If you’ve ever wanted to experience an artist create a work of art before your very own eyes, now’s your chance.

Monday, the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum will kick off a three week artist-in-residency program, during which acclaimed eco-artist Patrick Dougherty will create a massive stick sculpture on the center island in front of the Oswald Visitor Center.

“We’re honored and excited to host this internationally known artist,” said Mary Meyer, interim Arboretum director, in a press release. “It will be interesting to watch the larger-than-life sculpture take shape.”

Sortie de Cave

Les Jardin des Arts

Chateaubourg, France

Photo by Charles Crie

Dougherty, whose whimsical creations have found homes around the globe from a Max Azria boutique on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles to Les Jardin des Arts in Chateaubourg, France, doesn’t know what shape his Minnesota sculpture will take yet.

“I’m purely waiting,” he said in a phone interview. “I have some concept of scale, though.”

So far, Dougherty has visited the Arboretum get an idea of the space he’ll be working with, but he’ll look for more inspiration from the surrounding environment once he is on site to begin creating.

“It needs to take into account all of the different viewing points,” he said.

Working with a crew of 50 to 75 volunteers, Dougherty will transform five truckloads of willow branches and tree saplings into a work of woven art.

It’s a process he’s refined over the last 27 years.

“Once you’ve done it for so long you know how to avoid the sharp edge,” he said with a smile in his voice.

Dougherty created his first large scale stick sculpture in his home state of North Carolina in 1983.

“It’s amazing I’ve been able to extend it that far,” he said. “I’ve been really lucky.”

Dougherty explained that there is a natural human attraction to what he does. “We all had a hunting and gathering past,” he said. “These are basic building materials and we all have an understanding of what those materials can do.”

Dougherty said his work has become even more relevant today as more people begin to “engage in discussions about the environment and deforestation.”

For his installation at the Arboretum, Dougherty will rely on surplus biomass research material from the Horticultural Research Center in Victoria and the U of M Waseca Field Station as well as Carver Park Reserve’s invasive plant control project.

The result could be anything from oversized people to jugs to buildings. “The imagery you choose should contrast,” he said.

Dougherty describes his work as celebratory – “definitely more up than down,” he said, noting the large scale “gives it exuberance.”

He doesn’t have a favorite among the 200-plus pieces he’s scattered across the world, saying, “I’m always interested in the one I’m working on.”

Dougherty is completing about 10 installations a year now, averaging three weeks each from start to finish.

It’s something he’ll continue to do as long as the ideas keep coming, he said. There’s rarely a building or a space he crosses that doesn’t offer inspiration for his art.

“I have to practice modesty of the eyes,” he said. “I have lots of ideas left.”

The “Big Build” will kick off the Arboretum’s summer exhibition “Powerhouse Plants” which opens on June 5. Dougherty’s progress will also be captured via garden cam and blog on the Arboretum’s website.

-Mollee Francisco, staff writer