GREENSBORO -- Stick artist Patrick Dougherty was scavenging tree saplings for an environmental sculpture at Guilford College when a student showed him a wasp's nest she had found.
The tightly stacked cells that wasps fashion from wood pulp to house their colonies inspired Dougherty's most recent work, whimsically titled "Disorderly Conduct."
Dougherty, who lives in Chapel Hill, was already thinking of dormitory housing and of the social communities created by Quakers, a 400-year-old Christian denomination whose members prize individualism and collective decision-making. Greensboro's Guilford College was founded by Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, so the image of the wasps forming colonies in nests seemed fitting.
The saplings that Dougherty wove with the help of Guilford students and volunteers from Orange County created 15 domed towers clustered together on the Guilford quad. The 18-foot towers are connected, but each chamber is also its own private space.
"They're huddled up next to each other but also separate," Dougherty said.
The 65-year-old sculptor has woven more than 200 of these freestanding nests all over the world, but at a lecture and reception at Guilford College he said he was as proud of "Disorderly Conduct" as anything he has done.
Mostly, he said, that's because of the complexity of the interconnected chambers that allow visitors to walk not only outside the sculpture, but also through its rooms.
"It's a hubbub of individually put-together cells with cracks between them so it forms a collective," he said.
Although Dougherty designs each of the sculptures and supervises construction, they are a community effort.
Terry Hammond, who invited Dougherty to Guilford, said hundreds of students from Guilford, UNC Greensboro, N.C. A&T State University and the Canterbury School, a private K-8 academy, participated.
As director of the campus art gallery, Hammond had wanted Dougherty to do a public display for years. This year's college theme of "Green and Beyond" seemed an appropriate tie-in to the biodegradable nature of Dougherty's work. On Feb. 2, Dougherty led helpers on a hunt for saplings from dogwoods, red leaf maples and gum trees. Hammond estimates they harvested eight tons of sticks, mostly underbrush along Interstate 40.
The beauty of Dougherty's creations is that his materials are free.
"It's plentiful and renewable," he said. "It's like having a warehouse at your disposal."
Although some of Dougherty's sculptures, such as one in the N.C. Museum of Art's restaurant, are draped over walls or trees, the Guilford installation is freestanding, with some branches anchored into the ground. Scaffolding is used to surround the perimeters of the sculpture while the sticks are woven into it.
Working from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, volunteers completed the sculpture in less than three weeks.
"It's really neat to watch it come together," said Ella Bertram of Efland, a volunteer on hand every day of the project. "There were certain parts where I didn't know how it would work, but over time you start to understand the material, and you get into a rhythm and work toward a goal."
Guilford expects to keep the installation for one year and then to assess its condition. Most of Dougherty's pieces have a two- to four-year life cycle, then naturally disintegrate.
For Elsa Hoffman of Hillsborough, the three-week experience was unforgettable. Hoffman lives two miles from Dougherty's Chapel Hill home and had long wanted to participate in one of his projects. Working outside in February turned out not to be an issue.
"I never put on my raincoat; it was so exciting," she said. "I never wanted to leave."
