Friday, August 24, 2018

"The Big Easy" lives on


We were all sad to say a sudden farewell to "The Big Easy," Patrick Dougherty's beloved sculpture on the South Lawn. Alas, storms and flooding in spring and summer took too great a toll on this intriguing art installation, and it became unstable.

But we have some good news! Most of the finials held their shape beautifully when removed from the main sculpture, so—with  Dougherty's blessing—our curators and horticulturists found perfect locations throughout Duke Gardens for the finials to enhance the landscape design and stay with us  awhile longer.

We hope visitors will enjoy encountering these small echoes of a big attraction. If you take photos of them and post online, please tag #dukebigeasy. We'd love to see them!

The dismantling begins. Photo by Clarence Burke.

A beautiful view of a bittersweet moment. Photo by Lori Sullivan.

And here are the finials....can you guess where?










Finial photos by Bill LeFevre and Laura Daly.