Art and Humor on Vinalhaven

It’s not often that schoolchildren get to spend time with a man who makes his living creating wacky paintings of fish and other marine creatures. The students at the Vinalhaven School had just that chance in late October when Alaskan artist Ray Troll visited the school to work with students and later gave an evening presentation on his career to a large crowd. The visit was organized by Vinalhaven resident Mike Mesko, a longtime fan of the artist.

“Jim Clayter first exposed us all to Ray’s humor by carrying his T-shirts at his Vinalhaven Pottery Studio years back and the rest is history,” Mesko said. “Then Steve Rosen and I had the harebrained idea a couple years back to get Ray to come visit Vinalhaven.” Mesko had fished in Alaska back in the 1980s. He first purse seined roe herring in 1979 in Bristol Bay, and continued for the next fifteen years fishing in that area for herring, sockeye, black cod, and halibut. That was where he discovered Troll’s irreverent and beautiful work.“Mike was aware of my work,” Troll said via email. “He had the notion to bring me out to lobster country a few years ago and of course his main lure, or should I say ‘Maine lure,’ was all the lobster I could eat, so I bit!”

Troll lives in Ketchikan, Alaska. He moved to the state after receiving an MFA from Washington State University in 1981. There he was able to combine his lifelong interest in natural history with his artistic talents. At first, he created quirky T-shirts of fish and other creatures, which soon gained him an audience with cannery workers, commercial fishermen and others. His off-kilter paintings — in watercolor, colored pencil, oil, pen and ink, and acrylic — combined wry humor with vibrant renderings of fish, such as coho salmon and halibut, and dozens of other species found in Alaska. Soon he was featured in exhibitions in museums across the United States and overseas.“Vinalhaven has long been an outport and fan club of his work,” Mesko said. “Now almost 40 years later it’s hard to say where you might encounter someone sporting a Ray Troll T-shirt — they truly have a global audience.”

Troll’s art can be found in ten books he has co-authored and illustrated. The latest is a collection called Something Fishy This Way Comes, the title a spoof of the famous quote from Macbeth.Troll also wrote and illustrated an alphabetical children’s book of living and prehistoric sharks called Sharkabet, full of weird and wonderful pictures and facts about sharks, from angel sharks to zebra sharks. He also is part of a band, called the Ratfish Wranglers, noting on his web site that he believes “everyone should be in a band regardless of talent or ambition.”Troll’s visit was supported by the Island Institute, Partners in Island Education, Grundens and the Tidewater Motel.