Mama Rosa, the 25-foot, 4,000-pound troll built by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, now stands tall in the new Firefly Grove Park, at 116th and Gilbert in Wauwatosa, and it’s a charmer.
The sculpture, made mostly of Wauwatosa street trees, is a figure clutching a bouquet of freshly picked flowers and holding one up to her nose to get a whiff.
Mama Rosa is not only Wisconsin’s first Dambo troll, but it’s Dambo’s first troll with built-in illumination, according to City of Wauwatosa’s communications manager Eva Ennamorato.
Those flowers, you see, are in fact street lights that are fitted with LEDs, powered by the park’s solar panels.
While the sculpture is fun and sweet, it’s also a serious statement, says the artist, who has been in town to build the sculpture, along with City of Wauwatosa workers, members of his own team and a cadre of volunteers.
“Our world is drowning in trash,” Dambo says, “because we are such a successful species. We can create such an overwhelming amount of products for ourselves, and because we do that, we're basically drowning in our own success.
“But trash is a treasure and that trash is a resource. It’s important for us to understand that trash has a really big value so that we can prevent ourselves from drowning in our own success. The mission of all my art is to show the world that our trash is not dirty, disgusting, dangerous and worthless.”
Dambo has used discarded materials for all 156 of his trolls, which can be seen in 20 states and in countries around the globe.
“Millions of people come and enjoy and look at our trash and (are) not disgusted and in fear of the trash, but have a joyful feeling and smiles on their faces ... that’s the message of my art.”
Dambo used more than Tosa street trees to create his upcycled troll here.
The street lights that Mama Rosa is clutching and sniffing formerly illuminated Tosa Village.
Ennamorato says that when he first visited the area about a year ago to begin planning for the work, Dambo saw a pile of about 50 of the street lights at the Tosa DPW yard.
He not only asked for some to be saved and adapted for his troll, but he suggested that they be used in the new park and that’s exactly what happened.
“In this way, we got to recycle all the old light poles,” Dambo says. “And then I also installed, you will see there are some small half picked off light poles throughout the park. That is where my troll picked her bouquet from. So that's why they're missing (their tops).”
Dambo, who has been a rapper in the past and even did a bit of freestyling at a public event Tuesday night, has written a poem about Mama Rosa and her “flowers,” which can be read on a plaque installed near the troll.
He recites it for us in the Wednesday morning rain as Wauwatosa prepares to cut the ribbon on the troll and its new park – which you can read more about here.
“There's something funny with these flowers, some of them have special flowers.
There's no roots beneath these flowers.
Rain don't rain upon these flowers.
Something's funny with these flowers.
They come from nothing in an hour.
There's no honeybees.
These flowers have no honey in these flowers.
Something's funny with these flowers.
They stand all summer and won't go sour. And when the sun sleeps, these flowers glow.
I wonder how these flowers grow.”
“What’s special about the one here in the Wisconsin is that it's a long time dream of mine to be able to do one that was in some way picking a bouquet of infrastructure,” Dambo says. “I have envisioned it more like with stop signs and with parking signs and electrical poles and like that.
“But then as soon as I saw these light poles, I was like, maybe I could change the idea and then turn it into this instead. So it's in a long time view of mine to get to do a sculpture like this, and now it's here and I'm so proud of it.”
Dambo and his team of 21 built the face and ears at his studio in Denmark and then shipped it by container to te U.S. During the trip it was fumigated to ensure the wood did not harbor any invasive species.
Here, the head awaited, installation. A steel and concrete foundation was built into the ground of the new park and when Dambo arrived, an armature was added to support the towering troll.
The head was attached to that and its hair was added using Tosa wood. Then the rest of the figure was completed, also with former area street trees.
“It takes around 2.5 metric tons of wood to build one of the sculptures,” the artist explains. “All the wood here, in this case it comes from the city street trees from Tosa. For example, elm trees that have been cut down because they had elm disease, oak trees that maybe were rotten or a branch had grown so big it was leaning over a residential household.
“For different reasons they were cut down and then we milled them together with the Department of Public Works and that is all the wood in the sculpture.”
Current Electric did the wiring and Sternberg, which originally made the light poles, bent and adapted them for use in the sculpture. The posts originally had two lights at the top, but were adapted to have just one.
“It was like a dual light,” Dambo days, “but we re-fitted them to have one light because I wanted it to have this feeling of a flower and not like a pitchfork.”
Before the sculpture was even built, some of Dambo’s fans, who call themselves Troll Hunters, made their way to Tosa to watch progress and once the questions at Wednesday morning’s media event were finished, fans began to line up for selfies with Dambo in front on Mama Rosa.
“We’re honored to be the first community in Wisconsin to welcome one of Thomas Dambo’s world-famous trolls,” said Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride Wednesday. “What makes this moment even more meaningful is the setting, Firefly Grove Park.
"For decades, residents have voiced the need for more green space on Wauwatosa’s west side, and now we have a remarkable park with walking paths, a pump track, a playground, and more for the community to enjoy. Best of all, Firefly Grove Park was created without using a single dollar of local taxpayer money.”
While the troll is the focal point of Firefly Grove Park for many, it’s clear that others will focus on some of the park's other features.
For example, the newly blacktopped pump track is unique in the area and expected to be a big draw, and the intimate willow hut is greening up nicely.
But while Dambo talked to media and posed for photos with Troll Hunters, the soundtrack was provided by the cheery giggles of a mom pushing her joyful kids on the nearby playground swingset in the rain.
You can see a map of all of Dambo’s trolls here. (Spoiler alert: Tosa has not yet been added.)
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
