Over the past 25-years, Ketchikan artist, naturalist, author, and musician Ray Troll has merged art and science in a way that appeals to just about everyone.
Troll is at the drafting table on the ground floor of his studio overlooking the red roofs of downtown Ketchikan and the slate blue Tongass Narrows. The three story cedar structure is covered with corrugated steel to ward against the wet climate. “You just walked in as the crab was coming to life,” he says. It’s a Wednesday and Troll’s been steeped in an ink on paper work for the better part of the week. “I like to let the art take its time.”
Likely inspired by the recent Alaska Folk Festival appearance of his eclectic and multigenerational (son Patrick is the drummer) band, Ray Troll and the Ratfish Wranglers, the drawing is of a whimsical trio.
“There is a banjo playing mermaid, a rock fish playing bass guitar, I like to call it a bass guitar on the left and there is a humpy salmon, note the humped back there, (got to know your fish), playing an acoustic guitar there on the right,” he says. In the foreground is a Dungeness crab. “That’s not just a harmonica playing crab there. That’s a harmoni-crab.”
Troll’s pun-filled fish art has become Alaskan legend. “‘Spawn Till You Die,’ would probably make a nice epitaph for my tomb stone,” he notes. The well-known scull and cross sockeye salmon design is on t-shirts worn by rock musicians, movie stars and countless summer visitors.
Troll’s murals hang in public spaces and schools from Southeast Alaska to Washington D.C. He’s been commissioned to create a mural for the renovated Novatney building at the University of Alaska Southeast’s Juneau campus. He’ll craft it on the 20 foot tall back wall of his studio. A ladder leads to a second floor office. Crane your neck and look strait up to the ceiling, and there’s the underside of a bed frame suspended between wood beams. “That’s the spawning bed,” he quips.
Troll walks over to a bookcase and picks up a handful of personal journals. They hold sketches and writings documenting his creative process from the time he arrived in the salmon and rain capital with a Master in Fine Arts from the WashingtonSate University in 1981. Stints as a court room artist and on the slime line led to a position teaching art at the UAS Ketchikan campus.
By the late ’80’s his unique creations became a career that keeps evolving as his art becomes more intricate and vibrant. His t-shirts, hats, refrigerator magnets and prints are sold on-line and in K-town at the gallery-store owned by Ray and wife Michelle, Soho Coho.
In 2006, Troll received the Alaska Governor’s Award for Individual Artist. In 2007, he joined John McPhee and Ansel Adams in being a recipient of the Gold Medal for Distinction in Natural History Art from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He even has a species of fish named after him (Hydrolagus trolli – a species of ratfish).
Troll’s fascination with the origin of life led to the dubious distinction and collaborative efforts with writers and scientists that have resulted in books and exhibits spanning the Amazon to San Francisco. Troll keeps rat fish close at hand in his studio (they are spotted and have rat-like tails), preserved in jars of alcohol.
In the introduction to a 2005 retrospective of Troll’s art, long time friend and collaborator Brad Matsen wrote that one day Troll “should get an honorary Ph.D. acknowledging his role as one of the great science teachers of all time.” At graduation ceremonies in Ketchikan and Juneau this weekend, that vision will be realized. Troll will accept an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of Alaska Southeast.
News from the Ray Troll Universe - Category: Ray Troll in the News
Thank-you speeches normally acknowledge people. But when Ray Troll accepted the Governor’s Award for Individual Artist, he said, “Thanks to the fish for all the inspiration.”
Along with the fish, he said, the artist’s inspiration comes from his family, of course, and the people of Ketchikan. “I had two minutes to thank everybody. That’s almost impossible to do.”
Gov. Murkowski and the First Lady presented the award to Troll Oct. 27 in Anchorage. The award included “a beautiful piece of artwork by (Homer artist) Ron Senungetuk. It’s a carved image of a caribou,” Troll said. The awards ceremony was “jovial” and a very nice evening, he said. He found out he was receiving the award about a month ago when the Alaska State Council on the Arts called him. “It kind of floored me, I didn’t really see it coming. But it was a real delight.
“It’s a real honor in a state like this, with so many talented artists. It’s a really cool thing to be recognized,” Troll said.
Charlotte Fox, executive director of the Alaska State Council on the Arts, said, “I think it’s wonderful because I knew a lot about Ray’s work.” She said that she had seen his Sharkabet exhibit in the Anchorage Museum and said it was her favorite. She had also seen his T-shirts and visited his Soho Coho gallery in Ketchikan.
But, she said, “I didn’t know about his community-based things. We kind of look at that, and the primary criteria (to receive the award) is impact on the state and major impact on the community in which they live. Ray has had a statewide impact and it seems he’s really done a lot for the arts in Ketchikan.”
Fox said the arts council blankets the state for nominations in late spring and creates a panel to review them all. The council then sends the nomination to the governor who usually accepts the recommendations.
Troll said he moved to Alaska in 1981 to teach college in Port Clarence. “On a clear day you could see Russia, that was my first experience of Alaska.” After that experience, he moved to Ketchikan in 1983 to be a fish monger for his sister, Kate Troll. “I had a master’s degree in my back pocket and I was looking for something to do,” he said.
Troll said he had a one-track career in art. “I started at the age of four when I picked up a crayon. At age 52 I’m still drawing dinosaurs — I’ve just added fish.”
Locally Troll is known for the Soho Coho Art Gallery, Raven’s Brew Coffee logos, the Kayhi Kings Mural at Ketchikan High School, the Midnight Run Painting at Point Higgins Elementary School and his T-shirts.
Troll is known statewide for his murals, books, exhibits and guest art classes at schools in Sitka, Juneau, Cordova, Homer, Seward and other cities. Troll also had a species of ratfish named in his honor in November 2002. The Hydrolagus trolli was named by ratfish researcher Dominique Didier because they shared a love of fish in general and ratfish specifically.
Victoria Lord, now program associate with the Rasmuson Foundation in Anchorage, nominated Troll for the award. “I’ve probably been nominating him off and on for several years. I recognize that he is a person that is very generous with his time. He promotes not only himself, but other artists as well,” she said.
Lord was director of the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council from 1986 to 1997 and said she saw how much Troll put into the arts community. She said those years were formative for the arts council and Troll helped them open the Main Street Gallery (now the Mainstay Gallery) and begin the first Friday art openings. “He and his wife, Michelle, have been really supportive of other artists. He’s been very inclusive and has had an impact statewide.” She remembered when Troll exhibited Sharkabet in Ketchikan and said she heard children who knew the names of all the sharks from that show. She also said his involvement in Natural History Museums, she said, has helped introduce art into other contexts so people can relate art to other things.
Lord is not the only one who has recognized his work in this area, though. Troll said he will be receiving an award from the Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia in June for achievement in the natural history arts. “I guess it’s a pretty cool honor and a real privilege to be part of that crowd,” he said. He’ll travel to Philadelphia for the award.
Lord said she nominated him mostly because, “he’s a community person, he’s connected to people and he’s connected people to the arts.”
News from the Ray Troll Universe - Category: Ray Troll in the News
“Alaska artist Troll’s knack for making intricate, playful drawings of all things fishy has led to an empire of books, magazine illustrations, museum shows, gallery displays and decorated t-shirts. This large-sized, full-color volume presents an overview of Troll’s drawings, complete with commentary by the artist. Some of the pieces are amusingly tongue-in-cheek (“Rebel with a Cod,” “Weapons of Bass Destruction,” “The Lucky Fish Gets the Cheeseburger”), while others are beautifully surrealistic. But the most impressive are his grandly composed fish-scapes (“Fishes of the Amazon,” “Bottom Fish of the North Pacific,” “A Ratfish Called Troll”), in which layers of perfectly-detailed fish are arranged into brilliant panoramas. Matsen’s lively introduction provides lots of useful information about Troll’s life and aesthetic leanings, making this a must-have book for any serious fan of the artist.” –Publisher’s Weekly
Ray is happy to sign and personalize copies… to order the book click here…
Some Sample pages:
News from the Ray Troll Universe - Category: Ray Troll in the News
KETCHIKAN (AP) — Ketchikan artist and fish enthusiast Ray Troll has achieved immortality in the world of ichthyology. A ratfish species found in the waters off New Zealand and New Caledonia in the southern Pacific Ocean has been named in Troll’s honor.
Ratfish researcher Dominique Didier Dagit, assistant curator of ichthyology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, identified the Hydrolagus trolli as a unique species about a year ago. She said in a telephone interview Wednesday that she and Troll share a love for ratfish, so she decided to name her discovery for him.
“It’s kind of nice to be able to name a species for someone,” she said. ”I thought, ‘Here’s my chance to name a fish for someone who’s really interested.”
But, ”It kind of looks like him, (but) less facial hair.”
In a recently published paper about the new species, Dagit described Troll as an ”artist of fishes and one of the few true chimaeroid lovers of the world. ”This fish is named in his honor for his valiant efforts to increase ratfish awareness worldwide,” Dagit wrote.
The ratfish is a distant relative of the shark and varieties exist throughout the Pacific ocean, Dagit said. In Southeast Alaska waters, the Chimaera ratfish can be found sometimes to the annoyance of fishermen. The local ratfish has a spotted body and a long, rat-like tail.
Troll said his love affair with ratfish started about 18 years ago when he caught one while fishing and thought, ”What the heck is that?”He started researching the creature, learning that the fish dates back some 350 million years.
”They’re just so cool and weird looking,” Troll said as he described the protruding tenaculum on the male ratfish’s forehead. He referred to the protrusion as the ”girl grabber” because the male fish uses it to hold onto the female during mating.
Troll said he and Dagit met through their mutual appreciation for ratfish. ”It’s not a big world of ratfish enthusiasts out there,” he said. Dagit said she has studied ratfish for years. That experience helped her identify Hydrolagus trolli as a new species.
She said its unique characteristics include a lavender color and a longer-than-average nose. The trolli has other different features on its head, the sex organs are different and the number of spines and its skeletal structure set it apart from other ratfish. The new species is found at depths of about 3,000 feet off the coasts of New Zealand and New Caledonia, Dagit said. A paper about the discovery that she co-authored with Paris scientist Bernard Seret recently was published in the French scientific journal Cybium, which makes the name official.
Once a species is named, said Dagit, the name stays with the fish forever. ”Like immortality,” she said. ”And you don’t have to put it through college.”
