Serge Couvert, Sentier de sculptures en forêt / Sculpture trail in a forest

all images (August 2025) courtesy of Dominique Clement;
as on Facebook

The many images in this post give an idea of a walking trail in a forest, which is lined with 24 sculptures. 

The forest, known for a large, isolated monolith of hard limestone and classified as Natura 2000 for its rare flora, is located in the commune of Sollières-Sardières, in the Rhône-Alpes region of France.

Life and works

The sculptures along the walking path were created by Serge Couvert, born and raised in the village of Aussois, a community with approximately 680 inhabitants (2008), located in southwestern France.

As was customary in his family, he initially worked as a furniture maker, but upon closer inspection, his true interest turned to making sculptures.  

Since virtually no biographical information about him is available on the internet, it is unclear whether his artistry is based on an academic education. 

 

His family of furniture makers had permission to use a section of the forest for collecting timber, and in 2014, Couvert, armed with his sculpture tools, went into the forest to reduce a spruce tree to a height of three meters and transform it in a sculpture.

That was the beginning of a sculpture trail he would create in the following years, likely with the approval of the forest authorities

It became a project that Serge Couvert would work on for years. In the first four years of the project, he created some fourteen sculptures.

In total he would transform 24 trees into sculptures. The sculptures along the trail are unmistakably made in the artist's own personal style. 

The images in this post show that Couvert could follow a complex formative approach, for example by creating a sculpture of two people embracing each other, or transforming  a single ttree into a configuration of two interlocking parts.

Couvert also had to be a road builder, because all the sculptures he created had to be connected by a walking path.

As is the case with all sculpture trails in Europe presented in this blog, Couvert's creations are free to access.

The fact that he realized his project with the approval of the local authorities is also evident from the advertising the tourist office initiated for his sculpture trail.

Serge Couvert accompanied his project by making drawings or even models of the sculpture's configuration as he envisioned it. 

Each original creation also features a copper plaque with the name of the creation or a text by a well-known author.

 

Documentation

* Pages with practical info about visiting the sculpture trail by the Aussois Townhal 

* Article (2017) on the website of Bernard Robert, with a variety of illustrations

* Entry on the website of the municipality of Aussois 

Videos

* Video by LaHautTv (2022, YouTube,3'40")

*  Video by Maurienne TV (2021, Facebook, 4'44")

Serge Couvert

Sculpture trall in the Vanoise National Park

Sardieres, dept Savoie, region Rhône-Alpes, France

the sculpture trail is freely accessible

Göte Edsvik, Skulpturer längs Kortjärvi Naturstig / Sculptures along the Kortjärvi Nature Trail

Images by Kimmo Känsälä and Susanna Salokannel, published here
with permission from the Association for Rural Culture and Education, MSL

Kortjärvi is a village with about 130 inhabitants, the vast majority of whom speak Swedish.

The village is part of the municipality of Kronoby in the Ostrobothnia region in western Finland and it is surrounded by forests and about 20 small lakes and wetland.

Within the village grounds there is a nature trail that leads through the forest and along the lakes, while a series of wooden sculptures along the path.contributes to a pleasant walk. 

The personality pictured above,with the blue cap, ended up in a mud puddle, is an example of such a wooden sculpture, just as the one below 

These sculptures have been created by Göte Edsvik, who loves nature and began constructing the path in 1998. 

The nature trail has a short and a longer route along forest paths and boardwalks, and runs through a beautiful landscape of lakes, forests and fields.

From the perspective of this blog, a significant feature of the trail is its decoration with wooden sculptures created by Edsvik. These wooden sculptures are more or less evenly distributed along the path, often accompanied by signs with commentary in Swedish.

The images in this post give an impression of the design of these sculptures and who or what they depict. 

Broadly speaking, the collection comprises two types: representations of people in various capacities (as in the images at the very top) and various kinds of animals (as around).

The aforementioned Göte Edsvik not only created the sculptures, he also works hard to manage the hiking trail, which he began developing in 1998. 

The road along which the access to the nature trail is located is named after him, but unfortunately, much more biographical information about him is not available online.

Documentation

* Article about the nature trail on the website of the Kortjärvi Village Association

* Article by Susanna Salokannel on the website of MSL (Association for Rural Culture and Education)

* Article on the website of the municipality of Kronoby

Göte Edsvik

Sculptures along the Kortjärvi Nature Trail

Edsvikvägen 7

Kortjärvi, district Terjärv, municipality of Kronoby, region Ostrobothnia, Finland

Google Streetview, with a variety of photos

Herbert Moßmann, Herbert's Traumpfad / Herbert's Dream Path

all photos (2024) courtesy of Hannes Bürgelin

The image above shows the decorated house of Herbert Mossmann as it looked in 2024

It is located in Seelbach, a commune of around 5,000 people in the area well-known as Black Forest (Schwartzwald) in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.

Life and works

Herbert Moßmann (1950-2024) became known for the sculptures he placed along a local walking trail.

He was born on March 5, 1950, and had a job for which no information is available on the internet, except that he retired in 2013, when he was in his early sixties. 

With his wife Gerlinde he lived in a house outside the built-up area of ​​Seelbach. located along a walking trail that started at a campsite near Moßmann's  house. 

As a pensioner he was at home a lot and so it could happen that during the day he met people who were walking on the hiking trail. He noticed that they often complained about the small number of benches that were available along the path to rest or enjoy the surrounding landscape.

Herbert Moßmann decided to do something about this and he hand-crafted a bench that was placed along the walking trail. 

One thing led to another and in the summer of 2017 he came up with the idea of ​​making wooden sculptures to install as decoration along the walking trail.

He got to work and after a few months his initiative had become so well-known that the regional newspaper Schwarwälder Bote on November 16, 2017 had an article about Moßmann's project, entitled 

A 'dream path' full of loving characters.

Indeed, as the surrounding images of some of Moßmann's sculptures show, he made a number of sculptures depicting animals that feel at home in a wooded environment, such as owls.

Other creations he made by working pieces of tree trunk in such a way that a friendly human character or animal appeared

A striking use of an old tree trunk can be seen in the second photo from the top, where Moßmann poses by an upside-down tree, with the root system at the top now functioning as kind of an umbrella.

Working on the sculptures over a number of years, Mossmann experienced a certain development in the processing of the wooden material from the nearby forests.

Unfortunately, he did not get to enjoy the decoration of the walking path itself for long:  Herbert Mossmann passed away at the age of 74 on August 14, 2024.

.

 

Other sculpture trails in Germany:

* An 8.5 kilometer walking path with some eighty sculptures made by non-professionals, situated between Neuler and Niederalfingen, communities located 70 km south of Frankfurt.

* An arrangement of dwarfs created by Jürgen Farklas, located in a wood near Burbach, some 90 km west of Cologne.

Documentation

* Article (November 2017) in regional newspaper Schwarzwälder Bote

* Article  (July 2023) on website Hay Anni, with a series of photos

* Article (January 2024) on website Senioren Treff

Video

* A short video (November 2023, 0"27', YouTube) by Traveltino 

Herbert Moßmann

Herberts Traumpfad

Unterdorfstraße 24

77960 Seelbach, district Ortenau, federal state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany

sculptures can be seen from the road

Google Streetview with a variety of photos

Miroslav Stránský, Sochy v lese a výtvory podél pohádkového potoka / Sculptures in a forest and creations along a fairy stream

this picture and the next five courtesy of Pavel Konečný 

Havlíčkova Borová is a picturesque village with 950 inhabitants, located in the center of the Czech Republic in the border area of ​​the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands.

Life and works:

In this village lives Miroslav Stránský, who has become known because he created a rather special art environment. 

He was born in 1949 and trained as a bricklayer, but worked as a forest worker for most of his working life.

Once retired he had a lot of free time, which he mainly filled with making wooden sculptures. Around  2020 he made a special creation along a stream with moving mini-sculptures.

The wooden sculptures he makes are not placed near his home, but are situated in the forests and meadows near the village and many creations have also found a place in the gardens of inhabitants of the village.

The surrounding images give a good impression of what the creations look like. They are about as tall as adult humans and are made from pieces of wooden planks, tree trunks and other wooden material that is  suitable for being transformed into a creation.

Stránský doesn't paint his sculptures once ready, nor are they treated with a protective liquid. So they are rather vulnerable and will eventually be lost, as happened for example with the wooden sculptures of Frank Bruce in Scotland.

The image above shows one of the last sculptures made by Stránský. It is a creation in memory of his best friend, the hunting warden Pepík Smejkal. 

Local hunters consider this work as a memorial monument that can also be used to commemorate others and so they feel free to add their names. 

A wooden statue of a woodcutter stands to the right of the monument. The person on the left is Miroslav Stránský.

Pohádkový potůček / A fairy stream

Around 2020 Stránský started a new, special project. On a spot north of Havlíčkova Borová, where a stream is flowing along a local road, he added  to the stream's banks several miniature scenes with a fairy-tale character.

this image and the next three courtesy of Justyna Orlovska, 
from her website Off the Beaten Track

The miniature wooden houses are inhabited by miniature characters that can be associated with all sorts of Czech fairy tale figures.

A surprising feature of these figures is that they can make movements, which is realized by means of a paddle wheel hanging in the flowing stream.

Due to the fragile nature of the mobile creation, Stránský pays a lot of attention to regular maintenance. 

Scenes with all kinds of characters moving on flowing water are rare in the field of art environments. In this weblog there is an article about Vincent Navratil, who made such a creation in the community of Vir, also located in the Czech Republic

Documentation

* Article (April 2024) by Justyna Orlovska about the fairy stream, on her website Off the Beaten Track,

with a variety of photos

* Article (July 2024) about the memorial sculpture, in the magazine  of  radio Český rozhlas Vysočina

* Article (June 2024) about the creations along the fairy stream, in  the magazine of Rádio Střední Čechy, with a variety of photos

* Photo series (2023/2024) of the fairy stream, on the website Mapy.CZ

Video

* Video (April 2024, YouTube, 3'08") by Justyna Orlovska showing the moving parts of  the creation

Miroslav Stránský

Sculptures in a forest and creations along a fairy stream

Havlíčkova Borová, region Vysočina, Czech Republic

all elements of this art environment are situated 

in the open air, accessible to visitors

Pekka Helenius, Pirun paja art park / Devil’s Workshop Art Park

this picture and the next five courtesy of Pekka Helenius

as published on Google Streetview

Located in the Greater Helsinki region, Nurmijärvi with its more than 44,000 inhabitants, is one of the largest rural municipalities in Finland.

The community, with characteristic village centers, is close to nature, for example in the Kaukkala agglomeration of Nurmijärvi, there is a wooded area.

An art environment in a forest

In this forest an Art Park is located, an art environment shaped from the mid-1990s by Pekka Helenius, assisted by his wife Anne. 

The name of the site has changed several times. In October 2021, the then designation Spiru's workshop was changed into Tao Tao, and this name was upgraded to Tao Tao Art Park in May 2022.

And then, in September 2025 I got a message from Pekke Helenius, saying that the name has changed again. Now the name is Pirun paja art park (in English Devil’s Workshop Art Park)

The site became better known in Finland and beyond through an inventory study aimed at expressions of ITE art (=outsider art) in the Uusimaa region (2022-2024), carried out by the Finnish Association for Rural Culture and Education MSL.

Life and works

Pekka Helenius, who created this art environment, was born in 1966.

He had a difficult childhood because he was bullied at school and his parents didn't notice that or were unable to help him. In the years that followed the period at school, the effects of that bullying led to a less stable, vulnerable life for Helenius, often with pain.

However, this ailment went away after Helenius in the mid-1990s started creating an art environment in the forest of Kaukkala. About this Helenius himself said on Facebook:

    

I've been doing this job for almost 30 years, due to illness I couldn't move forward.

I've been making creations in the Tao Tao park (meanwhile Pirun paja art park, HvE) for a while at the workshop even in a lot of pain. The disease has been defeated and quite simply, nobody noticed.

        

Helenius did a training as a shoemaker and during that training he also got lessons in working with iron. 

The blacksmith skills he acquired from these lessons served him well when he became active in adding  decorations to the art environment.

The site includes a forge where Helenius assembles metal creations in many sizes and appearances, that get a place in the park. 

As materials he uses all kinds of metal items such as pieces of scrap metal, parts of cutlery and horseshoes, in short, everything that can be processed in a forge.

His collection of sculptures, both small ones such as an ensemble of six spoons and large ones such as a metal bush with waving branches, includes several hundred creations that are placed in the forest along a rocky and stony path.

Pekka himself says that his subconscious thoughts become visible in his creations. 

When he is forging iron, he is simultaneously shaping his feelings. The Pirun paja art park can be seen as a representation of a kind of knitting, in which the visitor can see visions or make unexpected discoveries.

this picture courtesy of Pekka Helenius

as published on his Facebook account

Located in a forest, the art environment managed by Pekka and Anne Helenius offers visitors the opportunity to relax and reflect all year round and in changing seasons.

Documentation

* Facebook

* Article by Veli Granö on MSL website

* Announcement with info about contact on MSL website

Video

* Video (October 2023, YouTube, 2'43") by MSL

Pekka and Anne Helenius

Devil’s Workshop Art Park 

Lahnuksentie 323 B, 

01800 Klaukkala, dept Uusimaa, region Southern Finland,  Finland

guided tours for a small fee, on appointment

Google Streetview

Raymond Daste, Sentier des sculptures le long du Gers / Sculpture trail along the Gers

pictures courtesy of Dominique Clément

The distance of the built-up areas of the two French municipalities of Auterive and Boucagnéres that border each other, is some 3 km. Both municipalities are located along the Gers, a river flowing in a northerly direction.

A little south of Auterive, where the frontiers of Auterive and Boucagnères meet, is the small hamlet of La Meillanc.

Here, in La Meillance, a footpath along the Gers towards Auterive starts. It is a rather special footpath because it has been decorated in recent years with an extensive series of wooden sculptures.

This sculpture trail was created by Raymond Dasee, about whom virtually no biographical information is available on the internet. 

So far, what has been published about this art environment and its creator remains limited to two articles in the regional newspaper La Dépèche, as mentioned in the documentation. 

However, there is a large series of photos available, made by Dominique Clément, which can be seen in this post and partly on his Facebook page (see documentation)

Raymond Daste started his decorative project a few years ago, around 2019. It is possible that he started doing this when he had just retired. In a photo in one of the articles in the journal la Dépêche he is depicted with two friends who helped him transport a large sculpture and the gentlemen look in their late fifties, early sixties.

It is understandable that friends sometimes have to help him install a creation, if we look at the very first image. 

The image shows a wooden sculpture representing a Tyrannosaurus. It's a creation of 3.50 meters high, 6 meters long and weighing about 700 kilos. Compare the height of the sculpture with the height of the person standing in the background.

Most of the creations have a more modest size, although in general the are life-size, such as a fisherman, a hunter, a rabbit and a hare...

On the other hand, there is also a snake of four meters in length and a crocodile of considerable size, as shown in the image below.

Raymond Datse makes his creations using a chainsaw and the wood he works with is mostly from the poplar. Making a large sculpture takes him about three months.

The European field of art environments has only a limited number of sculpture trails. Some countries with such a creation, reviewed in this weblog, are:

    - Norway: Eldfinn Austigard, 

     -Finland: Edvin Hevonkoski, 

    - Scotland: Frank Bruce (this trail collapsed in 2024 in a storm)  

     -Belgium: Jacques Vandewattyne, 

     -Spain: Joan Carolà,

    - Germany: Collective of non-professional artists and Jürgen Farklas,

    - Russia west of the Ural: Dimitri Tanchev

Documentation

* Article (8-3-2021) in regional journal La Dépêche

* Another article (26-7-2023) in La Depêche

* Entry (10-8-2023) on the Facebook-page of Dominique Clement

Raymond Daste

Sculpture trail along the Gers

Auterives, dept Haute Garonne, region Occitanie, France

can be visited freely

visitors arriving by car could park in Boucagnères and walk to la Meillanc, 

or park in the south of Auterives and walk towards Boucagnères

Collective of non-professional artists, Skulpturenweg / Sculpture trail

images from the website mapio.net 

(no referral to photographers)

The image above shows two wooden sculptures, a honey bear and a woodsman (Waldmensch in German), as arranged along an 8.5 kilometer route between Neuler and Niederalfingen, communities located in Germany, some 70 km south of Frankfurt. 

The route includes a total of 83 sculptures made by non-professional sculptors.

Cinderella

Court Jester

Creation of the sculpture trail

Hubert Schull, living in Neuler, was an artist and teacher at a technical school, who dreamed that there would be a sculpture trail near his hometown. In 2001, on his initiative, a number of former pupils of the school and non-professional artists, living in various communes in the region, gathered to crystallize this idea. 

Under the name Sculturies they formed a group of non-professionals with a passion for making wooden sculptures. The group focussed on the creation of a sculpture trail in the woods, connecting Neuler and Niederalfingen.

Angel

The project started in Neuler. The sculptures for this first part of he trail were created from the beginning of November 2001 until the end of February 2002. With the help of a local construction company the 16 wooden sculptures were set up on March 16, 2002 along a circular route in Neuler .

Thereafter 31 sculptures were created for the 2.5 km circular route in Niederalfingen, which opened in 2005. 

Then, until 2009, sculptures were made for the trails connecting the two circular ones, a series of 17 sculptures near the Krähenbachtal and a series of 19 sculptures near the Schlierbachtal.

Faun

Most sculptures along the trail show that the basic material is formed by a man-sized stump of a large tree. There are a lot of  stand-alone creations, but also a number of mixed ones, such as a scene with the Wolf and the Seven Goats, as well as the scene in the image below with the Town Musicians of Bremen (this sculpture by the way is a replica of the original one in Bremen, see Wikipedia).

A number of the stand-alone sculptures depict a fairytale character, such as Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Hansel and Gretel, Hameln's Pied Piper and Nils Holgersson, others depict historical or mythical characters, such as a court jester, a woodsman, a faun or an angel. 

Most of the sculptures are realistic in nature, but there are also some that depict an experience, such as the one about September 11 (the attack on the Twin Towers), a sculpture depicting temptation and another one called meeting the light.

The website Sculturies has a map of the sculpture trail as divided into several parts and a detailed enumeration of all sculptures situated along it, this with titles of the sculptures, an explanation of what each sculpture depicts and the names of the artists who created them.

Wooden sculptures in the open air are vulnerable. In 2018, members of Sculpturies renovated a number of sculptures from the route in Niederalfingen. The other routes will also get the necessary attention.

Town Musicians of Bremen 

Documentation

* Website Sculturies, with extensive explanation of the location of the sculpture trail, the titles and themes of all sculptures and the names of the artists involved

* Website Skulpturenrundweg Niederalfingen with information as in the above website, but only relating to the route in Niederalfingen

* Prospectus with information about the sculptures in Neuler and the artists who made them

Video

* Video by Werner Schäffer (YouTube, 3'40"), stills of the sculptures in Niederalfingen

Collective of non-professionals

Sculpture trail

from Neuler to Niederalfingen

region Ostalbkreis, Baden-Württemberg federal state, Germany

can be visited freely