Patrick Dougherty installing High Jinx at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade

This kind of work reaches out on a real human level to people around the world and says… we have a huge commonality with you…” Patrick Dougherty, High Jinx

Full Transcript

0:02 ♪ Music ♪
0:18 [Laughter]
0:20 ♪ Music ♪
0:36 PATRICK DOUGHERTY: Those look great. These are good color, I’ll tell you. Well this is
0:44 a material that ancients and children alike have used for centuries. There’s a kind of
0:52 a deep reminiscence about the house building and simple shelter that’s kind of built into
0:57 all of our psyches.
0:59 You know for me, gathering close by has become part of the trade.
1:09 In order to prepare the
1:11 material, we’ve been trying to clean some of the leaves off. You know basically, I’m
1:17 using them as lines with which to draw. There’s an energetic quality implying that there’s
1:24 the kind of motion that you might think of with wind or water.
1:33 See how there’s little white spots there? If you just work those.
1:36 STUDENT 1: It’s really great, the opportunity to work with Patrick to learn how to do with
1:45 this material because no one is showing that you in school.
1:50 PATRICK DOUGHERTY: If we can just cover some of the ends that look cut, it increases the
1:56 illusion that this is not manmade, that it has a life of its own.
2:05 STUDENT 2: I’m giving to Patrick last stick.
2:13 PATRICK DOUGHERTY: We’ve been waiting hard
2:14 to see what the whole effect will be. You know, I was afraid to have something be so
2:23 tall that it — that it seemed kind of up there in the atmosphere or the stratosphere,
2:29 and we needed it to come down so that it could be approachable, so that you could almost
2:33 reach up and touch it and have a sense that oh it’s not really up there. It’s down here
2:40 with us.
2:41 I think that it looks amazingly free up there, in a building that’s square and that’s stark.
2:49 I think it really humanizes it. It brings a little bit of the forest, a little bit of
2:54 the environment to play.
2:59 The important part of art is the interplay with the public. With building something,
3:04 when you’re on the line and there’s a constant interchange between the people who are viewing
3:09 it and you the maker. And you have to dominate to some degree because you’re – it’s your
3:14 idea, but you are informed by the public. You’re informed by their space.
3:22 This kind of work really plays to the – what the Art in Embassy is – program is trying
3:27 to do — it’s to try to really reach out on a real human level to the — to people around
3:32 the world and say we have a huge commonality with you, and please try to enjoy something
3:39 about this sculpture that — that we both can appreciate.
3:46 ♪ Music ♪