Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/104211
STICKING TO IT Patrick Dougherty (foreground) constructs his sculpture with volunteers (background) on Jan. 11. He told The Sarasota News Leader that afternoon he feels he "got lucky" to be able to work on the project in Sarasota. All photos by Arielle Scherr SARASOTA MUSEUM OF ART INVITES THE PUBLIC TO VIEW THE CONSTRUCTION OF A PATRICK DOUGHERTY SCULPTURE AT ITS FUTURE LOCATION By Tyler Whitson Staff Writer The Sarasota Museum of Art (SMOA), which has raised more than $15.5 million over the past four years for its own establishment, has discovered a way to thank donors and attract public interest that will surely be turning heads for the next couple of years: It commissioned the construction of a large sculpture on its property, visible to passersby on Tamiami Trail. branches and trunks— will still be standing when the museum breaks ground once it has raised its goal of $22 million. SMOA President Wendy Surkis, herself a volunteer, told The Sarasota News Leader on Jan. 11 that she sees the creation of the sculpture as a parallel for the SMOA board's plan to renovate and repurpose the historic and previously vacant Sarasota High School Members of the SMOA Board of Directors, a — built in 1926 — as a modern contemporary division of Ringling College of Art and Design art museum. (RCAD), are hoping the piece — which is being built by acclaimed sculptor Patrick Dough- "Just as [Patrick Dougherty] is transforming erty and a team of volunteers using only lo- sticks into an environmentally friendly archically purchased, bare, untreated crape myrtle tectural piece," she said, "we are transforming