The perfect place for hide and seek
It looks like a village made for hobbits—a small cluster of cottages in a sunlit meadow at Morris Arboretum. If you didn’t know any better, you might expect a visit from Frodo Baggins at any minute.
In reality, these dwellings are entirely temporary. They’ll succumb to the ravages of time and weather, but for now they are the newest sculpture by Patrick Dougherty—his people came from Donegal—and it was crafted entire of bent and twisted willow, and other woodsy odds ends harvested by the sculptor and arboretum volunteers over the course of just a few short weeks. Rain and late March snow couldn’t stop the construction of the installation known as “A Waltz in the Woods.”
Over that time, more than a few arboretum visitors, puzzled, wander over to the building site to ask: what is it? What it is, is a technique called stickwork–and Dougherty, who has built similar, and not so similar, installations all around the world is known as the “Stickman.”
On the day the arboretum sculpture was dedicated, accompanied by songs by the Irish Center’s Vince Gallagher and Philadelphia Emerald Society pipers, adults marveled at the construction. As for the kids, they knew exactly what to do–play hide and seek. And no better place to do it.
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