Translation:
With ties to his roots
Icelanders and men of Icelandic descent have been more active in art abroad than many would suspect; performing and contributing to art museums in America in addition to being renowned in the various fields of art both in the east and the west. The attention of Bragi Asgeirsson was recently drawn to a recognized self-educated wood carver in California, Tryggvi Thorlief Larum, as he looked at his family and work.
In California, more precisely in Loleta, north of San Francisco, near Eureka, lives a talented wood carver who carves dragon heads and other miscellaneous articles from wood, for decorations as well as practical uses, in the fashion of the Bronze and Iron Age, especially the Viking Era. It would hardly be worth mentioning, except for the interesting family relations. His father was of Norwegian and Scottish descent, his mother, on the other hand, Icelandic. Lara Gunnarsdottir Larum, daughter of Gunnar Salomonsson, who in his day was a famed strong man in the tradition of ancient heroes and berserks as many are aware of.
Tryggvi, whose name is as Nordic as his work, can trace his ancestry to Tryggvi ‘Olafsson (d. 968), deputy under Kin Hakon Adalsteinsfostra from Vik, grandson of King Harald the Fair Haired. The aforementioned Tryggvi ‘Olafsson was the father of the famed King ‘Olaf Tryggvason who was killed in the battle of Svoldur in the year 1000.
My interest was recently drawn to this man as he had been featured in various news reports in California for his awarded work and some of these news clipping found their way to me. His full name is Tryggvi Thorleifur Larum, born in Iceland in 1957, and is the namesake of an Uncle on his mother’s side, and his middle name from a Norwegian grandfather on the father’s side. At the age of two, he moved to the United States, and has lived there ever since, except for a few years he spent, at the encouragement of his father, in the old country, Iceland, in the trails of the Icelandic Sagas that had been taught to him in his youth. He worked as a fisherman on Icelandic trawlers off the coast of Greenland. His interest in the art of the ancient Romans, Galls, and Kelts was sparked during his travels in Europe, during a time which he served in the military in Northern Italy, strangely enough in the same area where his father had served during his military service in World War II. Upon returning back to the USA, he spent two years researching the life and beginning of the Vikings and their art. During his stint as a fisherman in Iceland, he was a frequent visitor at the art museum of Einar Jonsson, where he absorbed the style and technique of the sculptor. Four years ago he traveled to Norway and visited, among other things, the Viking museum in Bygdoy outside Oslo, and artifacts at Oseberg which had a great impact on him.
Tryggvi Thorliefur is a self-educated wood carver, even though is workmanship would indicate otherwise, where his well trained hand handles the chisel conforming to the ancient art of the Vikings. One could call his work Viking replica with flair and personal touch. His work is more than mere complicated carvings; one could say that it’s more like an outstretched arm reaching back to his roots and heritage, the Vikings, whose motto was “I will travel”. The effect of modern art is not distant in some of his pieces, pieces that are based on detached braids and bas-reliefs where modern art seeks influence from both the east and the west. The incessant and unaffected is characteristic of the artist’s work.
Even though Tryggvi is half Icelandic and only one quarter Norwegian, he serves as the President of the Norwegian Association in Humboldt County, one of the driving forces behind the annual Scandinavian festival in San Francisco. Norwegians have been very interested in his work, and much of his information was retrieved from the Norwegian Weekly, which is published in Seattle, and the front page of the Times Standard published in Eureka.
It is amusing, but hardly a coincidence, that through the grandson of Gunnar Salomonson, who was so proud of his ancestors, as his brothers were also, other strong contemporaries and heroes, the Nordic Vikings have settled on the west coast of America, even if in this unreal form. Frightful and gaping dragons gaze over the vast openness of the Pacific Ocean. They have reverted their roles as Heavenly guide posts to all directions; foreign lands far to the south, east, north, and west. The memory of those still fresh, edged in our blood and bones, wherever we may reside on the earth, not to be forgotten, even though modern technology and ideology has pushed them to the side for the time being. The art of stone work and iron forging continues, even though art schools teaching this ancient for of art are difficult to find.
The natural and original is therefore still alive, and these seeds of life need to be approached with an open mind, light and affection, such as everything that seeks its power of growth deep into the soil of mother earth.