- On this edition of ARTEFFECTS, sending a message about helping our environment by giving trash a new life.

(jaunty music) - I'm always very curious about: How can I transform these materials I'm working with in a very unexpected way to get across my message?

(jaunty music) - [Beth] A photographer who honors the beauty of the American landscape.

(mellow music) - [Rick] If you're a photographer, in a way, you're a storyteller, and I just thought the land had so many stories to tell.

(mellow music) - [Beth] And a family of trolls comes to Aullwood Audubon.

- [Alexis] The takeaway from visiting "The Troll that Hatched an Egg" is the belief that they can make something beautiful out of recycled materials or trash.

- It's all ahead on this edition of ARTEFFECTS.

(jazz music) - [Announcer] Funding for ARTEFFECTS is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pierce Motors.

(bright music) Meg and Dillard Myers.

Heidemarie Rochlin.

In memory of Sue McDowell.

And by the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members.

(lighthearted music) - Hello, I'm Beth McMillan, and welcome to ARTEFFECTS.

In our featured segment, we meet Kyle Karrasch of Reno.

This artist takes thousands upon thousands of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and other discarded trash and gives it all a meaningful new life.

His goal?

To bring awareness to our collective consumption habits of single-use materials and inspire change along the way.

(lighthearted music) - I have a great passion for fishing.

It's nice on a wave.

It's just me out in nature, which I love.

My name is Kyle Karrasch.

I'm an artist, art educator, and I'm the Galleries Curator up at Truckee Meadows Community College.

I grew up here in Reno doing Boy Scouts.

In the Scouts, we spent a lot of time out in nature, camping, hiking, and the biggest thing I took away from the idea of being a Boy Scout was leave no trace.

(lighthearted music) I always bring a garbage bag with me.

I pick up garbage whatever I'm out.

I look at them as not just refuge things that have little to no value and they're just garbage 'cause they do have value.

There's a ton that goes into these materials.

The resources that went in just to even make that one object, just that aluminum can, like how much earth was strip-mined just to produce that aluminum, and now it's just sitting out on the side of a street or along the Truckee River.

(lighthearted music) It also makes me feel better about giving these materials a new lease on life.

(jaunty music) When most people ask me to describe what my artwork is, I just jokingly say, "It's garbage."

But then I say, "No, actually, my work is about materials of ubiquity within our contemporary life.

They're the objects of planned obsolescence."

So it's the single-use consumable materials that I incorporate in my artwork.

So a lot of aluminum, primarily, and then plastic, rubber, glass, and paper.

My wife jokes I'm kind of a garbage hoarder, but it's not to that extent.

It's all nice, neat, and organized.

It starts with the idea, writing out notes sometimes in my sketchbook, why I am using these materials, how I can manipulate those materials and these blueprints.

And then it comes down to acquiring the materials themselves.

I have a large stockpile that I've collected over the years, but it doesn't mean I always have every color.

So sometimes, I have to look for particular colors.

It can take a long time for me to build up a particular color palette that I want to use for a piece.

I also use a lot of people in the community for my really large-scale work.

If I need thousands of cans, I'm not producing that myself.

So every two weeks, I'll do a runaround town for people I know that collect their cans for me.

I do have a good network.

You've been a good producer.

- Yeah.

- Thank you very much.

- Tell me next time you need some more.

- Oh, you'll be hearing from me.

Once I've acquired enough of those materials to start actually making them usable and apply them to my work, it comes time to deconstruction process and materials, which I kind of liken to fileting out like the skins of a can.

I wanna make it a workable surface, so it's a little easier for me to work with.

I try to use as much as the can as possible.

Then whatever is scrapped and left over, I can shred down for either melting for some other objects I have in mind to do in the future or even saving just the barcodes.

(scissors snipping) What you see in my studio, I've got jars, and jars, and jars of just all these little pieces that didn't quite get used in one particular piece, but they're being saved for a future piece.

(jaunty music) I have a little hammer, which this hammer is, probably out of everything in my home, my favorite object 'cause it was my great-grandfather's little tack hammer.

It's like a little cobbler hammer.

(wood thudding) Other than using the little tacks, it's a lot of super glue.

My fingers are usually pretty rubbed because of how much glue gets on them.

I'll build a frame myself, and then once the frame's done, then that one wall piece is done.

I call them sculptures because they are three-dimensional.

A lot of people mistake them as paintings until they really get close up and realize what the material is.

I really like to use and create birds.

They're a good, I think, social criticism that we can use in art because they're the ultimate symbol of freedom.

Like, I think humanity's always dreamed of being able to fly since the dawn at time.

I think we've always envy birds for that, and that's why I like using them in my work.

Unfortunately, I'm portraying them as dead or decomposing mainly because of what we are doing to our environment and the decline in the North American bird population.

A lot of my larger scale works have to deal with data visualization of what we consume daily.

I had a huge wall of 12,000 condensed aluminum cans into cubes, and that really only equated to 3.4 seconds the US consumption.

So within 30 seconds, where 106,000 aluminum cans within three months, we've consumed so much we could rebuild the entire commercial air fleet.

We all contribute to this problem.

I do, everyone does, we can't help it.

To be human is consume.

So it's just thinking about the impact you're doing and that's what I really enjoy from the audience.

You're like, "Oh, wow, I didn't know about this," or, 'I'm gonna look into this."

I'm like, "Well, good.

Well, then that means, for me, my art was a success."

(mellow music) - To learn more, visit klkarrasch.art or check out Kyle's Instagram page at @klkarrasch _art.

Now it's time for this week's art quiz.

Which 20th century artist challenged conventional notions of what defines art with readymades?

His collection of rearranged ordinary manufactured objects which included bicycle wheels, an iron bottle drying rack, and a snow shovel?

Is the answer A, Pablo Picasso; B, Henri Matisse; C, Pierre-Auguste Renoir; or D, Marcel Duchamp?

(pensive music) And the answer is D, Marcel Duchamp.

(lighthearted music) Master landscape photographer Rick Braveheart has dedicated his career to sharing the spirit, majesty, and beauty of nature.

As a 16-time artist in residence for the National Park System, Rick has spent years living alone and photographing in more than 120 of America's parks and forests.

Rick's work highlights not only the beauty of these landscapes, but also the environmental challenges they face.

(mellow music) - If you're a photographer, in a way, you're a storyteller, and I just thought the land had so many stories to tell.

And nature is endangered, and I would see it more and more the more I was out in nature.

So I also wanted to find a way to tell its story and hopefully make a difference with some people and how they perceive it.

(uplifting music) National Park Service has a program which is for artists and residents where you can apply to be an artist, live in the park.

So at night, it would just be you and the coyotes.

So ever since, I've done 16 residencies in 16 different parks or national monuments.

I'm not very good at going someplace for one day to take pictures.

I want to convey the personality, the energy of a place.

And so to be in a national park for six weeks, is the land starts to talk to you, you see it in different ways.

(uplifting music) I am giving thanks to the land for welcoming us.

Tell that we will be considerate and respectful of all of its creatures and all of its plants and show it in the best way possible to others, not just the beauty of the land, but to ask for its protection in the future.

So let's walk a little.

This is like going to church for me.

It is.

There's so much beauty.

I'm always looking for something that calls to me, not visually, but energetically, spiritually.

When something says, "And stop, look at me."

I mean, just that scene, to me, is this beautiful portrait of a tree that stood there for decades.

I believe there's the spirit and an energy in everything, whether it's a flower, or a tree, or a rock.

And most people don't have the time to listen quietly to the land and all these little beautiful plants or creatures to say, "Hey, look at me."

I mean, even this little daisies.

Well, I just say this beautiful arrangement, it's like this family of contrasts.

Normally, flowers don't talk to me as much, but these happen to, and they're just like greeting the day.

The sun is out, they're just looking up at the sun.

Like, it's just, it looks glorious to me.

And there's a sacredness to this, all of it.

And this supports us in life.

People don't think about it.

We're so dependent on nature like this.

You just watch the creatures that come to sustain themselves, and then it kind of decomposes, and it feeds the earth, which creates new trees.

It's a beautiful cycle and it's also in danger, which is hard to watch.

(mellow music) National parks are large, they're spectacular, and a lot of people travel to them.

But metro parks are a little piece of nature that everyone can get to easily.

It's a big deal for a lot of people to go to a national park.

But the metro park's, like, right here.

Most cities I go to, they have some kind of park, and so people can quickly get away into nature and just have a little touch of it.

It doesn't have much different of a field than a national park, in a way, if you connect with nature.

I'm as happy here as I was in Badlands National Park or Yellowstone.

There's something ancient about this.

Tree roots, to me, are like the history of a park.

They're so grounded.

They hold the earth together.

And you can see this.

I don't know how old that tree is, maybe 100 years?

And you just see how it's survived.

It's like fingers or toes that are just gripping the earth.

(birds chirping) So there are these beautiful water drops on this leaf that the sun is hitting and they catch the light like diamonds.

Even this little leaf right here, just the little drops all along the edge.

This one up here is all across it.

I know, it's funny, someone can get so happy just looking at drops of water on a plant and I'm just in ecstasy.

It's just drops of water, but it's no more brilliant than the Grand Canyon.

Glorious.

That is gorgeous.

It's absolute excitement.

It's also just...

I'm in the right place, I've been accepted, nature's welcoming me.

I mean, there's places I go where it's not right, and I always ask permission before I make a photograph.

So there's been times it's not right.

I don't feel like I've got permission.

There's other times like this that's just...

It can make you a little teary.

Couldn't be more perfect.

(lighthearted music) I've been photographing for a long time, and I've never had a single day that was like that.

But I do believe it's because I asked permission to be there with the blessed land.

And I believe it's part of it.

(lighthearted music) So the land had stories to tell, and I think we got some unusual stories.

(lighthearted music) - To learn more, visit rickbraveheart.com.

Visitors of all ages visit Aullwood Audubon in Dayton, Ohio for hiking, bird watching, or just to spend time in nature.

But since November 2021, a special family has made Aullwood's hiking trails their home.

Artist Thomas Dambo, the world's leading recycle artist from Copenhagen, Denmark, has been helping giant trolls come to life around the world for over 10 years.

"The Troll that Hatched an Egg" is the name of his permanent exhibit at Aullwood and one of nine Dambo-created exhibitions in the United States and Puerto Rico.

(ambient music) (water dripping) - Aullwood is a nature sanctuary and farm of the National Audubon Society, and our mission is environmental education that connects children of all ages with nature, birds, wildlife, and bird-friendly farming.

- I really love the intersection between science, conservation, and art.

And I think that if those things can work together, they can impact a much broader audience than any of those can individually.

And so I think it's really exciting to have art at a place like Aullwood.

- Thomas Dambo, this world-renowned recycle artist from Denmark, he's written this story called "The great story of the little people and the giant trolls," and what he's creating is a worldwide fairytale.

Everyone loves a fairytale.

The story is all about what the little people need to learn.

We're the little people.

And I kind of love that perspective that we are the little people and the trolls are wise and they're teaching us.

And so Thomas goes around the world making his trolls and sharing this message of wisdom from the trolls to protect the earth, to take something that maybe you think is trash and make it something meaningful and something beautiful.

And that's actually what he did with our trolls here.

- The name of the installation overall is "The Trolls that Hatched an Egg."

The trolls are named Bibbi, Bo, and Bodil, and all of their names start with the letter B because birds starts with the letter B.

The story that Thomas wrote for Aullwood's trolls really revolves around this cardinal, this bird, that the trolls befriend.

Bibbi, the daughter, is out in the woods, and she sees these metal things fall from the sky.

And she also notices this metal bird that she thinks is a bird, but it's really an airplane, because we're close to the Dayton Airport.

And these metal things falling from the sky were obviously the metal bird's eggs.

And so she ran and got her mother and said, "Mom, these metal eggs have fallen out of the sky.

We've got to hatch them."

So they go off and they build this giant troll nest, and they put the eggs in there, and they try to hatch them, and nothing happens.

So Bibbi's very upset by this and she thinks the only solution, really, is to go up in the sky and get that metal bird to come down and get her eggs.

So she sneaks off into the woods and builds herself wings.

She's been watching how the birds flies.

So, of course, that's a little nod to The Wright brothers.

And she goes up to the top of the hill by the prairie and takes off up into the sky to find the metal bird and bring her back down.

So that's kind of the basics of the story of our trolls here at Aullwood.

All of the bodies are made out of old pallet wood.

We collected thousands of sticks and pieces of logs, and we pulled grapevines from farms next door to us and all kinds of crazy things.

And then Thomas built the faces of the trolls out of Dollar Store shelves he found in dumpster in Denmark.

And so he built the faces and the feet in Denmark in his shop, and then he shipped them to us on a container.

And then when you opened up the doors, there were just giant faces and huge feet in the back of the trailer.

So that was a lot of fun.

- Thomas likes to have a certain number of volunteers.

He's done this for years now.

He knows what works well for him and his team.

Our volunteers had a lot of different skills.

They ranged in age from 18 to 81.

Some of them were engineers, many were retired teachers, one was a college student.

And they just brought this really fresh perspective and excitement that was very contagious.

- Nenita contacted my wife and said, "Hey, we've got this secret project coming up.

Do you know anybody who likes to work with their hands and who likes to be outside?"

And my wife said, "I absolutely do."

There's a lot of pre-fabrication that went into each troll.

A couple of weeks were spent cutting up big water container pallets and painting those to be the wings, and all of the fur and the skin had to be cut down from pallet boards and things like that.

The nest was a lot of fun to work on, too.

There's a lot of troll language carving around the nest.

And if I remember correctly, Thomas Dambo has a book about the trolls that has the troll language in it.

So you could track down that book and translate the writing down at the nest and see what they had to say about it.

- Since I was retired, I was able to do about four days a week for the whole...

I was here pretty much the whole month.

Yeah.

And I would've done more, too, 'cause it was very exciting to come every day and see the progression.

'Cause you really didn't know what they were going to look like when they were finished.

The dad got finished first, Bo.

My job for Bo was clean up on aisle five.

I basically was asked to pick up all...

I mean, when they're working, this crew's amazing.

They're climbing all over the structure, and when they're working, there's wood flying everywhere.

So I collected the wood, made sure to get everything out of the stream.

And then, for some reason, I was put on stick patrol.

So when they did the hair, followed the trolls, you were sent out into the woods and you had to collect fallen branches and then bring them back and cut them in certain sizes.

And the next thing you know, you've got this gorgeous hairdo on Bo or on Mom to help with her hairdo.

And then the one that's the funniest one is Bibbi, the baby.

I'd found a pine tree that had died.

And I held it up, I said, "What do you think about this?"

And she's, "Perfect."

She stuck it right in the back of Bibbi's hair.

So if you go out there and you look around the backside of Bibbi, there's this one wild hair pine tree sticking out.

- [Laurie] We've had just an incredible response from the public.

I mean, our gate has gone up, I think, something like 700% since the trolls opened last November.

And I just love the reaction that the public's having.

People are coming here from all over the country, all over the world.

- [Alexis] The trolls will be here at Aullwood as long as we can maintain them and preserve them.

And as Thomas says, "Someday, they will go back to the Earth."

So I think they'll be here for several years, at least.

The takeaway from visiting "The Troll that Hatched an Egg" is the belief that they can make something beautiful out of recycled materials or trash.

And that they, too, can do something to protect the Earth, to preserve the Earth, and to cherish the Earth.

We only get one.

(ambient music) - To learn more, visit aullwood.audubon.org.

And that wraps it up for this edition of ARTEFFECTS.

If you want to watch new ARTEFFECTS segments early, make sure you subscribe to the PBS Reno YouTube channel, and don't forget to keep visiting pbsreno.org to watch complete episodes of ARTEFFECTS.

Until next week, I'm Beth McMillan.

Thanks for watching.

- [Announcer] Funding for ARTEFFECTS is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pierce Motors.

(bright music) Meg and Dillard Myers.

Heidemarie Rochlin.

In memory of Sue McDowell.

And by the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members.

(bright music) (jazz music)