VOL 04 ISSUE
11 
June 7, 2005
BACK ISSUES | ° | ¤ | CURRENT ISSUE
VOL 04 ISSUE
11 BACK ISSUES | ° | ¤ | CURRENT ISSUE |
| CERAMICS SOUTHEAST: ANDERSON & SWITZER AT ARTIQUE LTD | ||||
 SEINER
BOWL by Michael Anderson of Ketchikan is shown at right at the Artique Ltd gallery
where it shares space with similar pieces by Anderson and the paintings of Scott
Switzer. Switzer's subject matter is regional, his brush style is broadly
stroked American impressionism with a liberal use of factory purples in vivid hues, and
the painting of the child seen at right suggests he is prepared to accept portrait
commissions. Anderson's quieter display is an excellent example of the creativity of an
artist being expressed through the skilled hands of an artisan. Seiner
Bowl is textured inside and out to give the appearance of netting and circled at the
top with floats. Fascinating, and eminently practical in the form which is pursed to pour.
A similar jar (not shown) had a lid with a platinum 'chromed' boat with a large winch in
the bow. . |
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TEAL: PRACTICAL ADORNMENT The Bowhead Jar with the upraised tail flippers serving as a lid was another practical yet unmistakeably regional piece, as was Flounder Jar, seen at lower right above and from above as the index image for this issue. Anderson is proud of his ceramic mural at Oceanview Elementary in Anchorage, and Artique has some unique plates with convincing sea bottom details that some patrons are pleased to use for serving platters, confounding their guests. Tall and taciturn, Anderson displays a benign humor and acceptance facilitating his application of animism to everyday objects. Green Winged Teal Tureen, seen at left, cleverly supplies the duck's head for a handle and the duck's tail to direct the gravy. Anderson's regionalism is that of an enthusiast, and the flavor of Southeast Alaska's wildlife and marine lifestyle is brought close to home with these practically beautiful works. | |||
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RETURN:THIRD YEAR EVENT ConocoPhillips hosted the crowd in their atrium lobby downtown in Anchorage as IBEW's Melinda Taylor and her cohorts unveiled this year's school of modified fish for the Wild Salmon on Parade public art walk now in its third incarnation. The WSOP Juror's Choice Award (an extra slap on the back) was announced at the event and congratulations to Deborah Schildt & Larry Myers for their water fountain interpretation, A River Runs Through It (not shown). A People's Choice award will be decide by popular vote throughout the summer, with maps and ballots available online or at the sod-roofed Visitors' Center on 4th and F. Thanks to the Mayor, who attended with his family and made a short speech, and to the local band Nervis Wrex, who played with enthusiasm and a trifle too loudly. The choices of the ten prestigious jurors (two men and eight women) were well received by young and old alike, as shown in the fascinated faces viewing Matt Johnson's Return shown at left. (Johnson, better known for his black and white photos, was in fact honored with Best of Show in this year's Rarefied Light competition.) | |||
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FROLICS: JOLLIFF PAINTS FENCE The Anchorage Downtown Partnership asked Jennifer Jolliff to create a design and oversee its implementation on plywood to be attached to the chain link fence separating the Performing Arts Center (where work on the roof continues) from the Town Square. Jolliff's design is full of joie de vivre, with animated nude forms playing various instruments among outsize flowers in a style reminiscent of Matisse's murals in the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia. The photo at left captures the artist at work on one of several panels of the ambitious layout, at a quiet moment when she was assisted only by veteran downtown muralist 'Ziggy' Ziglar. Another bout of fence painting is planned for the AWAIC women's fair set for Solstice weekend in late June and volunteer assistants are encouraged to come forward to help brighten up an otherwise embarassing construction zone. | |||
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NEMOART:MO BETTER On the south side of the Dover Mall between C & A Street just north of 36th, interior designer Cathy Kerr has opened a gallery space called NemoArt with an important twist: the owner is well positioned to recommend private or institutional purchases. Her design skills are often called on for commercial purposes and interior designers view art comfortably as an element as ordinary as tables and chairs. Although Kerr is matter-of-fact about business, she is enthusiastic about her plans to showcase emerging, 'energized' artists' work. The extensive track lighting and supporting room lighting lends a spaciousness to the nearly 60 linear feet of wall space, shown at left. There were no elbow-to-elbow crowds on this month's First Friday opening, a second presentation of Canadian Don Weir's northern landscapes. Kerr likes the communal excitement around the annointed art viewing hour, but concedes that her location is not within the perimeters of a sensible art walk. Anchorage collectors now support a variety of galleries and exhibition spaces outside the downtown area, and the sensible step of assigning another monthly week and day (Third Thursdays?) for an art caravan opening tour is being considered by various promoters. | |||
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SUSITNA AUTUMN:WEIR ATMOSPHERE Don Weir's work was featured at an APU gallery last winter (cf Issue #321 ) and while some of the snapshot sized collages and larger canvases are familiar from that time. His success in Alaska extends beyond the support of the Wells Street Gallery in Fairbanks to the art selection panel who recently awarded the Alaska State 1% for Art commision for the new Valdez Ferry Terminal to him. The knife-cut collages are necessarily sharp edged, but a more suffuse style with less defined boundaries between colors are a welcome development in newer work such as Susitna River, Autumn Colors shown at left. In a written statement, Weir comments : "One of the byproducts of these explorations has been that the larger canvasses have begun to resemble tapestries as I have adopted a more decorative approach to interpreting nature.". | ||
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BIRD TLC:CHARITY AT PAINTSPOT Anchorage is lucky to have the compassionate souls who comprise the membership of the Bird Treatment and Learning Center. Luz Maskell is a student in the atelier of Alexandra Sonneborn at the Paintspot in Alaska gallery on Second Street, where the theme was birds and her painting American Robin, shown at left, was offered among others to raise money to support their mission. They raise little orphan or injured birds and release them to the wild. Bernie's Bungalow will also be hosting a fundraising sale of works in mid June for the same warbling cause. The sitter for Maskell's painting is an aging robin with one wing, who was present at the opening and brought special life to the occasion. | |||
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MYTHOS:API 0.71% FOR ART At the official dedication and open house for the new Alaska Psychiatric Institute building south of 36th and west of Tudor in Anchorage a number of new artworks commissioned under Alaska Statutes AS 35.27 were presented to the public on June 3. Pictured at left is one of the two pieces, Mythos I and Mythos II (not shown), resulting from the collaboration of local artists Sheila Wyne and Ruth Sorenson. A tile mosaic employs a two inch grid to pixelate an image of Sorenson's series of cloudscapes into a fourteen foot square format. The picture gives a clear idea of the scale, and Wyne was pleased that at least one Mythos occupied one of the two 'sweet' spots where a viewer could back away more than ten feet from the works, which are even canted out at the top at the behest of either the architect or the art selection panel, since the commonality of dimension was a pre-requisite in the RFP. The scale is outlandish and inhuman in the context of the narrow hallway, and stands as a remonstration regarding the importance of including artists in the design phases of large projects. The other Mythos is down the hallway. Unsurprisingly, not one of the works are associated thematically with the particular wings they serve as locators for (which are named after specific mountains) nor was it ever the art panel's intention that the artwork reinforce the wayfinding. | |||
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NURSE TREE:CHARLES
Two pieces outside artists were low relief wood sculptures including
cast and forged metal parts. Georgian professor Ayokunie Odeleye developed an
impressive design using mahogany (not shown) that was tempting to explore as a climbing
wall. Don Charles had a flattened relief created from planks non-native to Alaska
but at least delivered a lasting parable with his composition for Nurse Tree, a
detail of which is shown at left. Charles is a veteran sculptor residing in the
American North West. Yugoslavian born San Francisco resident video artist Relja
Penezic paintings
are the work of a reductivist lensist, and the painting Alaska Time Lapse: an Imagined
Landscape (not shown) is broken into sixteen panels few of which have much going on.
Penezic admits knowing little about Alaska. Three other commissions have yet to be
installed, including a painting by Southeast Alaska's Dorinda Skains, some little
clay birds to perch on the walls of the horrible 'courtyard' being made ready by
Spenartist Rachelle Dowdy, and stained glass by Mark Eric Golsrud, another artist from
Outside who is more typically commissioned for religious sanctuaries.. ARTIST'S MATH: (Total commissions $302,000 divided by total building construction cost of $42,000,000) times 100 = 0.71% for Art. Are ArtSceneAK's mathematicians missing something here, like $118,000 in unspent money designated by statute for Art in Public Places.? |
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- ARTIST OPPORTUNITIES- absolute deadline 6/9/05 CITY OF JUNEAU MENDENHALL VALLEY HIGH engineering department seeks submittals nbsp; Budget $300,000, Juneau residency preference, 34 page RFP from Neti Pahl 6/20/05 deadline SEATTLE WA 4CULTURE ARTIST REGISTRY open to Alaskan artists in the areas of Site Integration and Art Planning. Public call online. deadline 6/27/05 JAPAN AMERICA FRIENDSHIP COMMISSION CREATIVE ARTISTS PROGRAM supports up to five six month residencies for artists and families.information available. $30,000 to distribute among artists and organizations deadline 6/30/05 PACIFIC COAST NEW AMERICAN PAINTINGS COMPETITION Open Studio invites artists from CA OR WA AK & HI to submit $25, four slides, statement & cv. Juror selects 40 artists presented as prestigious regional catalogs.details online. 9/1/2005 deadline RASMUSON FOUNDATION Artist Project Grants ($5000) are available for artists at any career stage and in any discipline and Artist Fellowships ($12000) are available to mid-career and mature artists in the following artistic disciplines: choreography, folk and traditional arts, crafts, literaryarts/scriptworks, and performance art. Nominations for the Distinguished Artist Award of $25000 are being accepted, including self-nominations. contact Victoria Lord 907-297-2827 details online. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE offers a Gates of the Arctic Artist In Residency opportunity to camp out in Coldfoot. Contact Don Pendergrass in Fairbanks, 907-455-0617. "artists must be both physically fit enough to attempt such a journey and possess the skills and experience for extended, rigorous wilderness travel. The artists provide their own food, art supplies, camping and backpacking gear, and transportation to and from Coldfoot, Alaska." Patrol Rangers carry a shotgun, maybe you should too. applications accepted 11/15/05-1/30/06 DENALI NATIONAL PARK ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE program offers use of cabin in park, wants a work of art and a lecture, and pays no stipend.details online. Juneau Arts and Humanities Council accepts proposals for exhibitions from artists. .
NEXT: BOON DOCK FEEDBACK Aggravated again?! Ecstatic?! Let us know you love us or hate us. Tell us about your upcoming event or artist opportunity. Let us know about your website. Help correct attribution errors that you suspect. SHORTCUTS: When we use your 150 word reviews of any show you've seen recently, sweet and sour, you'll earn a free limo ride some First Friday. Form makes it easy to try your hand at pumping or dumping. cf also ART IN ALASKA |
ART CAR: MAT-SU PUBLIC ART Across Knik Arm, a ride out to the outskirts of
Goose Bay from Wasilla reveals that it is more than forty miles to the Point
McKenzie Dock which is where the bridge is proposed to touch down in future years.
Impressively, there is a Museum already on the far shores, at the Old Knik Town Site
partway there. Museums
across Alaska have been paying closer attention to the opportunities provided by the
Rasmuson Foundation supported Art Acquisition Initiative, which provides funds to allow
accession of work by living artists. Artists in Alaska and nationwide can look with
anticipation at the Fiscal Year 2006 Capital Budget recently approved by the state
legislature. A rapid sampling of the budget document brought up nearly 100 projects
which should qualify for expenditures required by the Public Art statute which together
total more than 500 million dollars. ARTISTS MATH: 1% of that sum is
$5,000,000. ARTISTS MATH: Divide that sum by 500 artists and there is ten
thousand dollars apiece. Hey, mathematicians can dream, can't they? A lot of
work will need to be done by artists and administrators together to properly honor this
spectacular opportunity.. Here's the top 30 on the list.
Fantasize about opportunities past in the BACK ISSUE Index.
No, Thank You to a would-be subscriber who let me know: " I wanted to pay ... PayPal said Seller's Address Isn't Working". If this same error message has stymied others in their attempts to subscribe, ArtSceneAK is devastated and hopes they will have the patience to try again now that the problem is fixed, hopingly. It wasn't PayPal or the reader's fault, by the way. Tommy 'Salami' O'Malley seeks nudes for a Lady Godiva group show: "I am organizing a group show of nudes slated for the International Gallery in Feb. 06/ this will be the 2nd show of this theme I have organized, the first being in 2002 at the old D. Street Cafe which closed a week before the show opened. We put up our drawings and paintings on the outside windows, provided chocolates and had excellent turnout. Even sold a couple of pieces. We reopened the show at the JAVA HAUS in Girdwood. This time I'd like to be inside. There are 15 or so other artists who have committed one or two pieces for this show. Are you interested?" Contact Salami.directly if you are. Pamela Thompson has a photo essay in Insurgent49, an Alaskan Alternative Media entity online. Artists participating in the fifth International Biennial of Contemporary Art scheduled for this December 3-11, 2005 will convene in Florence Italy from around the world. Anchorage painter Donald R Ricker, invited to represent Alaska and the USA, has sought matching support for the partial funding proffered by that exhibit's organizers and director. Alaskan administrators so far have declined, saying in part that "the project awards are for unique opportunities. The fact that you have participated in the Biennale in the past definitely made your application less competitive. The panel's decision is not intended to diminish the value of the Biennale experience to you as an artist." Uh-huh. Bicycle portraitist Taliah Lampert gets a nice nod: "Today's City section (New York Times) has a piece on my paintings! You can pick it up if you're in NYC. If not, check it out online." A photo of the artist is included in the slide show. Kathy Nolls offers the California ARTISTS HELPING ARTISTS, (AHA) Summit and National Juried Show with an August 31 Deadline. prospectus
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text & photos © 2005 Donald R Ricker; artist's works pictured ©2005 to artists credited.
ArtSceneAK is published by Donald R Ricker and sponsored by
BETTER LETTERS, PO Box 103554, Anchorage AK 99510-3554
, a partial listing of links to Museums,
Galleries, and individual Artists around the state.
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