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| Photo: Alexandra Charitan Of molds and Muffler Men Anybody can be a healer.” Cline in a funhouse room at Dinosaur Kingdom II. I try to bring joy, which brings healing. “Helping others, using your abilities and talents to inspire others. “Compassion is what measures us as humans,” Cline says. He does a lot of charity work, headlining parades and benefit shows, and he believes that sometimes laughter really is the best medicine. “I tried to make the monkey look a little happier,” Cline says.Ĭline tries to spread happiness wherever he goes. The Oz figures, including a miniature Emerald City, the Witch’s Castle, and a flying monkey, are destined for a playground in Maryland’s Watkins Regional Park. “Not many have it, but I let them in anyway.”Īs we’re touring his workshop, Cline grabs a miniature version of the Wizard of Oz and strikes a pose in front of a fiberglass hot air balloon. “I ask them if they have the witch’s broomstick,” Cline says. Enchanted Castle Studios is not officially open to the public, but Cline doesn’t necessarily turn away visitors who pull through the gate flanked by red, white, and blue turrets. While Cline may have spent most of his life wishing for a brain, the man I meet feels much more like the Wizard than the clueless sidekick. But it turns out nothing can stop you but you.”Ĭline and Cline. “I realized that people can go through life believing things that simply aren’t true,” Cline says. His fourth grade teacher taught Cline the art of papier-mâché and decades later, she told him that he hadn’t been separated from his peers because of his lack of intelligence, but rather because of his abundance of creativity. He was placed in a class for children with learning difficulties and spent most of his life feeling insecure about his own intelligence. While Cline’s creativity was evident from an early age, he struggled academically. Almost 50 years later, Dinosaur Land is still around and now features several of Cline’s creations alongside Sidwell’s originals. “I told my dad, ‘One day I’m going to build dinosaurs like that,’” Cline says, and he kept his word. His father took him to Dinosaur Land in White Post, Virginia, and Cline was enamored with the park’s fiberglass figures created by Jim Sidwell. He leans back in his chair, puts his feet on his desk and says it all began when he was 11 or 12 years old. Fiberglass molds at Enchanted Castle Studios.I get the sense that he’s done this before, and he later tells me he does “one or two interviews a week.” Even though his speech feels rehearsed, I can’t help but be charmed by his enthusiasm and seemingly boundless energy.
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He is expecting me and before I even sit down he launches into his origin story. I arrive at Cline’s Enchanted Castle Studios in Natural Bridge, Virginia, on a bright, sunny summer day. When pressed to choose just one title, Cline simply says, “I’m an entertainer.” The Wizard of Natural Bridge But underneath the costumes and behind the props, Cline is unapologetically and uniquely himself. Instead of producing rabbits from top hats, Cline feels drawn to the characters underneath them-Uncle Sam, Willy Wonka, and the Wizard of Oz-and often portrays them in local parades. He may be very good at conjuring up an illusion on the spot, but nothing about Cline feels disingenuous. Cline is careful to make a distinction between the art of deflection and deception. Barnum was a showman, yes, but he was also a liar. | Photo: Alexandra CharitanĪ documentary filmmaker dubbed Cline the “Blue Ridge Barnum,” which is close, but still not entirely accurate. For more than 20 years, he has hosted “ Haunting Tales,” a nightly ghost tour in Lexington, Virginia-but he doesn’t consider himself to be a tour guide either. He has built two full-size replicas of Stonehenge and recently opened Dinosaur Kingdom II, which, like Cline himself, is too difficult to describe in just a few words. His Enchanted Castle Studios creations populate roadside attractions throughout the country. Since he was 19 years old, Cline has been creating fiberglass figures. But like one of his heroes, Harry Houdini, Cline doesn’t consider himself a magician.
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His hands were bound behind his back and he was submerged in a milk can full of water, from which he easily escaped-twice. He has ridden blindfolded through a ring of fire on a unicycle.
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Mark Cline has been shot out of a canon, hanged, and had his head cut off.