Daydreams

Created by Patrick Dougherty in 2015, Daydreams is woven with willows and is partially enclosed and protected from the Montana elements by a replica frontier-period schoolhouse.

The willows Dougherty used to create Daydreams were gathered from areas near Tippet Rise.

Consistently, children are drawn to Daydreams to run, play and explore.

Patrick Dougherty brought a team of assistants with him.

Everyone worked together to help Dougherty weave the willows into Daydreams.

To mimic the weathered roof of the Stockade Schoolhouse, nails were hammered into the structure only partially; shingles were placed askew.

Visitors often write and draw on the chalkboard inside the schoolhouse.

Messages are left in strokes of brightly colored chalk, drawings and symbols are created, tic-tac-toe is played.

Guests frequently remark that the willow forms remind them of nests; some songbirds do use the sculpture for nesting in the spring.

As the years pass, and the seasons come and go, Daydreams shifts and settles.

Almost all of Dougherty's works are displayed outdoors, making them temporal and ephemeral as they last only a handful of years before they begin to naturally deconstruct, succumbing to the elements.

"It’s only a one-room, frontier-style schoolhouse, but it’s easy to get lost in 'Daydreams.' It, and I, are being enveloped, inside and outside, by cyclones woven from willow branches..."
-National Geographic Traveler

Daydreams has served as the set for films and performances.

"Stepping outside this prairie twister of childhood imagination and looking out at the hills, I realize that, with no visible power lines, this land is as close to what it looked like before. Before what, I don’t know. Before life as I know it, perhaps."
-National Geographic Traveler