Patrick Dougherty | James Florio: Sticks

One of today’s most admired living sculptors, Patrick Dougherty wields sticks and saplings to build monumental structures that echo, play, and tussle with the land. James Florio is a Montana-based photographer focused on the built environment and the life surrounding it. He works slowly, visiting a place repeatedly to gain a greater understanding of it, ultimately delivering a thoughtful and profound interpretation. Sticks was inspired by both artists’ connections to Tippet Rise Art Center in Fishtail, MT, where Dougherty has crafted work from local willows and where Florio has photographed the art and wild lands for several years.

Daydreams, Dougherty’s first commission at Tippet Rise, was completed in 2015; he subsequently returned to the center in 2022 to make a companion piece. At the heart of both sculptures is a reproduction of a nineteenth-century schoolhouse. The 2022 work, Cursive Takes a Holiday, adds an installation of intertwining branches to the structure’s exterior, creating a series of circular spaces that visitors can enter and explore.

Sticks features sixteen of Dougherty’s projects from across the US, all exquisitely photographed in black and white by Florio. This volume includes an essay by poet Kate Farrell and a conversation between Florio and Dougherty, moderated by Jean McLaughlin, that delves into some of the questions at the heart of the book: What does it mean to be a site-specific sculptor whose work is experienced most often through images? As a photographer, how does one think about documenting the work of another artist, particularly when the work is ephemeral and the images made will be the lasting record of its existence?