Last week, the Lawrence Journal World alerted me to a new happening in Lawrence. The Lawrence
Art Center had commissioned artist Patrick Dougherty (seen below to your left) to come to Lawrence and create one of his trademark pieces in the city. Instantaneously, I thought "photo opportunity!" (Apparently so multiple other people, including Pete and Jeff.) As I was gone all last weekend in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and this week has been pretty rainy, today was my first opportunity to hop up to 14th and Jayhawk Boulevard on the KU campus to see the work first hand. Apparently it was fate that made me wait, because when Pete and I ventured up there, we "crashed" the project completion party, and got to hear a lot more about the project.Now, I've mentioned before that I'm not a huge fan of modern art. I need to clarify that statement, which in retrospect was much too broad. I appreciate artists like Andy Warhol; in fact, pop art is one of my favorite forms of modern art. What I can't appreciate is Jackson Pollack-eqse works of art that appear to be nothing more to me than a
good form of anger management (doesn't throwing paint on a canvas seem like a stress reliever?). The basic delineation between "good" and "ridiculous" is whether, in my non-professional opinion, it takes talent to do what the artist did. Andy Warhol...no average Joe could capture Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth II, and other icons like he did. Jackson Polllack on the other hand...gimmie a brush and I'll make you your own "Jackson Pollack".
Some people think this is just a bundle of sticks, but the sculpture at hand...it falls into the Warhol category in my book. These branches were each gathered individually (from what I understand) from the Clinton Lake area. They were then crafted together around the
tree you see and stay linked by nothing more than simple physics. The project came together through the ingenuity, time and dedication of art, sculpture, architecture students, and people off the street. Dougherty engaged passers by who questioned what he was doing and have since returned to see the project. It took the group about two weeks to put together the 6,000 pounds of maple and dogwood; in the end they ended up with "Bedazzler".
The tree which Bedazzler is built around wasn't originally supposed to be included in the sculpture as much as it is, but because Dougherty doesn't come in with any preconceived notions about how a piece is supposed to look, the flow of the project led him to make the tree a focal point. Bedazzler will maintain its composure for about two years before returning to a pile of sticks, but similar sculptures can be seen all over the world. In Kansas, Doughtery will be completing a project in Topeka in November. From the way he spoke, he relayed warm word for the people of kansas and it sounds like he will be looking forward to working with us again soon.
Be sure to visit Bedazzler while you can. Talk a walk through it (how many times do you get to say you get to walk through a piece of art?). Snap some pictures of the inside and outside. Look straight up. Run in and out of the entrances. Examine the different ways the light seeps through the branches at different times of the day (you may get a picture like my feature picture, above). And most of all enjoy this piece of art that is here for just a limited time.
P.S. Check out stickwork.net to see other pieces Dougherty has crafted and other places where his work is on display.
