- [Announcer] Coming up on "ART Inc." Trash to trolls, Acorns to Becorns and Waste to Wonder.

- [Person] If you want to know what's going on- (energetic music) (energetic music continues) (disturbance hissing) (soft airy music) - I think as an artist you don't only judge your artwork on the way that it looks.

It is also what was the process to get there and what is the impact it had on the people who sees it.

The world is running outta resources, while it's drowning in trash.

All my art is made of trash.

To me it's what I do.

And what I do is the things that I love the most.

(upbeat energetic music) ♪ I'm a garbage artist, no dirty work plate ♪ ♪ Trash talk through my last 30 birthdays ♪ ♪ I'm a dirt back, I'm wasted and tossed around ♪ ♪ But I shine like a treasure in the lost-and-found ♪ My name is Thomas Dambo.

I'm a Danish artist and I make giant recycled wooden sculptures here and then I hide them in the woods around the world.

♪ It's a treat when I get in the can ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm a dumpster diver, junk designer ♪ ♪ Recycle writer, I'm a born survivor ♪ When I was younger I did music videos and rap songs about dumpster diving.

(Thomas raps in foreign language) I've just made a lot of projects with trash, and probably estimated now more than 12 million people have traveled to stand in front of one of my trolls.

♪ I'm the son of a dumpster diver ♪ ♪ And my momma's a dumpster diver ♪ ♪ Even my honey's a dumpster diver ♪ ♪ And I raised my sons to dumpster dive ♪ (birds chirping) (light music) (saws buzzing) The reason I chose Rhode Island is because I thought it was a good basis for a fairytale.

This one here is gonna be called Erik Rock.

The other one is gonna be called a Greta Granite, and she will be holding like a type of ceremonial instrument with necklace draping beats hanging on it.

(light music) (saws buzzing) I think what people like about the trolls is that I like making them.

It's playful.

People always say that it brings the child out in them.

One of the things that I really like is to imagine how somebody will find one of my sculptures.

If I was a little boy and I was going down the path and then turning around the corner and then boom.

(creature grunting) I don't wanna make anything that I don't believe is cool.

And I think that shines through the art.

(birds chirping) (saws buzzing) I think we're now 25 people in my full-time team in Denmark and then here we are 11 people here in Rhode Island now.

(saw buzzing) I've never made a troll before in Rhode Island and I have my big mission to put one in each state of the United States.

(drill buzzing) - So the bone structure starts with just the two by fours and then they do the shaping and then the cladding is basically the skin that goes over and covers it all up and gives it a nice shape.

(saw buzzing) That's where it actually becomes a sculpture and the whole mood of the piece is kind of comes together in this section.

(soft music) - When we arrived here, the material that we had gotten was new and not all recycled, so we had to go out and find some other materials to make it recycle and make it scrap again.

You know what the biggest mountain is in Rhode Island?

It's the landfill.

Right?

Highest point of Rhode Island, 600 feet, The landfill's 800 feet, right?

I don't consider myself a sustainable, a climate change artist, anything like that.

All those words, somebody sort else can deal with it.

I'm dealing with trash.

That's what my art is about.

It is about showing that trash can have a gigantic value, can have a value so big, so it can bring 12 million people out to come and see my artwork.

(birds chirping) (saws buzzing) There was a guy with a tractor who was supposed to move the head force last week, so we could get it started here this morning.

Put the head on the second sculpture, but the head's still over there, so now we're just gonna try and move it on there.

This little piece of equipment here.

It sounds fun to move a troll head on the golf cart.

So let's do it.

We go forward, right?

- Alright, I'm ready.

- Yep.

Just go be this local, because me and Raven were on top of the pallet now.

And then that tipping.

How is the centering?

(person muttering) We push it over that way?

We have anything to tie it?

We have to hold it when we go in on the gravel or go off road.

- [Person] It feels pretty good.

(whimsical music) - Stay focused.

Don't lose your head.

(person laughing) Yeah, I got it.

I love to build.

Okay, so we have to decide this.

We have to get the backdrop to hang like from two meters or something like that, I'm down.

(machinery beeping) I love that feeling of making something and see it grow.

Down a little.

And doing it together with your friends and enjoying it afterwards and yeah, just that feeling of accomplishment.

I'm happy with it here.

We'll figure out the stuff up there.

Now, me and my wife- - Hello.

- We have two twin boys that are 22 months old.

Yeah, I'm a dad and it's nice.

But I think that other people will definitely see me as a radical dad, you know?

Because I bring my whole family with me on this road trip.

But I've chosen to live my life in this way, that I'm doing it, for me that's right.

And I love it.

(drill buzzing) The project that I'm making in Rhode Island, it is gonna be called something with the thunderstorm.

I just started writing the poem for it.

Should I say it?

- [Crew Member] Yeah.

- Yeah?

Let me see if I can remember it, 'cause I just read it down this morning, 'cause I was working on it.

What was the thunder stone?

It was a mountain fully grown.

The highest peak that stood alone was where the thunder stone had home.

It used to be the mountain top, was soft, but when the lightning struck, it hardened up and turned to rock.

That's why the thunder stones so tough.

So all the different trolls will be about stones.

Like this one's holding a stone, the other one has a stone circle.

(saw buzzing) (light mischievous music) It's just cool that we can just take all these scraps and then we can make something that makes so many people excited.

Like I don't know if my peak as an artist is today, but today is definitely more successful than yesterday.

I come from being a rapper on the street.

We would always sit outside, the bodega, drinking beers on the curb, 'cause we couldn't afford to buy a $2 beers inside, you know?

And then my wife was like, "You can just have a glass of wine."

And then I said, "But don't you remember what I just recorded in my rap song?"

Because I say, if time is money then I'm a waste of time.

It's crazy when an ATM will make you wait in line.

I never chase a dime 'cause money fades to shine.

I'll take a cheap cold beer with a taste of wine.

Yeah.

So that's kind of like my identity there, right?

♪ I'm the son of a dumpster diver ♪ ♪ And my momma's a dumpster diver ♪ ♪ Even my honey's a dumpster diver ♪ ♪ And I raised my sons to dumpster dive ♪ (disturbance hissing) (birds chirping) (whimsical music) - I think I was always curious as a kid what it would be like to be a tiny little person going in through the woods.

I think that's pretty universal, really.

What kid doesn't like to get down on their knees and check things out?

(pencil sketching) (whimsical music continues) Becorns are little characters I make out of acorns and sticks.

I take 'em outside and I pose them in a little scene.

I wait for animals to come and then I take pictures of them interacting with wildlife.

(camera clicking) (bright music) There's a wide variety of personalities in the Becorn world.

They tend to be gentle.

They're almost always curious and up to something.

There are warriors that are defending against squirrels.

They definitely are nurturers.

They feed the wildlife and care for them.

My first job out of school was as a toy designer at Lego.

The real beginning of Becorns was when I worked at Bionicle.

- [Announcer] Bionicle takes off with new wings, weapons and boosters.

- [David] Normally when you build with Legos, you try and build in a really structured way, but we would just hack 'em apart and hot glue 'em together to quickly arrive at a prototype.

Then we'd show them to kids and get their feedback.

And I just loved hearing their thoughts.

I learned so much.

(broom sweeping) After five years, I left Lego.

And I was at home sweeping my mom's driveway thinking, "Wow!

What a great job that was and what am I doing now?"

And I looked down at all these sticks and acorns at my feet and I kind of realized like, "Oh my God!

Everything I did at Lego, I can do with these sticks and acorns and kind of create a whole world with them."

(tool clacking) I was building the figures and I was like, "Okay, what do I do with 'em now?"

And sort of the clear first step was to take pictures and it sort of evolved from there.

(camera shutter clicking) (soft piano music continues) So every time I go for a walk, I'm always on the hunt for good, good sticks and good acorns.

The perfect stick is about as the thickness of a barbecue skewer and it's got nobby parts.

And I like 'em to have a slight bend in it, 'cause I've found if they're straight, then the characters don't really look alive.

But if they have like just a slight bend, then they look more alive.

And then the perfect acorn has a cap that goes most of the way around and then just has a perfect little circle, and the nose just sticks right out in the middle.

(soft piano music) A lot of times I have a pretty good idea about the scene I'm trying to go for when I build it.

And so, I'm trying to think of what the right pose should be.

And as I'm building, I'm kind of thinking about the mechanics and how they hold their weight.

And if they're running, they should be leaning forward, or if they're kind of scared, like are they leaning back?

So I kind of have a pretty good idea of what I'm going for.

And on the day when the light's good, there's no wind, I'll go outside and I'll set up the scene.

(soft piano music continues) I'll set up the camera and I use a remote control.

I stand way back, far enough that I can kind of see what's going on.

And then when the animals come, I push my little button and hope for the best.

(camera clicking) Almost always, something different happens than what I expected.

Usually, there's a surprise that's great.

It'll jump on its head and suddenly, it tells this other story that I hadn't even imagined.

The pinnacle of Becorn lore, is when I built this character, it's holding a basket and I filled it with seeds.

I set it out and I was trying to get a cardinal to come eat from the basket.

Instead, a squirrel came and carried it away off into the woods.

I chased it into the woods.

I kind of felt like an idiot chasing it into the woods.

At some point I was like, "I'm not gonna catch this squirrel, what am I doing?"

So then I built another.

The first one that was taken was named Joonie, with two Os.

And then the second one was, Joonie Junior.

And Joonie Junior also was carried away by a squirrel into the woods.

(spooky gothic organ music) So then, I really wanted the shot.

I'm not gonna give up on this shot.

So I built a third Joonie, Joonie III, who still lives today.

I choose names that kind of speak to the personality.

One of my favorite characters is named Dink.

He has his arms in front of his face.

And anything you put in his hands, he's automatically excited about.

You put a berry in his hand and he is like really excited to eat it.

Or you put a flower in his hand, and he's really just in awe of this flower.

I have two characters named, The John John Brothers.

And you can put anything in their hands to be carrying and they're always up to something.

They always have a plan.

So if they're carrying this squash, it's like, "What are they doing with this squash?"

I have them carrying a bunch of grapes and then they're offering the grapes to this sort of Elder Becorn.

I was scrolling Instagram one day and I saw this picture of a bird splashing in a bird bath.

And it just looked so fun and lively and I just thought, "Wow!

That's a scene I want to get with a Becorn."

So I started sketching.

My favorite at first was to get a Becorn in a boat.

And the bird would be next to it kind of splashing it, getting it wet, 'cause I wanted some kind of interesting interaction.

And then I did this other sketch, which I think is so much more fun, where the two are just splashing and playing.

And it reminded me of being a kid in the summer, splashing with my friends in the water.

And this was the one I had to do.

(bright music) (drill whirring) (twig snapping) (drill whirring continues) (water splashing) (sand pouring) (upbeat quirky music continues) All right, let's see if the birds come.

(water splashing) (bird croaking) (bird splashing) (camera clicking) (bird croaking and splashing) (camera clicking) I'm really happy with the shots I ended up with.

I think some of 'em really did capture that joyful summer celebration that I was going for.

And then, I got some surprising shots too.

So as usual, I kind of started out with a plan and the birds took over and gave me stuff that's just better than I ever could have asked for.

Kind of the essence of Becorns is this wonder about the natural world and sort of experiencing nature and the wonder of nature in kind of a really pure way.

And a lot of people have said, "I haven't felt that since I was a kid.

And I didn't even realize that I was missing that feeling."

As an artist, that's, I don't know, that's the dream.

That's really a gift.

(disturbance hissing) - Yeah, she's got some kind of little feel mouth.

She's eating, she's ripping it apart now.

I mean, I'm excited.

(group vocalizing) Creativity is the act of wonder in action.

It's wondering about something, trying something and then trying something else.

My name is Thomas Deininger and I'm an artist, also bird watcher, naturalist enthusiast.

When we go bird watching, there's a few things, a few places we've gotten to know to go.

We've been watching a harrier in the afternoons.

- We'd need about 600 millimeters of lens and then some skill.

And then some luck.

We've been watching it hunt.

- Harriers hunt by surprising prey when they find low in the open ground area.

Why I am drawn to the natural world in terms of content, it's right there.

It's the very thing that's being threatened by our sloppy attitudes toward the environment.

And birds specifically are dwindling.

Evolution is about trying lots of different things to see what works.

And so that's, even the creative process for me, it's just mimicking a natural process.

The sculptures themselves, they're a real kind of meditation on perspective and illusion.

One spot is so precise that you move one foot off and they just kind of explode, and it speaks to like the fragility of all the illusions that we all keep up.

Russ is integral to the process to bounce ideas off each other.

He's excellent with structural engineering, so he makes sure these things don't fall apart.

(drill buzzing) - I can make this display, so we can disassemble it.

- Yeah, that'll work.

Russ photographs the birds and the art and he mostly does the video.

I do a little bit of video, and that helps with the social media, and so we kind of realized at this point it's like, "Oh, we're not just making sculptures.

We're like entertaining people, because most of the world experience these, these things through video," and Russ will find old clips from old movies.

- [Narrator] The battle for the mind will be fought in the video arena.

- [Thomas] And so he literally remixes all kinds of beats, makes original soundtracks.

There are little collages.

- [Narrator] The hypnotism is strong, but there is a chance that we will be attacked.

(Roadrunner beeps) - It's almost like our job to like kind of bring them to be together, suspend them in space so then people could kind of relate to things even more than they would've brush stroke.

It could say, oh you know... it's a great blue heron.

(chuckles) It's so easily distractible.

Plus I'm easily distractible.

(laughs) - [Russ] Here, would that work?

- Huh?

I work in front of a green screen, because things show up really well, and you can see boundaries.

There are birds all scattered throughout the detritus that accumulates all over, whether it be on the beach or in somebody's junk drawer.

I hone in on that and I start seeing lines and shapes and colors and things that can be useful to me in my constructions.

If I'm looking to do a cardinal, I will pour over hundreds and hundreds of images of cardinals and then when I see a cardinal I'll be able to understand the kind of the variation, how red, how proud their chest can be, what their crowns are like, however the cardinal got through its millions of years of evolution to that perfect form.

That's the thing I'm celebrating.

There's no waste in the natural world, and so take these nutrients, things that have to potential, the potential in the mundane, and I can elevate it and just like any good gardener knows, last year's compost are gonna be this year's vegetables.

Now I'm farming manmade materials in a sense.

I think our fin, this is just the heads, from figures that we cut.

(playful music) Nostalgia is this really kind of cheap emotion.

I'm trying to smash that thing.

That's my scream.

That's the wake up, that's the heavy hit on the instrument.

(drill buzzing) It's all just bad magic.

Like make the illusion.

My God, if it were, it's not in a church.

It's not an altar.

It's outdoors.

The natural world inspires that kind of wonder, that awe, and that's the fuel that keeps me.

That's what I wanna share with people.

Nature obviously is the mother of all beauty.

I mean, we wouldn't even have a definition of beauty if it weren't for nature.

I want to get people out of it and looking back at the natural world, reminding them that idea of this one way to look at something that's the biggest illusion of all.

- [Crew Member] Thank you.

- Right on.

- [Crew Member] Thank you.

- Yeah.

Just get to get a picture.

- [Person] Yeah.

Shy says they are.

(Thomas chuckles) - [Announcer] Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time on "ART, Inc." (disturbance hissing) (upbeat energetic music) (upbeat energetic music continues) (upbeat energetic music continues) (upbeat energetic music continues) (upbeat energetic music continues)