects, both of the land and the built environment create (for me?) …everything all in rows and boxes and crisp clean orthogonal lines. I love his idea of freeing the surface. Really! And of having it flow and surge with purposeful logic! These concepts remind me of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and of our national psyche. There is freedom in the American back yard. It is a place to do what you want. Is there such a thing as a typology of experience not form?
Some would argue there is not. But if there is, Dougherty’s work and thoughts about tracing humanity’s presence with a process of familiarization is it.


I own a lot next to my house and one of the ways I got through my Master’s degree was by walking through it. There, within the chain link and block boundaries, was a tangled cultural landscape that exists here in New Mexico but is barely recognized as such- ragweed forests, piles of brush and pinon stumps, several appliances, a road sign and some old lawn chairs all clumped together and sprawling over a city lot barely contained by the wooden gate that kept blowing over. This was paradise to me. Something that the world of architecture, a world that I was immersed in night and day, couldn’t touch.

I also like the backyards visible from the train as it leaves Albuquerque traveling north. This is where living is familiar; messy some say. I listen to people’s comments during my journeys to Santa Fe.