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DEVIL'S CLUB
Ray Troll tomó tiempo de su apretada agenda para responder unas preguntas, primero en traducidas, luego en idioma original.
Muchas gracias a David Hyde y Hanna Bahedry de Superfan Promotions LLC por lograr la logística necesaria para esta entrevista
Entrevista traducida del inglés:
Entrevista en idioma original (inglés):
1.-For more than forty years you have created a huge amount of works of art with great detail of marine life, which means you have dedicated a lot of time to analyze it live. Have you experienced any changes in marine fauna that may raise alerts about the intervention of man in Nature?
Good question. I’ve been lucky enough to spend 40 years of my life making art here in Ketchikan, located on a rainswept island in Southeast Alaska, the traditional lands of the Tlinigit and the shared waters of the Haida and Tsimshian. I was an air force brat moving every few years as I grew up. So I guess I found my home here in this rainforest by the sea. In that time I’ve seen a lot of changes. The rockfish I love so much are now much scarcer. When I got here in 1983 there was no limit on the number you could catch. Now you’re not allowed to keep ANY demersal rockfish. The king salmon were bigger back in 1983. The statistics bear that out. A virus in the sea star community devastated the sun stars. The water is warmer and greener now, and the skies are often smoky from the fires in BC, so yes there’s been a lot of tough changes along the way. It's heartbreaking every time I see fresh clearcuts where once there were ancient forests filled with old growth trees. Wilderness is simply too precious to lose. I think we all know that now, or at least I hope we do!
2.- Why have you always had a fascination for marine and prehistoric animals?
It all started with me at age four when I drew my first dinosaur and showed it to my mom and siblings for that all important ‘approval moment’. Drawing became my childhood super power. And my mind was racing wanting to learn more about anything prehistoric. I became a paleo nerd kid who could rattle off and spell all the scientific names of dinosaurs. Surely you must know a kid like that. Dinosaurs are the gateway to science. They’re monsters, but they’re REAL, not fictional. My love for the aquatic world really began when I caught my first fish on one of the Finger Lakes in western New York as an 8-year-old.It got worse when our family moved to Puerto Rico for three years and I was able to snorkel and swim in the Caribbean almost every day. The final nail in the fish coffin came when I moved to Alaska in 1983 to help my sister sell seafood on the dock here in Ketchikan. I had a couple art degrees in my back pocket at that point and so the hook was set. I had found my muse... and my home.
3.- What has been your work of art that you think has achieved the greatest impact?
Most people know me for my line of quirky, very offbeat T shirts. I love making wearable art that speaks to my audience, and over the years I’ve been lucky enough to have made a living from that. Generations have come and gone now and I’m still at it. Some people have collected my shirts since way back in the 80’s and they treat them like heirlooms. They’ve been sold all across the country in all sorts of places, even across Canada, Australia, and Japan. So, the shirts have had the biggest impact out there in this big old watery world. But also over the years I’ve had many museum exhibits, several of them in some pretty big venues. Mostly natural history museums where I’ve been able to really mix it up with the twin disciplines of art and science.
4.- Your art intelligently and sharply analyzes pop culture and current political situations, and it also raises awareness about the beauty of nature. Have you ever had claims from obtuse people who don't understand your vision?
Thanks for the kind words. In my museum shows I try to make my art as engaging as I possibly can using lots of the tools in my art-filled toolbox. I might use humor, whimsy, boldly hand drawn phrases, cool design work and color palettes, music or whatever comes to mind. That’s the role of a “creative’. But even then it can go completely by some people. Some folks just don’t quite get what I’m about. Maybe it’s too dark or off-putting. But so be it. I do what I can to ‘move the needle’ here in our oversaturated culture.
5.- This new Kickstarter project will try to summarize your important and immortal art during these forty years. What was your process to decide what art to include and what not? Will you have a new unpublished work as a reward?
I sent Robbie Robertson at Clover Press a hard drive chock full of my art with hundreds of my images and have let him sort through it all. We all need editors after all, so it’s been interesting to see what he’s picked out. That said I had some ideas on what really needed to be in the book so it’s been a fun back and forth. I noticed you used the word ‘immortal art’. It’s an interesting thought that art transcends time. My images will be around after I’m gone, if I’m lucky. So, having them in a nice hardbound collection like this is a real honor. A friend said to me “art stands in the river of time”. I’d truly like to think so.
6-Have you thought about taking this Kickstarter anniversary project to another platform or maybe as an animation in the style of Fire and Ice from Frazetta?
Now that’s a very fun idea! Know any filmmakers that wanna make that happen? I’ve always thought it would be cool to see my art come alive via animation. Over the years there have been some fun smaller sort of collaborations that have happened with animating my art. My favorite one’s ‘Flicker of Light’ a song by Whiskey Class, my son Patrick Troll’s band. You can check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/
And I gotta say Frank Frazetta was an early influence of mine. I remember the first time I saw a Conan the Barbarian book on the shelf and being blown away by it.
