Passage V

Paradise Gate

Imagine a fairy-tale castle with high, thick walls, arched doorways, and domed towers with round windows, all surrounding an open-air courtyard. Now imagine the entire structure made of twigs. That is what Patrick Dougherty, an artist who specializes in environmentally friendly works, designed for the spacious lawns outside the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, Massachusetts. (62)

Dougherty uses only saplings, sticks, and gathers branches from the area around the sculptures he built. He especially likes gathering wood that otherwise would be wasted—from areas under utility poles or along roadsides, for instance. [A] For the twig castle in Northampton, which is called Paradise Gate, volunteers—students and teachers from Smith College and children and adults from the community, helped the artist nicknamed the "Twig Man" gather fifteen truckloads of saplings and sticks. [B] After receiving permission, they got the wood from the grounds of a nearby Veterans Administration hospital, given permission by owners in the case of private residences, and from a local park. [C] Volunteers also helped Dougherty build the castle, following his design and instructions. Dougherty directed the volunteers and built large parts of the castle himself. Saplings can be bent and woven together, a method that gives the structure strength and fantastic shapes are produced. [D]The doorways of the interesting Paradise Gate, with their swirling designs, invites admirers to come inside for exploration. No nails or wires were used in the structure, yet the walls are strong enough to withstand the effects of rain, wind, snow, and countless visitors, for a while at least. All of Dougherty's artworks are temporary; eventually the weather destroys them. (74)

However, it took three weeks to build Paradise Gate, which will probably stand for about two years. During that time, people of all ages, from the community and from far away, will enjoy exploring the twig castle.