Day 142 • Something Beautiful 2022: Being in the moment

Something Beautiful is the resurrection of a 2014 initiative to find a visual feast for each day of the year.

On Day 3 of my adventure in Door County working with Patrick and Sam Dougherty, I had the opportunity to talk to Patrick about his philosophy and process. The materials and site available are two big determinents of what his pieces will ultimately look like. We have been working with locally sourced willow on this project and over the course of 8 hours, I got a sense of what you could and could not do.

To generalize a clean cut process in this type of creation is difficult. There are many volunteers working on it and also the material characteristics are not consistent. My job yesterday was to clean up and fill in the bottom edges of one of the towers. Using techniques and the broad approach outlined by Patrick, I assessed the gaps and the wands, found different ways of weaving in the leafy ends, strengthened the edge pieces and cleaned them up aesthetically.

Last night, I returned to Villa Lucci fully satisfied with a wonderful experience despite hands aching from disciplining unruly branches all afternoon. Patrick and Sam were just beginning to structure the 5th tower. They have another week to complete the installation and I cannot wait to see the end result. I encourage you to visit if you can. The structure is phenomenal, the farm is gorgeous and then there is all that is quaint and beautiful in Door County.

Here’s where we were when I left on Thursday, 6/9/2022.

My fill work. Next, someone will add the diagonal overlaying willow to create the wave look of the outside.