Pretty practical — Art show challenges sculptors to mine recyclables, creativity

Photo by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. A scrap metal moose standing in front of Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus was built by Paul Tornow. It is a large example of salvage art, but smaller pieces are expected for the upcoming ReGroup Salvage Art Exhibit.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

What is waste to some could be a wealth of artistic materials to others. That is the hope of organizers of ReGroup’s Salvage Art Exhibit scheduled to take place at the Kenai River Festival from June 7 to 9 at Soldotna Creek Park.

“This will be our first time doing it so we don’t really know what to expect, but people are already excited about it,” said Jan Wallace, of ReGroup.

Salvage art, sometimes referred to as junk art, is artwork primarily comprised of components that have been discarded, sometimes literally being pulled from the trash. This encompasses a wide variety of mediums, including eggshells, CDs, kitchen utensils, wooden pallets, tools, aluminum cans, car parts, scrap metal and old electronic devices.

“At ReGroup, we are always looking for ways to encourage people to reuse or repurpose things rather than just throwing them away,” Wallace said.

This can be more challenging than it sounds, possibly taking weeks to accumulate materials, which is the reason ReGroup is calling for artists now.

“The challenge of this type of art is finding the materials,” said Paul Tornow, a local artist with experience in salvage art. He constructed the 18-foot-high, 23-foot-long moose sculpture made entirely of scrap metal that resides outside of Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus, where Tornow received his bachelor of fine arts degree.

“I’ve been fortunate to have people give me things, but it can be tough. They don’t really want you going to the dump to gather materials,” he said.

Picture of community — ‘Paint, Pen the Kenai’ celebrates residents’ talents

“Kenai La Belle” by Fanny Ryland.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

Most striking wasn’t the colors, though they were vibrant. Nor the designs, though they were eye-catching. It was more the content of the imagery — the interestingly different takes on the theme “Life on the Kenai,” and yet the similarities running throughout all the pieces in the Paint and Pen the Kenai summer art show, which opened with a reception Thursday at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center.

“I think it’s very diverse and there are a lot of neat possibilities for public art. And there’s so much similarity, too — most have planes, most of them have fishing and the Russian Orthodox Church,” said Anna Widman, who teaches art at Nikiski Middle-High School and submitted one of the mural paintings.

Hers references salmon runs with a Native-inspired motif and recreation with a campsite, a fishing fly, a guitar player seated at a bonfire and a snowmachiner. There’s a moose amid summer wildflowers, and it’s all set at the mouth of the Kenai River with the Russian Orthodox Church and Veronica’s Cafe in Old Town, a few oil platforms out in Cook Inlet, a plane flying overhead and Mount Redoubt framing the scene in the background.

By Anna Widman

“I thought that togetherness was a theme, so I wanted to show that,” Widman said. The lines of the Kenai River and sandy shoreline in her vertical design converge into two hands holding each other at the bottom of the frame.

Kenai Peninsula residents were invited to paint a mural panel or submit writing sharing their vision of “Life on the Kenai” for display in the summer show. Starting this week viewers of the show will be able to vote for their favorite painted panel, and the winning design will be reproduced as a large-scale, permanent public mural somewhere on the peninsula. The placement also is going to be community-driven, with people suggesting and voting on possible locations. A Pen the Kenai writing will be selected to go on permanent display with the mural, as well, and a book will be produced commemorating the project, showing the mural designs and writings.

“Everyone will get a chance to vote on what they want to see and where they want to see it. I’m looking forward to having one of these awesome designs be a mural in our community,” said Marcus Meuller, president of the Soldotna Rotary Club, which is organizing the Paint and Pen the Kenai project in conjunction with the Kenai Chamber of Commerce. “Thank you to all the artists and all the writers. I’m just astounded by the quality in this community.”

Clean scene — Custodian sets school story time with magic carpet art

Photos by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. Tim Marsh creates light and dark shading in the reading area carpet with his vacuum cleaner, depending on which way he pushes the carpet knap.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

Renoir and his paintbrush. Michelangelo and his chisel. Ansel Adams and his camera. And now, Tim Marsh and his vacuum cleaner. Though Marsh, of Soldotna, isn’t as famous as these art masters distinguished throughout history, his fans are every bit as adoring of his creations.

“The kids love it. They’re excited to see what he drew, to try to guess what it is. Some kids will stop by in the morning before school to go look at what he did,” said Bobbie Baldwin, teacher and librarian at Redoubt Elementary School in Soldotna.

Photo courtesy of Tim Marsh. Tim Marsh, custodian at Redoubt Elementary School, created this design of Simba and Pumba, characters from, “The Lion King” in the library at the school. He creates a new design every day in the green carpet students sit on for story time in the library.

Marsh’s medium is a 9-by-12-foot patch of green, low-knap carpet in the story time area of Redoubt’s library. On it he spends five or so minutes a night creating fanciful renderings — dinosaurs, wild animals, characters from books, holiday scenes and many more — with nothing more than his vacuum, a stick, his feet and his imagination.

“All these little tricks I’ve come up with carpet. Who knew, right?” Marsh said.

Marsh has been working at Redoubt for four years, by way of Kodiak, Montana, growing up in Wyoming and being born in Anchorage. About two years ago he was going about his nightly cleaning duties as usual, when he noticed something about the patch of carpet the kids sit on for story time in the library. When he ran his vacuum over it, drawing the knap one direction or the other, the appearance changed from light green to dark green.

There can be an element of the monotonous in a custodial job — same thing, day in, day out — and the novelty piqued Marsh’s interest. He started experimenting with the possibilities of his discovery.

“When I first noticed it I just started making checkerboards, triangles, things like that. And then I thought, ‘I’ll make it fun for the kids,’” Marsh said.

A lion crouches in front of an elephant.

So he started “drawing” into the carpet. Sometimes just general scenes, or holiday-related if Christmas, Valentine’s Day or the like were near. Then he started asking the librarian what books she was reading to the various classes, and drew characters, creatures or scenes to go along with a book.

“And the story was, when the kids come in and sit on the carpet and the librarian starts to read the story to them, Redoubt’s magic carpet brings them into the story,” he said.

Art Seen: Drawn to art — Kenai painter prefers depicting character of world around him

While living in Nome, James Adcox painted murals at several Bush schools, including this one of a wolf. Adcox and his wife now live on the central Kenai Peninsula.

By Natasha Ala, for the Redoubt Reporter

Talent meeting primed and focused resolve is the backstory behind local artist James Adcox and his journey into art. When James Adcox was very young, his parents, Tom and Grace Adcox, realized their identical twin sons had an aptitude for art. James and his twin brother, Jason, both showed early signs of aptitude in visual arts, which their parents encouraged and supported, not only through childhood, but into adulthood.

“In fifth grade my parents gave my brother an acrylic painting kit and myself an oil kit as a gift and that pretty much set us on our art paths,” said Adcox of his early influences. While most young boys growing up in Texas were collecting baseball cards, Adcox was collecting Norman Rockwell cards.

“Playground” is an oil painting by Adcox showing a girl holding onto a hand railing at a playground.

At a very early age Adcox said that he was drawn to portraiture and the depiction of the person in their environment. Fascinated by the human figure at an early age, drawing was his primary focus through high school. Pen and ink, chalk, and mostly black-and-white renderings heavily influenced by comic books was the focus of his high school years in art, he said.

After high school Adcox attended Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas, where he and his twin brother took the same classes together, shared the same textbooks and studied from the same art teachers.

Art Seen: Stories in stitches — Quilt exhibit is warm, inviting

“Sunburst No. 1” by Jack Ross.

By Natasha Ala, for the Redoubt Reporter

“And Every Quilt, a Story” is the name of the exhibit currently on display at the Kenai Chamber and Visitors Center. As in every story, this story embraces an ending. It is the last exhibit curated by Zirrus VanDevere, exhibits and culture coordinator, who is now off to New York to be closer to family.

When asked for final reflections on the exhibit, VanDevere shared, “It’s a very heart-rendering show. There is a lot of heart in quilts and it was a very heart-opening experience to be invited into people’s homes and listen to their stories and look at their quilts. It feels nice and very community oriented.”

VanDevere credits Jan Wallace, a local artist, as being very instrumental in her assistance contacting and inviting local quilters to participate in the exhibit.

 

“Crazy Quilt” by Mary Jean Koch.

I recently spent an afternoon with VanDevere as she took me through the exhibit and shared the history of many of the quilts. For each quilt in the exhibit there is a very touching story behind why it was created, for whom it was created or what story inspired the artist to create the quilt.

The first quilt we looked at together was entitled “Sunburst No. 1,” by Jack Ross. “This piece is also one that tells a story and I really like it because it was quilted by a man — dig it! It’s really quite beautiful,” VanDevere said.

“Sunburst No. 1” incorporates a large selection of men’s ties sewn into the quilt. Ross reflects on its meaning to him and his wife, Robin, in his artist’s statement:

“It is a memory quilt in a way because there are about a dozen or so ties that have meaning to us, such as the tie I wore when we left on our honeymoon, a couple I wore at work, African animals that remind us of our trip to South Africa, San Francisco highlights (Robin was born there and we started our honeymoon there and it is our favorite city), Alaska animals for our home here, Goofy because I am, multicolors because of my love for them, ‘Lion King’ for when we saw the live production in London and the Space Shuttle Discovery because I was part of the recovery crew when it made its first return from space in Edwards AFB.”

Next, VanDevere enthusiastically led to three quilts done by Mary Jean Koch.

“La Salida de los Esperitos de la Selva” by Beth Cassidy.

“Mary Jean is a 91-year-old woman who quilts every day. Every day she gets up and quilts. When I met with Mary Jane and she told me the stories of her quilts I was moved, it was a very intimate experience for me,” VanDevere said.

There is fine stitching work on her piece entitled “Crazy Quilt,” and I am quite impressed with the fine technique and attention to detail in each of her handcrafted stitches. The fabrics of the quilt looks to be from an assortment of outfits that have been deconstructed and sewn together with artistic license in a fun and fanciful manner.

The exhibit also includes a rare showing of three quilts by the late Beth Cassidy, who was skilled in fiber arts and had exhibited her work widely across the country.

“This is the work of an award-winning artist who showed her work at the Cochran Museum and all over the U.S. I like the stretch between Cassidy’s highly accomplished work and showing a wrinkled blanket,” said VanDevere, pointing to a threadbare and much-loved baby blanket on loan for the exhibit from the Boyd family.

In Cassidy’s quilt, “La Salida de los Esperitos de la Selva,” which, literally translated means “the exit of the little hopefuls from the jungle,” Cassidy depicts the departure of spirits from the forest and emblematically portrays the destruction of a rain forest. Symbolic animals are e

“Secret Dreams” by Terri Shin.

mbellished and attached to the quilt, along with miniature cloth dolls and fragments of South American-patterned fabric. The quilt is playful yet foreboding.

The juxtaposition between quilts that were created to be art pieces and quilts that were created to be family treasures holds one thing in common — they share the stories and tell of the personal journeys of those who created them.

“I’ve drawn here together an array of pieces from the area that I find interesting to share on a larger scale, though I’ve learned that sharing quilts can be a very intimate experience, both for the designer and the viewer. Quilts tend to come from the heart and are best if received with an open heart,” VanDevere said.

VanDevere’s heartfelt contribution to the arts of the Kenai Peninsula will be greatly missed.

Natasha Ala has a bachelor’s degree in art and serves on the board of the Kenai Peninsula Art Guild. Ala also is the executive director of a Kenai Peninsula nonprofit organization.

Art Seen: Dare to share — Artists make personal public in entering juried exhibition

“Raven Man” by James Adcox

By Natasha Ala, for the Redoubt Reporter

Creating art is a very personal and introspective process of exposing ideas about how one sees themselves and their place in the world. For an artist to take the next step and share this tactile manifestation of their ideas can be a gut-wrenchingly painful experience, leaving many artists feeling venerable, particularly to public scrutiny.

Yet 28 local artists — some emerging and others well established — braved baring their souls in the Kenai Peninsula Art Guild’s judged “Biennial Exhibit,” which is now showing at the Kenai Fine Arts Center.
Submissions for the “Biennial Exhibit” were judged by seasoned artists Marion Nelson and Becky Holloway. Nelson is an exhibiting encaustic artist who has practiced art her entire life.

“The creative process is endlessly fascinating to me, no matter the medium or discipline. I love artistic problem-solving, often giving myself assignments such as a limited color palette,” Nelson said.

Holloway is an accomplished potter.

“Using texture and exploring its interaction with slips and glaze has been a focus in my work. Recently, altering forms — changing them from the round, wheel-thrown shape — has become a new direction to explore,” Holloway said.

Art Seen: Study in creativity — Art students display mastery

“Red and Black Landscape,” by Chris Banas.

By Zirrus VanDevere, for the Redoubt Reporter

Kenai Peninsula College art students have joined together to offer another solid exhibit at the Kenai Fine Arts Center, and looking at the roster of names, I would expect as much.

Topping the wow tree is Chris Banas, with a series of landscape pastels that are honestly exquisite. He has captured the essence of the local scenery in a studied and confident manner, allowing the medium to really have its way while at the same time orchestrating the marks and colors masterfully. It is this kind of ability to make drawing look so amazingly simple yet entirely mystifying that regenerates my love for it again and again. “Red and Black Landscape” by Banas will not soon leave my memory, and has my nod as the greatest piece in the lot.

Some pretty fine rendering also is going on in Melinda Nelson’s “Dreaming of Poppies” and Victoria Worral’s “The More the Merrier.” Both come off as being about more than simply drawing from life, although I suppose if you referred to them as Drawing From Life, it would feel more suiting, as they seem to suggest a more emotional dynamic.

Art Seen: Spice of life — Mixed-media offerings pack plenty of punch into small space

By Natasha Ala, for the Redoubt Reporter

It is often said that variety is the spice of life and it seems that Zirrus VanDevere is intent on capturing a zesty breadth of emotions in her work, currently on exhibit at the Corner Café — formerly Mugz Café — in the Blazy Mall in Soldotna.

In this small collection, VanDevere uses a variety of materials and mediums to express a roller coaster of human sensations. This gamut of emotions also is echoed in her choice of titles — “Addiction,” “Freedom,” “Defiance” and “Angel Dew” — all loaded with strong, expressive sentiment.

In this collection, VanDevere has attached found objects to canvas, printed straight photography and explored painting on alternative surfaces. In these dozen or so pieces, VanDevere successfully uses the expressive qualities of her materials to explore a diversity of emotional themes.

“Thwarted Destiny” is among mixed-media work by Zirrus VanDevere on display through February at the Corner Cafe in the Blazy Mall in Soldotna.

In “Thwarted Destiny,” an acrylic painting on a wooden rolltop desk cover, three frisky goats fill the picture frame in a jovial composition reminiscent of the classic Three Muses.

The corrugated surface of the painting adds an element of whimsical fun. The colors are integrated in such a way that the painting is not competing with the unusual surface on which it is applied. Painting on alternative surfaces can present technical and aesthetic challenges for artists but VanDevere successfully merges her art and materials in a way that enhances the fun and whimsical feeling of the piece.

Different strokes — Community mural project expands to include writing

By Jenny Neyman

Photo courtesy of Paul Tornow. Soldotna artist Paul Tornow focused on fishing in an early sketch of his Paint the Kenai mural submission. Panels are available now and must be returned by April 15. Writing submissions to the new Pen the Kenai project also are due April 15.

Redoubt Reporter

What imagery represents the Kenai Peninsula?

To some, it could be the Kenai River, its turquoise waters luring people, bears, moose, gulls and salmon alike.

It could be the history of the place — the Native Dena’ina villages, the onion dome of a Russian Orthodox Church, or the fish canneries, gold-mining operations and fox farms that provided some of the first economic opportunities in the area.

It could be all the iterations of fishing the peninsula’s waters provide, from angling for a king in the Kenai to flipping for reds in the Russian River, fly-fishing a quiet lake or trolling for halibut in Cook Inlet.

Perhaps it’s the hand-hewn log cabins of the homesteaders, or the drilling infrastructure of the oil industry that brought the biggest boom of population. Or maybe it’s nothing to do with people, instead showing the Kenai Fjords, Cook Inlet beaches and the rivers, mountains and other topography in between.

That’s up to artists to imagine, and the community to select, in the Paint the Kenai community mural project. This joint endeavor between the Soldotna Rotary Club and the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center invites artists to paint a mural on a 24-by-48-inch panel that will be displayed in a summer art show at the visitors center. People who come to view the panels will vote on their favorites, and the panels will be winnowed down from all entries to semifinalists, to finalists and, finally, one selected winning panel. All the panels will be auctioned off in an event next fall to raise money for the project.

The artist of the selected design will receive $3,500, and will work with a project manager and assisting artists to translate the design into a 12-by-24-foot mural somewhere in the community.

Art Seen: Rare sights at ‘Rarefied Light’

By Zirrus VanDevere, for the Redoubt Reporter

“Things We Leave Behind” by Laura Avellaneda-Cruz.

It has taken me awhile to warm up to this current “Rarified Light” exhibit currently on display at the Gary Freeburg Gallery at Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus. “Rarified Light” is an Alaska traveling photography show put on by the Alaska Photography Center each year, and it has been around for many years. In days past, it was more edgy and involved more photography-based mixed media than it does now, and it was much easier to be wowed by the imagery.

My first thought upon greeting this exhibit was that the juror (they are different each year), Cig Harvey, has a thing for people, and for their hands. Some of the portraits are especially engaging, like both of Michael Conti’s selections, “Riley” and “Enzina.” And Lauren Holmes’ “The Next Generation” is “loaded” with meaning, capturing a small Native boy on a coffee table with a big gun and looking like he’s ready to take the world on, while elders sit in the background.

Art Seen: ‘Up and Coming’ — Developing local artists hone skills, perspectives

By Zirrus VanDevere, for the Redoubt Reporter

“Filling” by Claire Rowley is on display along with work by Ben Hastins and Joel Isaak at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center through Feb. 15.

I was given the opportunity to present an exhibit of my own choosing recently at the  Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center, and was thrilled to invite three young artists who I’ve been watching for some time now. These three, Claire Rowley, Ben Hastings and Joel Isaak, stand out as artists who are producing consistently, exploring their respective mediums bravely, and presenting work that is able to really speak to others, both aesthetically and conceptually.

In “The Russians,” Claire Rowley has drawn and watercolored on vellum sandwiched with Plexiglas so that the effect has depth and added structure. Four male figures smile out at us or look on with a sort of happy indifference. The stenciling behind calls forth the feeling of both old wallpaper and jungle forests.

She has repeated some motifs in her “tribe” imagery — the folded arms and cozy groupings of its members giving a very intimate sense of the subjects while also suggesting the universality of the groups that define us.

In “Filling,” the subject appears to be the artist herself, holding her hands out both receptively and in a gesture that reads as “it is what it is.” In the background we see writing that declares, “That which fills your heart, fills your life,” and the subject’s heart is in fact in the very center of the frame, causing us to get only a glimpse of her neck and chin, rather than her whole portrait.

Art Seen: Photo finish — Picking favorites a tough task

By Zirrus VanDevere, for the Redoubt Reporter

“Current Riders” by Sandra Sterling.

The brilliant thing about Joe Kashi’s most recent idea for an exhibit at the Kenai Fine Arts Center is that the judges have already done their work, and the artists have already done theirs. Pieces by local photographers that have previously been accepted into statewide photography exhibits — Rarified Light and Alaska Positive — over the last seven years were eligible to be entered into “Refined Light,” showing through December in Gallery One.

The result is a distinct, cream-of-the-crop sort of show, and although the judges were many and varied, the high quality of the exhibit is tough to dispute.

Just for fun, I thought I might try and judge the exhibit a final time, which turned out to be more difficult than I’d bargained for. There are so many really fine pieces in this show that I ended up with a lot of placers, and a long list of honorable mentions. It helps to remember that I am only one person, and also that it was often only one person who judged these pieces in the first place to be worthy of inclusion in the statewide shows.

These are artists and photography that I am familiar with and, like anyone else, I have certain biases and aesthetic tastes and preferences.