Tuesday, June 9, 2009
A dying tree on Spooner Hall lawn gave the University a chance to combine art and nature in a sculpture made of tree saplings.
The Spencer Museum of Art commissioned artist Patrick Dougherty to build a sapling sculpture called “The Bedazzler”. It is one of more than 200 sculptures Dougherty has created worldwide. Dougherty said he chose the site because Spooner Hall was an interesting building and because there was a lot of traffic surrounding it.
“It gave me the idea of a colossal spinning object,” Dougherty said. “It does in fact feel like some of the motion going on up there.”
Dougherty and about 10 students, KU graduates, faculty and community members worked every day for the last three weeks in May to complete the sculpture. The sculpture used about 6,000 pounds of Silver Maple and Rough-leaf Dogwood saplings.
Bryan Lloyd, 2009 graduate, worked on the sculpture on four different occasions. Lloyd said that the experience was hands-on and that Dougherty gave the volunteers freedom in weaving the saplings and constructing the piece. One of Lloyd’s favorite parts about working on the project was getting to talk to Dougherty.
“His opinions on art are very interesting about what’s pleasing to the eye,” Lloyd said. “It’s experience you couldn’t get in a class.”
Dougherty first visited the site in February 2008 and at that time chose an ideal harvest site for the saplings near Clinton Lake.
Emily Ryan, museum project coordinator, said it was interesting to see how much was involved in the building process. She said there were several problems with the harvest sites for the saplings. The first harvest site flooded from heavy spring rain and project coordinators had to find an alternate location. Other sites were completely overrun with poison ivy.
Dougherty said all of the saplings were cut in a way that would allow them to grow back, and were cut from areas where they were unwanted because the trees were overpopulating.
Ryan said her favorite part of the project was the involvement with the artist and his creation. She said most people didn’t have the opportunity to be with an artist while he was creating and weren’t usually welcomed to tag along.
“Everybody has some sort of ownership with it,” Ryan said. “If that means climbing through an acre of poison ivy, they’ll do it. You don’t always get to be part of the whole process and there’s a great deal of personal satisfaction people get from that.”
Carolyn Chinn Lewis, assistant director of the museum, said that the sculpture was expected to stay up about 18-to-24 months, but that it depended on how and when the sculpture deteriorated.
“It’s really like a birth and death process of his pieces,” Lewis said. “It has its own life cycle and I think we’ll know when it’s time.”
Lewis said that the tree beneath the sculpture had Dutch Elm disease, which also played into the process of life and death. She said the sculpture was a way to pay homage to a dying tree.
Dougherty said his sapling sculptures combined his love for nature and art.
“The material itself seems to be promotive of a deeper view of mankind,” Dougherty said. “There’s a desire to be creatures out in the natural world just like any other creature.”
— — Edited by Kristen Liszewski
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Spooner Hall’s lawn gets bedazzled
You know the picture on here is of Bryan Lloyd, right?
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