Luck was on my side on my recent visit to Clinton. I was in town to see the plans for expanding the Buelle Terrace and Sawmill Museum area, when I was able to get a sneak peek of the Dambo Trolls.
Danish artist Thomas Dambo spent the last several weeks leading his team and a team of volunteers in Clinton (and in Elkhorn) in assembling the three commissioned trolls. The Clinton Trolls project was led by the Sawmill Museum in partnership with the Bickelhaupt Arboretum and the City of Clinton. The three large-scale trolls, which are named Helmut, Marvin, and Warren, went up so smoothly that the artist decided to construct a fourth troll in Eagle Point Park.
The team asked me not to share any in‑progress photos to preserve the mystery, but I was able to capture one of the completed trolls snoozing peacefully in the arboretum.
The heads of the three trolls were created in Denmark and shipped over, whereas, the rest of the artwork was assembled on site with a team of artists from Denmark and over 1,000 volunteers who signed up to help. Each troll is made of sustainable, recycled wood, most from the old sawmill. The “dresses” were created from the historic Eagle Point Lodge hardwood floors which needed to be stripped before the artist teams arrived. The lodge was a WPA project.
While many of Dambo’s trolls are tucked away in remote natural settings, the Clinton trolls are intentionally placed in an urban landscape rooted in the lumber industry. As Andy Green, executive director of the Sawmill Museum, told QC News, Local 4, “We see all of the trolls as a way to tell the sawmill history of Clinton and our lumber history,” said Andy Green, executive director for the museum. “The fact that the trolls are actually made out of the lumber that would’ve been cut at (that) period just adds onto that as well.”
In an interview with WQAD-channel 8, an ABC affiliate, Dambo explained the philosophy behind his work: “I’m trying to build a world where we can see that old things have a value, that old things have a soul. That is most of the time much more powerful and important for us to connect with than buying new things.”
The three trolls can be found at the Sawmill Museum, the Bickelhaupt Arboretum, and inside the Clinton Depot across from the US Post Office, and Eagle Point Park.
See you on the byway….who knows where I will be next?
