Stickwork installation to be disassembled at Walton Arts Center

Out of the Woodwork, an art installation by Patrick Dougherty located on Walton Arts Center’s main plaza.

Photo: Todd Gill, Flyer staff

After two years on Dickson Street, it’s time to say goodbye to Patrick Dougherty’s Out of the Woodwork “stickwork” installation in front of the Walton Arts Center.

The 20-foot-tall sculpture, which was always intended to be temporary, will be disassembled beginning Monday, May 5, and recycled into free mulch to be distributed at an Artosphere event planned on May 16.

The sculpture was originally installed as part of the 2012 Artosphere Festival.

Dougherty and volunteers working to construct “Out of the Woodwork” in 2012.

Photo: Todd Gill

The work was crafted from saplings harvested from wooded areas that are overgrown or generally too densely forested to survive, and was created by Dougherty with the help of several local volunteers over his recent 19-day residency in Fayetteville.

A carpenter by trade, Dougherty began his installation work after studying primitive building techniques using tree saplings as construction materials in the 1980s. Thirty years later, he has completed over 200 works in places all over the world.

“Sticks are something we all have in common,” Doughtery said of his work. “Everybody knows sticks – the twigs and branches picked up on grandfather’s farm; the branches woven in grandmother’s basket. Somewhere threaded in all the public mass is a common thread, and that thread is the human spirit.”

Walton Arts Center is planning an event to take photographs and say goodbye on Thursday, May 1 to correspond with Fayetteville’s First Thursday festivities.