Artist Talks @ Bunnell

After earning her MFA from the Rainier Writer’s Workshop Erin Coughlin Hollowell authored three books of poetry. She is a Rasmuson Foundation Fellows and In 2017, she was awarded a second Rasmuson Fellowship to work on her third book. Currently, Hollowell is the executive director of the Storyknife Writers Residency, a residency for women writers being developed outside of Homer, Alaska and she is...

Hal Gage- (black & white photography of glacial silt) Patterns in the flowing mud and silt are the vanishing fingerprint of the glacier. These transitory images are all that is left as the ice disappears and the waters dry up—leaving just a hint of the glacier that once was. Rika Mouw- (mussel shell assemblages) Through these mussel shell assemblages I reflect on the time I’ve spent on this edge o...

How can the names of this area be mapped more inclusively? With Bretwood Higman, Sally Ash and Argent Kvasnikoff. more.

Continuing our conversations with Indigenous artist, activist and curator Melissa Shaginoff, this week we discuss the sign painting workshop she led last month. Participants share how it feels and what inspires them to visibly honor the legacy of Indigenous stewardship on signs placed around Homer. more.

Skywalker Payne’s work embraces her experience as a professional oral storyteller, performance artist, author, poet, nurse, and healer. She is leading a new workshop model called R.A.C.E.S. (Race A Concept Explored in Story Circle). Built upon her storytelling experience, knowledge of Black history and racism, Skywalker found storytelling an effective method to communicate difficult feelings and e...

Born in New Zealand, Sheryl Maree Reily lives in the small mining town of Ester. The gravity of the global situation prompted her to transform her creative practice as a self- taught photographer and healthcare professional into an arts-based advocacy for human and environmental wellbeing. Her work draws upon an expanded field of sculpture, performance, installation, and media technology. Reily ha...

Scott McDonald an artist, an art educator, and a lifetime resident of Alaska. He teaches K-6 art for Anchorage School District as well as an active studio practice in both Homer and Anchorage. Anvil Catlin Williamson was born and raised in Spokane, WA but has been a permanent resident of Fairbanks, Alaska since 2008. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The University of Alaska Fairban...

Steven Godfrey is a potter and a Professor of Ceramics at the University of Alaska Anchorage. His current work is less about being tailored for a specific utilitarian function but rather to illustrate a collection of his interests, combined during the making process and meant to speak beyond functionality and tell a story through the symbolism of form and color. The forms he makes emulate the eleg...

“Nature has always been the thread that sews my paintings together. Instead of being a part of nature, we see ourselves as existing in tandem with it: separate but together. This is, of course, an illusion. The complexities of our relationship with nature are infinite and they run the gamut from peaceful to the sublime and from pleasant to the horrifying. My work explores the many levels of our re...

Steven Gordon is an Anchorage artist painting the landscape of south central Alaska for the past 35 years in a painterly realist style. He went to Dartmouth college and then earned this MFA from the university of Iowa in 1984 and headed up to Alaska to start his adventures with the life and land of Alaska. He’s taught at UAA and APU and had done numerous painting workshops, and artist-in-the-schoo...

Melissa Shaginoff (Ahtna, Piaute) discusses an ephemeral land marking project, “Acknowledgement in Action.” Original place names, art, language and science intersect. She was joined by special guests Sally Ash, Sugt’estun language teacher in Nanwalek and Syverine Bentz, the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve’s Education Coordinator. more

Joel Isaak's family is from the village of Ch’aghałnikt (Point Possession) and currently lives in Soldotna. His Dena’ina name, Łiq’a yes, translates to salmon skin which relates to his pursuits of learning fish skin sewing. Joel is an artist, educator and lifelong learner. He uses art to uncover understanding of working in an educational environment where he combines the Western education model wi...

A conversation about a community process of education and transparency in decision-making about land acknowledgement, Asia hosts civic leaders and artist, Argent Kvasnikoff for an open dialogue about marking Tuggeht as Indigenous land with Ivan Encelewsk (CEO, Ninilchik Village Tribe) Donna Aderhold (Homer City Council) Marianne Aplin (US Fish and Wildlife, Islands and Ocean Visitors Center) Matt...

Features guests Emily Johnson and Amber Webb. This conversation will be centered around learning about land acknowledgement Amber Webb is an artist & activist from Dillingham, Alaska of Yup’ik and Unangan heritage. She received a Rasmuson Individual Artist Award and a Project Award. Amber explores pictorial Yup’ik storytelling to tell contemporary stories of oppression and resilience. Emily Johnso...

Born in Fairbanks, Alaska to a Tlingit/N’ishga Mother and Hippy/American father, Da-ka-xeen Mehner uses the tools of family ancestry and personal history to build his art. his work stems from an examination of a multicultural heritage and social expectations and definitions. In particular his work has focused on the constructs of Native American identity, and an attempt to define the Self outside...

What does it mean to design Social Justice? July 3, 2020, featured guests Kima and Dasha Kelly Hamilton. Kima is a facilitator, DJ and social justice engineer. From Pennsylvania to Georgia to Alaska to Wisconsin, he has shaped his engineering skills and artistic talents into a signature work as a convener, counselor and ARTivist. Kima as traveled as an Arts Envoy for the U.S. Embassy in Colombia,...

Featured guest dancers: Mariah Maloney, Maura García and Becky Kendall Originally from Homer, Mariah Maloney is a New York-based dance artist located in Brooklyn and Brockport, New York. Mariah Maloney Dance formed in 2003 and today the company is invited to perform, teach and create new work in New York, throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. Maura García (non-enrolled Cher...

Friday, June 19, featured guests Nathan Shafer and Melissa Shaginoff. Nathan Shafer is a new media artist from Alaska specializing in augmented reality and digital humanities. He is one of the founding members of both the Meme-Rider Media Team and Manifest. AR. He was profiled by PBS Digital Studios as part of an online collaboration called The Future in 2014. Shafer’s geobased AR works have been...

Friday, June 12, featured guests Kat Moore and Tim Easton. Kat Moore, multi-instrumentalist and creative force known as The Forest That Never Sleeps, weaves a sonic tapestry with her compositions. Kat lives and teaches music in Anchorage. Tim Easton is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter playing rock and roll, folk and Americana music. He tours extensively and often plays in Alaska. Tim is...

June 5, 2020, featured guests Tamara Wilson and Jimmy Riordan. Tamara Wilson is a Fairbanks-based artist and creator of The Lemonade Stand, a mobile exhibit space with the mission to grow and connect creative community. Jimmy Riordan is an artist and educator living in Anchorage. He is currently working on the Alaska Bookmobile Project, bringing a 20 year old bookmobile out of retirement and re-im...

May 28, 2020, featured Catie Bursch, Amber Webb and Thorey Munro. These artists have all lived and worked along Bristol Bay for many years. Catie Bursch intertwines art, science and commercial fishing on a daily basis. She has fished in Bristol Bay for the past 30 years where she and Tom raised their two girls in the summer. She just finished a fellowship with Alaska Salmon Fellows exploring salmo...

April 30, 2020, featured visual artists Bruce Farnsworth and Sheila Wyne. Bruce Farnsworth is an Anchorage based writer, artist and community organizer. He founded and directed MTS Gallery in Anchorage and Light Brigade, a multimedia collaboration of artists who stage site specific art interventions in the built and natural environment. He is Co-Lead of the Pan-Arctic 8Boxes Project. Farnsworth wa...

May 21, 2020, featured Homer Youth guests: Ella Parks, Drew Wimmerstedt and Asa Panarelli Asa Panarelli is a locally grown actor and musician. A recent graduate of Homer High, he looks forward to delving deeper into all the art and creativity that Homer has to offer. Ella Parks is a singer-songwriter who was born and raised in Homer. She currently resides in Austin, Texas where she is making new m...

May 14, 2020, featured Francesca DuBrock and Michael Walsh. Francesca DuBrock is Chief Curator at the Anchorage Museum. She is passionate about creative practice as a method of understanding and questioning the world, often collaborating with artists and community members to develop projects highlighting cultural diversity in the North. Before returning home to Alaska, Francesca worked as an artis...

May 7, 2020, featured Alaska artists Amy Meissner and Carla Cope. Amy Meissner combines traditional handwork, found objects and abandoned textiles to reference the literal, physical and emotional work of women. She has shown internationally with textile work in the permanent collections of the Anchorage Museum, the Contemporary Art Bank of Alaska and the Alaska Humanities Forum as well as various...