Odd Einar, Skulpturer langs en vei langs en fjord / Sculptures along a road along a fjord

this image as on Google Streetview

The scene above and the one below are part of an art environment, located near Kornstad,  a small town in the coastal area in western Norway.

The town is part of the municipality of Averøya, located on the Kornstadfjorden.

this image also as on Google Streetview

Life and works

The sculptures, situated at various locations along the road along the fjord near Kornstad, have been created by Odd Einar, assisted by his wife Monica, a couple that lives in a house near these sculptures.

Odd Einar was a teacher at a local school for 41 years and is now retired.

this image and the next four courtesy of Sophie Lepetit, .

from her weblog (see documentation)

The image above and the following four were created by Sophie Lepetit from France, who traveled through Norway with her partner and, to her surprise, came across the sculptures.

Many more images can be seen on her weblog (see documentation)..

The numerous creations along the road are made of wood, mostly tree trunks, and appear to have been shaped with a chainsaw.

They depict classical figures, such as the Viking in the very first image. 

This image also shows multiple people with colorful painting applied by Einar's partner.

But besides that, there are numerous other sculptures, mostly not painted in color, such as, to quote the article on Sophie Lepetit's weblog "reindeer with exuberant antlers, enormous bears, stately deer, a crocodile, an angel, eagles, a penguin, apples, trolls, owls......"

Although the sculptures are largely scattered throughout the area along the road, their design and appearance undoubtedly form a coherent whole.

Located along a section of the route that has a unique character due to its location along the fjords of Norway, this art environment attracts many tourists traveling along this route..

Documentation

* Article (May 16, 2026) on the weblog of Sophie Lepetit

.

Odd Einar

Sculptures along a road along a fjord

Village of Kornstad, Municipality of Averøy, region Møre og Romsdal, Norway

can be seen from the road

Marc Nucera, Jardin de sculptures / Sculpture garden

all pictures courtesy of Sophie Lepetit,
see documentation

In Noves, a commune with around 6,000 inhabitants (2022) in the southern French department of Bouches-du-Rhône, there is a garden with a collection of wooden sculptures, as shown in the images in this post.

Life and works

This art environment has been created by Marc Nucera, who was born in 1966 in Châteaurenard, some 5 km west of Noves. 

His father was a furniture maker. and so young Marc got to know different types of wood at an early age.

When he started working as a farm laborer after school, he collected large round disks of wood from tree trunks, which he managed to saw out himself and kept at home, without really knowing why.

Trees continued to fascinate him, and in 1990, at age 24, he began a project in which he manipulated trees, specifically the height of their branches, to ensure that their further growth would be as harmonious as possible. 

Marc Nucera did this with due consideration for the surroundings of the trees and their continued natural development.

This was an approach that particularly appealed to owners of large gardens, and after an initial assignment his way of working spread. 

He became kind of a landscape architect.and got more assignments for this type of maintenance work, which was probably also a pleasant source of income for him.

A next step in his approach to trees occurred when he began to focus on what could be done in terms of working with tree trunks.

Initially, Nucera used the wood from these trunks to make wooden chairs and tables, an activity he was able to pursue because he had moved into a house in Noves, where he could easily set up a studio.

From this rather simple woodworking method, he soon moved on to creating wooden sculptures, primarily of human figures, as the surrounding images show.

By then, he had gained so much experience in working with the chainsaw that he could undertake this more complex approach with a high degree of artistry.

Marc Nucera used trunks of different types of trees, such as olive, oak, almond, lime, cypress, but also cedar, which can have a surprising scent.

Working with chainsaws in the manner Mark Nucera did, takes strength and perseverance, and he displayed this, coupled with a loving approach to who or what he was portraying.

Working with tree fragments in his studio or in the garden near his home was also of great significance to Nucera. 

As he explains on his website, this allowed him to free himself from the forces inherent in the trees' locations. Working in or near his studio, he experienced the freedom to choose a design that wasn't tied to a specific location.

What you can do with a chainsaw turned out to be a large range of possibilities.

As the images in this post show, the variety of characters that Marc Nucera manages to extract from the cylindrical trunk of a tree is great.

Doucmentation

*  Website of Marc Nucera

*  Article (Septemberv 2016) on the website of Sophie Lepetit, with a serie op photos and a biography

*  Article (October 2016) on Facebook with a series of mages by Sophie Lepetit

*  Article on the website Retour de Voyage

*  Article (2020) on the weblog of Fabien Ribéry

A French book about Marc Nucera

"Les sculptures de Marc Nucera", text by Elisabeth Couturier and Françoise Bertaux, foreword by Chantal Colleu-Dumond, published by Actes Sud, 2020, 160 pages

Video

* Video (Vimeo, 26"08') by Emmanuelle Satti

* Another video (2024) by Villa Datris, publshed on Facebook, with comments by Marc Nucera, subtitled in Enlish, 

Marc Nucera

Garden with sculptures

Noves, dept Bouches-du-Rhône, region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. France

can be visited on appointmen

Anatoly Varlamov, Деревянные скульптуры, ныне утраченные / Wooden sculptures, now lost

pictures in this post are screenprints
from the video in the documentation 

The image above shows a wooden sculpture depicting Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin, as he could be seen in 2002 with arms flailing, standing on a pole in the garden of a house in the hamlet Vacarino, located in a beautiful area in the Tver region, a kilometer away from a turnoff halfway the M11 motorway between Moscow and St Petersburg

At that time the hamlet had only a few inhabitants, because most residents had sought their living and working elsewhere. Today (2022) no one lives there anymore

The wooden sculpture of Gagarin was created by Anatoly Alekseevich Varlamov, pictured above as he was filmed in 2002 for a video about him and his his art environment in Vacarino.

There is a limited number of articles devoted to him and his creations, all listed in the documentation, and none provides biographical information, so we don't know when and where he was born or in what year he died, like it is also unknown in what year and why he began to create the site..

The house where Varlamov lived, was located on a small hill at the end of the village. 

The photo above shows that the sculptures were situated on the roof of the house and in the garden. It's hard to tell them apart, but here are some more detailed images.

Varlamov used simple tools to transform the tree stumps he found in the area into sculptures. They therefore mainly have a little detailed look, what contributes to their charm.

His art environment mainly included historical characters associated with the origin and history of the Soviet Union.

The astronaut Yuri Gagarin has already been mentioned. The image above shows Joseph Stalin, with pipe and moustache.

There was a sculpture of a rider on horseback, depicting Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, the hero of the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), as there was also a sculpture of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Shchors, an officer of the Russian Imperial Army, who became a commander in the Red Army during that civil war.

Other sculptures depicted the Russian fairy tale character Baba Yaga, a soldier, and other not so easy to identify personalities, such as the people in the plane below.

When in 2002 the video in the documentation was made, about half of the sculptures ever present were still intact. This video and the articles in the documentation provide a chronological sketch in text and photos of the decline of the art environment in Vacarino. 

As noted in one of the articles, its creator, Anatoly Varlamov, has since passed away. 

Documentation

* Article (May 2018) in Live Journal by Andrey Sinyushkin, with a report of a visit to the hamlet and a variety of photos 

* Article (June 2018) on weblog La Camorra, similar to the article above, but with one photo

* Article (June 2020) by Ilya Varlamov (no family) with many photos, including the interior of the abandoned house. When she visited the village there was only one inhabitant.

* Article (February 2021) on website Dzen by Alex Polyakov, who walked through a high layer of snow to Vacarino, and there had to realize that no sculptures were sticking out above the layer of snow anymore.

Video

* Video Varlamov's land (YouTube) made in 2002 by Film studio Fatherland directed by T. Karpakov

Anatoly Alekseevich Varlamov

Art environment with wooden sculptures, now lost

Abandoned hamlet of Vacarino, Tver region, Russia

what's left can be seen from the street

Karel Rezek, Sochy kolem kavárny a restaurace / Sculptures around a café-restaurant

this picture and the next two (2022) courtesy of 

Tiramisu Bootfighter, Galerie Ambulante, Facebook

Doubice is a village with about a hundred permanent residents and many holiday stays in the Czech Republic. Located near the border with Germany, the village is a popular destination for holidaymakers who enjoy the Bohemian Switzerland National Park.

The village is also known for an extensive collection of wooden sculptures, which surround a local café-restaurant, named Stará Hospoda (Old  Pub).

Life and works

The owner of this café-restaurant is Karel Rezek, who was born in the early 1950s. 

Not much is known about his early years, except that he made a wooden fairytale figure for his three year old daughter Andrejka, a gesture that led him to take up a hobby of transforming pieces of wood into sculptures.

As the number of sculptures increased, Rezek was captivated by the desire to get into the Czech Book of Records, which he actually succeeded in 2012 when he -around sixty years old- had made 316 sculptures.

this picture and he next one from the website of 
the cafe-restaurant

Some twenty years earlier, around 1990, Rezek became the owner of the café-restaurant, which he runs with his wife.

The interior of the cafe is richly decorated with all kinds of collections, such as tin plates, weapons, musical instruments and a variety of bells.

And outside you can't miss the large collection of sculptures, often including large creations, such as the gigantic grasshopper Ferdy the Ant, but also devils, witches, fairytale characters, dragons and horses.

The two images below (from a regional tourist website) give an impression of the location of the site in the landscape and of the variety of sculptures in front of the cafe.

location of the site in the landscape

click  to enlarge

sculptures in front of he café

click  to enlarge

At the rear of the café-restaurant is a garden that has been transformed into a true children's paradise with various sculptures of animals and fairytale characters, as well as playground equipment, toy cars and a witch's house, all kinds of things for children to play and have fun with;

There are also sculptures of Křemílek and Vochomůrka, figures from a fairy tale well known in the Czech Republic, as can be seen on YouTube. 

this picture from the website of the café-restaurant

Two other interesting aspects of Karel Rezek's site are first of all that every summer an international contest for woodcarvers is organized  and secondly that there is also a collection of tanks from the period when the Czech Republic was communist.

Documentation

* Website of the café-restaurant Stará Hospoda

* Article (October 2011) in regional newspaper Novinky

* Article in touristic website Turistika, with a photo gallery

* Entry on website Camera Obscura

Karel Rezek

Sculptures around a café-restaurant

407 47 Doubice, district Děčín, region Ústecký, Czech Republic

can be seen from the road

François Werlen, Jardin de sculptures / Sculpture garden

images are screenprints from the video below, 
re-use licensed under Creative Commons

The image above shows wooden animal sculptures as present in a garden in Montauban, a municipality of some 61,000 inhabitants in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitan region of France.

This garden with its variety of mainly wooden sculptures of animals is a  creation of François Werlen. 

 Life and works

Werlen was born in Montauban in the early 1950s. The information about his life available on the internet focuses mainly on his development as a painter. 

Self-taught, Werlen started painting in 1972, when he was in his early twenties. In reviews his work was classified as art singulier (singular art), a designation mainly used for non-professional artists active in the south of France. His work has also been characterized as halfway between folk art and art brut 

The paintings he created over the past forty years have a poetic appearance and testify to a great love for color. His themes mainly include animals and human characters. As a material to be painted, he not only uses canvas, but also paper, wood and metal.

About his activities as a painter he has said: 

Ma peinture, c’est de l’expression, ce n’est pas qu’un loisir, c’est aussi un besoin de le faire, même si cela reste un plaisir (My painting is about expression, it's not just a hobby, it's also a need to do it, even if it remains a pleasure.

In recent years, Werlen's work has been exhibited in galleries in and around Montauban.

Werlen's garden with wooden sculptures

In the in general rather short reviews in newspapers of Werlen's exhibitions, there are often brief references to the garden with wooden statues created by the artist, most likely the garden of the house where Werlen lives. The article by Gregory Pamadou, mentioned in the documentation, gives the most information.

The sculptures are made from raw recycled materials, mainly wood, but also iron, materials that are given a second life through Werlen's processing.

As in his paintings, his sculptures mainly depict animals and human characters.

The images of the wooden sculptures show that Werlen starts from the form he finds in the piece of wood he is going to use, evoking the nature of the person or animal by adding other wooden elements and applying colours, eyes or other distinguishing features,

The landscaping of the garden is so lush that the sculptures occupy almost a modest position in the entire entourage, a modesty that seems characteristic of this art environment, because there is no information in the local press about the origin, nature and location of Werlen's sculpture garden.

Fortunately, in 2020 a video was recorded and published.

Documentation

* Article (December 2014) by Gregory Pamadou about Werlen and his artistic work

Video

* Video (2020, YouTube, 5'40") by Nonoko Home Studio

François Werlen

Sculpture garden

location unknown

Montauban, dept Tarn-et-Garonne, region Occitan, France. 

Eldfinn Austigard, Treskulpturer i en skog / Wooden sculptures in a forest

this picture and the next two from Facebook, Skabelonen

The image above shows a covered area next to a bakery. There are tables and benches for visitors to the bakery, but also walls decorated with carvings, depicting all kinds of characters and decorative items.

Welcome to the small village of Årdal, part of the municipality of Hjelmeland in southern Norway. Lovers of art environments will find a lot to see in terms of wooden sculptures, created by Eldfinn Austigard. 

These sculptures are not only located around Austigard's house, in his workshop, in the covered area or flanking the entrance, but also a few kilometers away in a forest with some 50 wooden characters installed along a walking path of 1.5 km.

In above left image Eldfinn Austigard, standing in front of his bakery shop Skabelonen which he started around 2017. shows a loaf of bread he baked himself. The character carved in wood above right shows a sign with the text Bakstehuset, Opnar kl 15 (The bakery opens at 3 pm).  

Austigard  does his bakery work as a hobby, going to work on Thursday and selling the homemade bread on Friday. 

the entrance to Austigard's bakery, workshop. house

and some other houses as on Streetview (2019)

Life and works

In his younger years Eldfinn Austigard probably wouldn't have thought that he would become a hobby baker later in life and that he would make a large variety of wooden sculptures as a non-professional.

He was born in 1953 in Årdal and after his primary education he attended secondary education in Stavanger. 

He started his working life assisting his father, who owned the local bus company and he succeeded his father when he retired in 1977. A few years later the bus company was taken over by another company. 

Eldfinn and Gunhild, to whom he was now married, then bought a petrol station and a workshop from the bus company which they operated until 2007.

this picture and the next ones, scenes of the adventure forest,

 from Facebook, Eventyrskogen

Austigard was now in his mid-fifties, and the part-time job as a cultural mediator he could get with the Hejelmeland municipality, undoubtedly suited the social and creative activities he had undertaken in the previous years.

In 2005, for example, he received the culture prize from Hjelmeland for his efforts in a local sports team, but also for his activities in the social and cultural field. He was apparently already active as a maker of wooden sculptures in previous years.

For his wife Gunhild the termination of the work at the gas station was also pleasant, because now she could devote more time to her activities as an amateur painter.

In 2009 Austigard became head of culture at the municipality of Hjelmeland.

Wooden sculptures in Eventyrskogen

Many years before the opening of Eventyrskogen (Adventure forest), the municipality of Hjemeland had already planned to create such a tourist attraction and for that purpose Eldfinn Austigard was already creating a collection of wooden sculptures.

As part of a national project aimed at developing a National Tourist Route, which was also planned to pass through Hjelmeland, the municipality started negotiations with the owner of a wooded area (Bønardalen) to locate the fairytale park there.

But initially the negotiations with the landowner were unsuccessful. They came to a halt in 2010.

After some time negotiations were resumed and the municipality concluded an agreement with the land owners, which also included the construction of parking spaces and toilet facilities.

The park was officially opened in April 2013 and by the end of that month some 6000 people had already visited it.

Along a circular path in the spruce forest stand the dozens of wooden figures from various fairy tales and legends created by Austigard. The trip among the trees in the mysterious forest takes about an hour and is suitable for the whole family.

Eldfinn Austigard has not only produced the wooden sculptures for the forest area, in his spare time he also contributes in other ways, such as in the construction and maintenance of the paths and all kinds of management arrangements.

The adventure forest has become a success, it is very popular with families with children and easy to reach for young and old.

 

In October 2021 Eldfinn Austigard received the Rogaland Public Health Award 2021. 

Norway uses a broad definition of public health and so the recipient of the award should have contributed to social support and to well-being and quality of life of the population.

 

Considerations of awarding the prize to Austigard included that he has made a contribution to public health beyond his function, that he is the "father" of Eventyrskogen, that he encourages people to do outdoor activities and creates social encounters and activities across generations, all things that promote public health.

Documentation

* Facebook page of Eventyrskogen i Årdal

* Google Streetview with a variety of photos of Eventyrskogen

* Website of Tripadvisor with an entry about Eventyrskogen, with a variety of photos

* Website Sandelsand with an introduction to Eventyrskogen

* Facebook page of Skabelonen (=the bakery)

* Article on weblog Jonebloggen with the story of the bakery and some biographic info

Videos

* A short video 2021, 0'35". Vimeo) by Appex

*  Another video (1'48", YouTube, undated) by Hilde Cecilie Kjørmo

Eldfinn Austigard

* Gallery/bakery

   Ryfylkevegen 5359 

* Eventyrskogen

   Location: see streetview 

Village of Årdal, part of the municipality of Hjelmeland, Rogeland county, Norway 

visitors welcome at Eventyrskogen, see Tripadvisor for opening hours