A Closer Look at Laura Ellen Bacon's Woven Willow Sculpture at the Clark

Saturday, August 22, 1pm | Williamstown, MA

The Clark Art Institute leads a guided close look at "Gathering My Thoughts," British artist Laura Ellen Bacon's outdoor willow sculpture, on August 22. A Clark educator walks participants through close examination and discussion of the piece and its relationship to the surrounding landscape, meeting at the Lunder Center.

Bacon has worked almost exclusively in willow for nearly 25 years, weaving it into large-scale, organic forms that mimic animal habitats, dens, nests, and form structures that look grown rather than built. For "Gathering My Thoughts," sourced from willow grown in Ohio, she constructed the piece entirely on-site over the course of a month, adding one distinct woven layer each day, so the finished sculpture—roughly nine feet long and five feet high, wrapped around a tree along the Clark's woodland trail—represents an accumulated record of that labor. Bacon has spoken about her interest in the way natural forces like snowdrifts or sand dunes gradually take shape through layering and weight, an idea she's translated directly into how she builds. She's also described working alone in the woods for weeks at a stretch—including one occasion when a bear approached within 30 feet while she knelt weaving, simply watching her work.

The piece is part of "Ground/work 2025," the Clark's second outdoor sculpture exhibition, curated by independent art historian Glenn Adamson and running through October 2026 across the museum's 140-acre campus. Five other international artists—Yō Akiyama, Aboubakar Fofana, Hugh Hayden, Milena Naef, and Javier Senosiain—have work sited throughout the grounds as well, each responding to a different part of the property's meadows, ponds, and trails.

Lunder Center at Stone Hill, Clark Art Institute, 225 South St., Williamstown, MA. Free. Details at events.clarkart.edu.