Day 9

This morning the plein air painters arrived to paint the river and gardens, creating a unique juxtaposition of 19th and 21st century approaches to landscape in art here on our grounds. Maybe once the sculpture is finished the painters will turn their easels away from the Lieutenant to capture the Patrick Doughery's sculpture on their canvases. In the meantime, the towers and columns of our "new ruin" continue to thicken with freshly clipped saplings. The towers themselves will remain roofless, maintaining a view of the sky from the inside.

Day 8

There was a lot of fixing the holes while the rain got in today. Buckets of rain alternated with bright sunlight as workers continued to shore up the walls of the two towers that have been defined. Remarkably, the two structures are developing very flat walls that stand tall and meet at fairly sharp ninety degree angles. Patrick's assistant Mike spent time today fashioning a column out of clusters of tall saplings, another aspect of the "ruins" theme. With nearly all of our on-site material stripped of its leaves and incorporated into the sculpture it seems as if we'll need more trips to gather sticks.

Day 7

One week into the project and it is apparent that we now not only have walls in our sculpture but doors and windows as well. It seems appropriate that the "home of American Impressionism" might inspire a sculpture in the form of a dwelling. As the stickwork grows up beside the Lieutenant River it is reminiscent, though in a much more fantastic format, of the makeshift artists' studios that dotted the riverbank a century ago.

As the sculpture continues to grow, more and more connections to the Florence Griswold Museum come into focus. Patrick's recent contemplation of ruins, like those of the temple complex at Angkor Wat featured in this month's National Geographic Magazine are inspirations for his work here. In the photos, vines and "strangler" fig trees are seen overtaking the man-made constructions of the Khmer Empire. Many Romantic landscape painters in Europe and America took buildings, cities, and entire empires brought to ruin and returned to nature as their subjects. Even Florence Griswold's house itself can be thought of as a building on the verge of ruin many times in its history.

Day 6

Art took a holiday on the Fourth of July, but the volunteer crew and sculptor Patrick Dougherty were back on duty on Sunday, July 5. The piece is beginning to take visual shape now and the the walls of the tower are solidifying. In this unique photo, Patrick (in his Florence Griswold t-shirt) is seen working with his son, Sam, on the scaffolding overhead. It was a family affair today, as many of our Museum staff members volunteered along with their families as well. It's becoming clear just how many hours of layering the sticks it will take to create the final sculpture. Under Patrick's artistic direction, his volunteer collaborators can all feel and see their hard work as vital contributions to an impressive work of art.

Day 5

As volunteers continued to strip branches of their leaves, Patrick and a few assistants went back to the Kus stumping ground to bring out some taller saplings. These taller trees were immediately stripped and put to use filling the remaining holes that had been dug earlier in the week. The scaffolding circled around and inside of the two emerging towers of trees and the weaving of sticks began. At first, horizontal bands of branches encircled the saplings, but eventually the walls became more and more dense with twigs.

Day 4

The augur arrived this morning and Patrick cautiously dug into our rocky New England soil. By afternoon the team was "planting" some of the larger saplings in the holes to act as the main supports for the structure. First a single sapling went in each hole, and then more to shore it up. The plan that seemed easy enough to read on the ground is getting more and more complicated as the sculpture rises into the third dimension. Before the end of the day, the scaffolding, which had been lying in wait, began to be assembled. Patrick estimates the sculpture will reach about 15 feet and have one or more towers.

Day 3

Although the volunteer crew went down into the woods this morning, the thunderstorms soon brought them out again. Taking shelter from the rain in the new Rafal Landscape Center, the crew got down to stripping leaves from the saplings. Leaves covered everything. Patrick also talked about his plan for the site today, and shared drawings and images of ruins that inspired his thinking on this project. Before the end of the day the first test hole was dug (Patrick's son Sam led the charge) and the general footprint of the sculpture was marked out on the grounds. Of course now that the work day is over the sun is finally coming out again.