From Sticks to Sculpture

Environmental & Science Education

STEM

Art and Environment

Engineering

Edward Hessler

Often the public imagines that a work of art should be made to last, but I believe that a sculpture , like a good flower bed, has a season--Sculptor Patrick Dougherty

Its a large sculpture of sticks and was designed and constructed by Patrick Dougherty for the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, known in Minnesota-speak as the "YouBetcha" Stick Sculpture." It was completed May 2019.

While it is made of sticks most of us (me) know little, if nothing, about the sticks-- where from or what kinds. One thing we do know is that they weren't picked up on casual walks through the woods.

A recent entry in Nature Notes from the Arb, the blog of the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, tells the stick-to-sculpture story in pictures. It begins in research plots near Waseca in a study of living snow fences. The research design included "5 different cultivars...as well as a shrub variety." 

All were effective but the willow varieties grew faster.