Huset Aukrust in Alvdal
Huset Aukrust (the Aukrust house) was opened as Aukrustsentret in 1996 and changed its name i 2019. It comprises several houses in the centre of Alvdal. Incidentally, Alvdal means "River Valley": "Elvdal" pronounced with the 'E' deep down the throat.
Kjell Aukrust (1920–2001) grew up in Alvdal, a rural community in Eastern Norway, at the north-south route 3 and railroad through Østerdalen, altitude above 500 metres. He was educated to become an artist, and his drawings are indeed known in this country. He always had a lot of crazy ideas and presented them as drawings. This picture may indicate much of his style. It's a moon rocket as fancied a century or two ago, and control centres built from notched timber and with turf roofs.
His three first books were about his life as a boy i Alvdal, illustrated by the author, of course. One book was titled "My brother". When this book was written, his brother Odd had become responsible for the Government's official statistics, so no wonder that Odd, as a child, was claimed to have produced "whooping cough statistics". These books became very popular.
(2014-08-15)
His stories were evidently written for children, that is, old children, like himself, I have heard. However, I think even small children enjoyed Ivo Caprino's film "Flåklypa Grand Prix" ("Pinchcliffe Grand Prix" in Great Britain) based on Kjell's characters, a car race where a very homemade car with an old-fashioned look, won.
(2014-08-15)
Kjell Aukrust created many characters for his stories. Some are old and dry men, like the bicycle repair man Reodor Felgen. A more unusual one is creamery assistant Emanuel Desperados, a gorilla. But the most important ones are those two above. Here they are hired to walk about and be visible, and come running whenever someone points a camera.
At the entrance shown stands a statues of them, Solan to the left and Ludvig to the right. Note Solan's felt shoes. Winters are cold in Alvdal, and felt shoes have been popular.
(2014-08-15)
May I introduce to you, Solan Gundersen, an "anthropomorphic magpie" and Ludvig, a hedgehog. Solan is fearless and somewhat impudent, while Ludvig is shy and timorous.
Kjell was married, but they didn't have any children. Therefore these guys were his children
To his wife Kjell was a child himself – one of those gifted children, we should add. He was taken well care of by his wife; that's the sign of the ultimate artist.
(2014-08-15)
Kjell Aukrust needed a name of a site for his characters, and he chose Flåklypa. This picture shows the real Flåklypa. It is situated in Bøverdalen, some ten kilometres south of Lom. His father and many ancestors were born on the farm Aukrust a few kilometres down the valley (the poet Olav Aukrust was his uncle). In the old days many farmers harvested grass, and probably also foliage, further up the valley, and the only way to transport it home was to use the frozen river (covered by snow) as a road. That went without trouble, except at this point. On this side of the river lies a farm called "Flå", and "klypa" means "the pinch", thus "the Flå Pinch", which sounds sufficiently crazy. The English edition of an animated film based on an Aukrust story was given the name "The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix" (1975).
(2014-09-14)
