Trolls: A Field Study

I hope this doesn’t sound like damning with faint praise. It was delightful. But, I would not have made a special trip with a hotel stay to see it. The trolls are great. But, I would need to go for other stuff, too. The Arboretum is worth seeing and so is generally hanging out in Asheville, imho. We did talk to a couple who are “troll collecting.” They saw their first in Wisconsin.

There were signs near some of the trolls giving directions that encouraged engagement with the exhibition. Not all, but some.

They have QR codes for labels. But, I neglected to take pictures of all of them. Frankly, I didn’t notice them until I was 3 or 4 trolls along.

This first troll you see is Wilde. It’s by the entrance into the Visitor Center. I wasn’t sure I was going to get a picture of it without a human blocking it because so many were crowding around getting their own photos.

The highlights in his eyes are screws. And I was amused by how the toenails are inverted. Those were features of all of the trolls.

I absolutely could not get a picture of Boge without someone in his hands. The crowd around him was large and close in as everyone waited to take their turn to be held by a troll.

Nearby, there was a little story about Poppy collecting the detritus of humans kind of like little kids collect rocks.

Hasse is pretty sassy and I love his hair.

People had a lot of fun trying to build cairns on her hands with the stones in her buckets.

And I missed Larke. We were so focused on going down the hill to see Anja, we didn’t look to our right to spot her. If I get back over there to see them with my cousin, I’ll add her to the post.