Skip to main content
Event Calendar

Movie: Bending Sticks

Sunday, August 24, 2014
1:00 pm2:00 pm

The feature-length documentary Bending Sticks celebrates the 25-year career of internationally renowned environmental artist Patrick Dougherty, who has created hundreds of monumental, site-specific sculptures out of nothing more than saplings. The film follows the artist and his collaborators during a year of stick work and reveals Dougherty’s process, personal story, and inspirations.

The heart of the film is the creation of five Dougherty commissions in different locations, from the North Carolina Museum of Art to the gardens of Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, as the artist and many others transform piles of sticks into energetic lines and exuberant forms. Dougherty’s projects invite collaboration and engage communities in the making and viewing of his very public art.

Bending Sticks explores how the artist’s childhood—spent rambling through the woods and building forts and hideouts with his four siblings—fueled his career and nurtured the prolific, insightful artist he is today. The time is right for a film about this great living artist who is at the top of his game after a quarter century of stick building in such places as Tacoma, Honolulu, Dublin, Brooklyn, Chateaubourg, and Tokyo. http://bendingsticksthefilm.com/>

This program is free for members, free with the Arboretum's $5 admission fee for non-members.

Click here to register for Bending Sticks.

Photos by Frank Konhaus (left) and Zan Maddox (center, right)

Close