Friday, October 29, 2010

What’s in the future for ‘stick house’?

Structure scheduled to stay in place for 2 more years


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

This structure made of willow branches sits on a Ketchum lot owned by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts. Photo by David N. Seelig

Since it was completed last summer, tree branch by tree branch, the "willow house" across from the Ketchum Post Office has served its purpose more than expected.

"We wanted a project for our lot" where the future home of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts will be built, "to create interest," explained The Center's executive director, Bill Ryberg.

That's done that in spades, Ryberg added.

The structure was built by dozens of volunteers and its master designer, Patrick Dougherty, a renowned Chapel Hill, N.C., artisan whose "stick work" structures, made from local trees, twigs and bushes, have been built and exhibited on commissions throughout the United States and abroad.

The Ketchum house is made from willow trees.

Ryberg said the structure would remain in place for at least two more years, during which the new arts center will be built.

Then what?

To a reporter's question of whether the willow house might be turned into in a community bonfire, lit by the highest bidder in an auction to benefit the arts center, Ryberg said: "I like your thinking. That's within the realm of possibility."

He said some of Dougherty's structures, indeed, have been turned into bonfires.

Whether that fate awaits the willow house, Ryberg said, depends on a decision by The Center and city fire officials.




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