Building Community One Stick at a Time More than 150 volunteers contributed over 1,000 hours to build Patrick Dougherty’s Head Over Heels. The work was physical. Sometimes it was the decidedly unglamorous hauling of scaffolding frames and planks. Other times it was toting bundles of saplings or flexing a branch to decide if it could weave in and out to cinch up stick walls. When the call went out for volunteers to help build a stick sculpture in the new Orenco Woods Nature Park, response came from all quarters. Basket weavers, master gardeners, nearby neighbors, high school students and groups of friends signed up. During a record breaking cold and wet April, they worked hard, wrestling thicker branches into the framework, then bending and weaving green willow whips into graceful sweeping lines. As the seven sculptural heads neared completion, red twig dogwood branches were woven and twined into fanciful hats for each head. An upbeat presence every morning was volunteer Micki Taylor from Los Alamos, New Mexico. She heard about Dougherty’s project, drove to Hillsboro and stayed in an Airbnb for three weeks so she could volunteer each day. Joined by her husband for the last part of the project, her spirit of adventure is evident in her comment, “When’s the last time you did something for the first time?” Housing corporation Bienestar’s Education Navigation program teaches students about education opportunities, college funding and careers, and brought a group to volunteer. Program Director Maria Hidalgo commented, “Our students had no idea how this project was going to affect them, but by the end of the day, they were so proud to be part of a nature art exhibit and getting to work alongside the art sculptor was a bonus for them.” Fiber artist Faun Hosey states it eloquently, “I was hugely impressed with Patrick Dougherty's relaxed demeanor and ability to organize the work, quickly instruct volunteers, easily give appreciation/encouragement/ correction as needed, and embrace our community with such sincerity and humility. Patrick's art is so much more than line, color and form, it's more than a finished product, and more than a balance of whimsy and landscape; it's a great gift that he has shared with us—one that will outlast the physical realm of this sculpture! “As I was working—crossing sticks and twigs, pushing, pulling, bending, interlacing and making the structure stronger with each contribution—it occurred to me that the process (and the sculpture) was a metaphor for community: that it takes all of us, as we interact in loosely scripted/ unscripted ways, even with minimal framework, we each add to the essential strength of our whole community through all our interactions.”
12
From top left: Hillsboro Arts & Cultural Council member Alisa McDonald weaves sticks (photo by Rick Paulson Photography); Dougherty instructs volunteer; Bonnie Shoffner of Metro and Mindy Richards (photo by Rick Paulson Photography); Intern Alex Dominguez.