October 2010 by F Magazine

arts H Music H culture

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october 2010

Volume Two | Issue Nine

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lo c al ar tist prof i l es J ulie Dec ker D uke R uss ell I nd ia n Nic k

o r ig in al content Peter Porco Rebecc a A . Good ric h Jesus Landin-Torrez III Kellie Dohert y

Set the Beach Afire! The Volunteer Art Department in Action Pg 4

Letter From the Editor Dear Reader, This month’s theme for poetry, fiction, essay and art is “Learning a Craft.” As with all of our submission themes, this was open to interpretation. As an editor I derived much pleasure from finding the myriad ways both “learning” and “craft” could be interpreted. It is always unfortunate that the economics of space prohibit us from printing all the submissions we deem worthy of publication. We ask you to savor what was chosen, and know there is a great amount of talent to be found among the writers of South Central Alaska. Starting up a small business is all about learning a craft. It is not learned immediately or in just one instructional lesson. It is something that is wrought, fine-tuned and finagled. There is as much trial and error as there is triumph and glory. But to achieve the latter, there must be passion and perseverance. If you are a subscriber to F Magazine, you will notice that despite recent upheavals we are still here! You will also notice there are some changes to layout and format, and we have new contributing writers (a million thanks to all our wonderful volunteers!). You may also see yet a new price on the cover (if you’re in Anchorage). This is part of our learning curve. It takes a tremendous amount of money to produce a high quality looking magazine, and more money to distribute it and pay our vendors. It has been suggested many times that we lower our standards and use a lighter stock paper. Perhaps we’re being too headstrong, but we believe the quality is a good part of its appeal. However, we also find that less people feel inclined to pay the new price we’ve had for the past two months – and that defeats our goal of bringing visibility to the arts. Thus, we are compromising the price for those who live in close radius to our central hub (we apologize to those who live in other towns, but we simply couldn’t afford it – please bear with us and continue supporting the arts!) F Magazine is completely comprised of passionate volunteers. So as to not stretch them thin, we are constantly seeking more volunteers until we can afford otherwise. If you have a little time on your hands and you have a passion for the arts and culture, please contact us to find out how you can be of assistance (Fhideout@gmail.com). In being true to our mission, F Magazine is now the official regional affiliate (our region being the entire state of Alaska) for the Scholastic Writing Competition of the national Alliance of Young Artists and Writers. (This is in conjunction with MTS Gallery – which is running the competition for artists.) The national organization has been honoring students (grades 7-12) with awards and scholarships for 70 years. This is the first time Alaskan students will have a chance at competing, and we are excited to be giving them this opportunity! Pass the word on to teachers and students all over the state. Registration and more information on the competition can be found at artandwriting.com. We are seeking volunteers to judge the 11 different categories in January and a number of professional/ experienced readers/actors to perform the winning work for the premier. Art is good for the soul – for young and old! Viva las Artes, The editor

Table of Contents | October 2010 | Volume Two | Issue Nine

R ejec tio n I n E ar ne s t

{Duke Russell}

Wo o d wo r k i n g

By Kellie Doherty

Burning B a s ke t Homer sets the beach afire { Julie Decker}

I t ’s Warho l S e as o n

Warhol is coming to town

Po et r y S el ec t i o n s

Photography

By Jesus Landin-Torrez III

H e S a i d / Sh e S a i d

Sil ver, met allu rgy & hip - ho p

By Ella Harrison Gordan By Peter Porco

Dea r Yo u

R are Light

On stage in October

O f M ice and Ar t

Pl ay H o u s e

By Rebecca A. Goodrich

{Indian Nick}

[photo by Sandy Gillespie] Front Cover IMAGINE For seven days, artist Mavis Muller led a crew of volunteers in the construction of a temporary sculpture. On the eighth day of its creation, the basket was given to the community. Everyone was welcome to add messages, talismans, wishes, prayers, memorials. It was a festival, a ceremony. Simple fun, but richly complex – and a warm welcome to a winter in Homer.

Contributors

Jessica Bowman Kellie Doherty Benjamin Allen Ellis Alec Fritz Sandy Gillespie Rebecca A. Goodrich Ella Harrison Gordon Kathleen McCoy Peter Porco Matt Sullivan Jesus Landin-Torrez III Teeka A. Ballas executive editor Bruce Farnsworth poetry editor Gretchen Weiss art director Emily Wilder copy editor

F Magazine fh ide O ut.org

fhideout@gmail.com 907.244.6252

Back Cover [photo courtesey of Michael Gerace] FREESTUFF August 30 to September 24, artifacts were collected from anchorage.craigslist.org and re-presented at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art. They were transfigured by Michael Gerace and placed back on “free stuff”, using the website as a ready-made, online exhibition space. Every work of art generated during the month was free to take.

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photo by Buzz Schwall

By Kathleen McCoy As an Anchorage resident, I’ve always taken comfort that Duke Russell lives in my town and records it. He flashed onto my like-o-meter a long time ago, as the veggie-biker at an Out North Under 30 back in 1996. The exact monologue has faded, but what’s left was the impression that he knew and lived the Anchorage experience more directly than I did, with wit and humor and truth-telling that he shared with the rest of us. I laughed along with the audience, and felt the sting of automotive complacency that his bikerself railed against. This April, when the Rasmuson Awards for artists were named, I heard he didn’t get one. Ouch. It sent my mind wandering through what it must feel like to be well-established and appreciated, but not be validated by a cash prize that would support your artistic efforts. Back in 1992, Duke experienced another similar shortfall, when the Visual Arts Center of Alaska decided he wouldn’t be joining them as an artist. It conjured up a sting with the power to bruise. Not a deathblow, but something an artist has to tangle with before moving on. Artist David Felker, who ran the International Gallery and taught art classes back then, was an ally who liked Russell’s work. He said it had “a fresh, naive quality, a brilliance. It’s almost animated, almost primitive.” But as a West High graduate and completely self-taught, Russell didn’t have art school credentials to lean on and soothe his rejected ego. Instead, he had cross-country museum-visiting road trips, the influence and guidance

of Anchorage artists like Hugh McPeck and Joan Kimura, nine years of lifedrawing workshops, set work with the Alaska Repertory Theatre, an art class in Juneau, and hours and hours of sidewalk sketching and studio painting to hone his technique and craft. Felker knew fully what the art center’s rejection should mean. “Many, many people who would have liked to have been artists have been criticized for something they did and it completely destroyed something creative within them,” Felker told Susan Morgan, writing for the Anchorage Daily News. How did Russell handle it? “My initial reaction was, ‘I’m going to find a place to put up my paintings and drop my drawers and give you a big moon.’” Suitably honest, suitably Duke. He survived the rejection and opened that show at the Java Joint coffee house. And he went right on creating. A tour of Anchorage arts news archives documents Russell’s steady work and engagement over the next 18 years. He pops up 173 times. Reviewers have called his work “sociology” and “editorials in oil.” While his visual critiques are sharp and cut quickly to his grievance, they tell a true story and aren’t without sympathy. He’s not above us; he’s one of us. Mike Dunham, who has covered arts at the Anchorage Daily News for more than 20 years, compared Russell’s work at the Decker-Morris Gallery in 2001 to European heavyweights who documented the urban landscapes in London, Berlin and Paris. (That’s ironic, since Russell’s

next stop is Paris; details below.) “The Alaska artist likeliest to remain current 150 years from now is Duke Russell. Why? For the same reason that the caricatures of Hogarth, Daumier and Grosz continue to provide more enduring images of London, Paris and Berlin than the exquisitely refined or audaciously experimental work of their contemporaries,” wrote Dunham. “What Russell shares with these artists is a balance of surface depiction and penetrating commentary.” Flash forward. So 18 years and many canvasses and commissions later, did the Rasmuson grant rejection hurt as much? At mid-career, what did ‘no’ feel like? Did the resilience surface as needed? (For the record, Russell did win a Rasmuson project grant in 2004, and used it to buy a digital camera that catapulted him to some of his large format work.) To me, resilience is so valuable a trait that it seems worth examining. I suspect we live in an age of diminishment, a 21st century of lowered expectations, a reset to more modest horizons, of recalibrated ambitions. I want resilience for all of us. Will we retreat into bitterness and be mean about it? Or will we go within ourselves to stiffen the core and stay true? I wondered if Russell had advice for us. In pursuit of Duke’s answer and lesson, we met and talked on three occasions this summer. One was a tour of his $800-a-month Spenard art studio, one was dinner at the Spenard Roadhouse, and one was a long talk at a kiddie reading table at Title Wave Books (it was the only place on that busy Saturday at the popular Northern Lights Mall where we could have a quiet conversation). Continued on page 3

“Where’s the beauty? Find the beauty in the most normal setting that you can.” Valley of Travel Things

Rope Burn

This work started as a pencil-andpaper sketch of a trip he took to Homer with his wife, Marie. Their two kids, Malia and Shane, ages 13 and 15 respectively, were away on a trip to California, so they had some time to hit the road as they once did when they were younger. The 8-by-11 sketch still hangs in his studio, a favorite thing. “This is where I want certain things to go,” he said. “It’s very personalized, like a window in.” He’s driving, Marie is sleeping, and all the details in the image mean something. First, the typography: The night was late, the road was foggy, Listening to a variety of songs, some of which when played were scary The road kept changing how much of the leg I got to see. Like a sailor with a three-day pass, wanting now more than ever to see past the knee Carving left or is it right We’ll see, we’ll see. Damn fog, elusive dancer of the dawn. You vex me! On the floor in the back are meaningful objects to Russell: his foldable easel, his twin-reflex Pentax, some rocks and sticks from a beach stop, and his wife’s book, now set aside. “It was called ‘The Book Club,’ and she was reading it for her book club,” he said, amused. For Russell, much of the story is in the small details.

The year was 1991, and Russell had just returned from Juneau where he’d concentrated on an art class. He made the painting, but was reworking it into a more rectangular shape for a T-shirt, one of his business ventures. The effort was a fundraiser for the International Alliance of Theatre Employees. He was working backstage at “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the time. “I had my little headlamp on, and I scratch-boarded Rope Burn again.” In 2009, he took that rendition, blew it up and made a painting of it. It’s a Xerox that he wallpapered onto a panel, colored over and sanded. “It wasn’t really the plan, but it ended up looking kind of like an old movie poster.” In the image, the flyman has messed up a cue, dropped a curtain down in front of the actor, who is pissed. The stage manager says, “Get a grip, flyman.” For Russell, it’s a statement about how tough a stagehand’s life can be: poor work schedules thanks to cheap managers and conflicts over venue space, and intimidation from actors with big egos. He still does works as a stagehand, but considers this piece of art a personal comment on the rougher aspects of it.

Garden of Eatin’ This acrylic on board is a tribute to an historical spot deep in the heart of Spenard, Duke’s stomping grounds. (“I rarely venture more than a mile from my house,” he said.) In this case, he knows the backstory of the couple who homesteaded on the spot decades ago, hoping to farm. They worked the land, but got poor return. Eventually, they decided to cook for their living, and began this restaurant in a Quonset hut. Today it is Fiori D’Italia and still a popular neighborhood eatery. It’s also the venue for the Spenard Spring Social, a parade of local talent and music that Russell helps organize each spring. FHideout.org

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Continued from page 1 Russell’s hopeful application for a Rasmuson project grant was to pay for a trip to Paris to sketch and gather material for more work. This is a post-Anchorage strategy he’s employed before, with past sojourns to Seattle and New York City that led to fresh work and new shows. Now, Russell wants to try it farther afield in one or many of Paris’s 20 arrondissements. “I feel like I’ve drawn every corner of Anchorage. I love it, but I’m at the end of that rope. I know there are new places and I’m still discovering them.” So how did Russell take the no this time? (This will sound familiar.) “I was really quite upset. I just said, ‘Dammit, I’m gonna go to Paris with or without this grant.’” But then he asked himself: “Is that healthy?” I’m amazed at the question. Of course, it’s healthy. It’s Unsinkable Mollie Brown. It’s a resounding thunderclap of resilience. Just as he did in 1992, Russell moved quickly to Plan B. He’ll take the earnings from four months of steady work on “Everybody Loves Whales” and turn that into his own grant to pay for the trip to Paris. What could be wrong with that? But Russell is digging deeper. “If you portray yourself to yourself as an overlooked semivictim, have a pattern of woe-is-me, [that’s no good].” But the Rasmuson rejection sends him even deeper than that. He calls into question his whole career as an artist. He moved to Anchorage at age 12, and found the tiny downtown a great place to be. He started drawing early and relished the attention it got him. “As a kid, it was a way to adults. Has this been a scam the whole time? Have I been chasing nothing to do with art?” Perhaps he’s just been vying for attention? But then he decides: So what? “All these byproducts of doing the work — the meditational component of painting, spending all that time at it, the physical craftsmanship, the penmanship. You practice something for 10,000 hours, you become capable at it.

“That’s the weird thing about life. The blueprints and the plans get thrown out the window and this other thing happens in the process. I guess the after-effect is really being able to process that and be OK with it. It worked out great. I’m happy to be an artist, to do this kind of work that I do, to have the family that I have. All of these things seem to work out for me and I’m very appreciative. “Not to be superstitious, but I certainly am conscious that you better keep that humility, that sense of who you are, not what you are, and be OK with that. “It really is a great feeling, because I felt pretty retarded when I was 17. I couldn’t get language, I couldn’t get ideas. But at some point, things started clicking and firing off for me. And being self-educated, it’s a constant pursuit of reading documents, instruction models, catalogs. I want to know everything … ” The Paris trip is just extending his lifelong arts education. Yes, he’ll be going to museums, but he’ll also be sketching on the avenues, just as he has done in Anchorage, Seattle and Manhattan. Conjuring the difference between Anchorage’s mostly angular, practical streets and the lush embellishments of Parisian boulevards boggles the mind. “I’ve already gone nuts,” said Russell. “I’ve been to Google Street View. I’m gonna be dizzy.” So, after all the sturm und drang, the answer to coping with rejection is … ? Get back to work. But you never heard that from Duke Russell. He told me he never gives advice, a rule that came to him from the artist Bill Sabo, who said, “Never give advice, even when you’re being asked.” To be honest, I never really asked that exact question, but his answer was exactly what I was listening for. And, of course, he’s right. Kathleen McCoy is an Anchorage independent journalist. She works as an electronic media specialist at UAA, and hosts KSKA’s Hometown Alaska radio program. "

3Burning kk k Basket4 k kk

S e t t h e B e a c h A fkikrke ! Photos and story by Sandy Gillespie Imagine time the healer. Imagine sharing. Imagine art. Imagine compassion. Imagine: to conceive in one’s mind all possibilities. Imagine that! These are a few of the phrases people attached to the handmade basket created on the beach in Homer last September. For seven days, artist Mavis Muller led a crew of volunteers in the construction of a temporary sculpture. Materials had been collected over the summer: long grasses, nettles, fireweed, alder, birch, a myriad of plants and flowers — even bright yellow devil’s club. Inspired by Burning Man, where she worked with a team to create a quarter-mile-long, 100-foothigh sculpture, Mavis has designed and coordinated this project at Mariner’s Park for seven years. She has given each event a theme: Adieu, Renew, Reflect, Impart, Surpass, Sustain. And this year: Imagine. I arrived from Ester, AK on Wednesday, September 15. For several hours a day, I helped twist and weave grass, found driftwood to “write” with, shaped dried pods into wreaths. Community members dropped in throughout the day offering hands and spirit to create the basket. A wall tent housed materials, including hot water for tea and donated cookies. Fog rolled in every afternoon, and I put on long underwear for the first time this season. Talking with Mavis each day was a wonderful lesson in community art and outreach. Everything, from gathered materials, tools, and time was donated. Not only was there no monetary profit, there was no reimbursement for expenditures. Mavis didn’t talk about that. What Mavis did talk about was imagination — its

power to open minds and hearts, its power to shape and reshape our world. Laughter. Kindness. Insight. Challenge. Perseverance. Trust. Exhaustion. Joy. These are words that describe my experience working on this creation in this community. Mavis likes to say we are the Volunteer Art Department: like the Volunteer Fire Department, only instead of putting out fires, we spark them. The basket is created to burn. It is constantly being created or burning — always in transition, never static. A Lakota shaman told me once, at a sacred ceremony I’d been invited to, that when we say a prayer and toss a bit of tobacco into the fire, the rising smoke is not a metaphor, but the actual prayer rising. On the eighth day of its creation, the basket was given to the community. Everyone was welcome to add messages, talismans, wishes, prayers, memorials — materials available to all who want to participate. People began arriving by midday — to add to the basket, to walk the labyrinth created by middleschool children, to sound the 5000-pound handcrafted steel gong that resonated along the beach. By evening almost a hundred people shared a potluck, and as the sun broke through the fog on the horizon, a vibrant orange-pink sunset caused the gathered 200-300 participants to cheer as we lit six torches and set the basket afire. We witnessed our burning creation, our lifting prayers, in silence. Fireworks exploding in the center inspired cheers, and as the basket dissolved slowly, fire dancers circled the basket with swinging flames. It was a festival, a ceremony. Simple fun, but richly complex – and a warm welcome to a winter in Homer. "

Mavis Muller led a crew of volunteer community artists to create the Burning Basket

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Of mice and art { Julie Decker }

Photo by Teeka A. Ballas

|6 By Benjamin Allen Ellis What impresses me most is that in all of her work and in person, Julie Decker exudes a sense of invitation. It comes from checking the ego at the door and a repeated intention to serve. She seems to find and share so much joy in that. I first became aware of Julie early in my own art career. The Anchorage Daily News ran a big piece on the Decker-Morris Gallery in the early ’00’s. It was one of the first galleries in town that celebrated a more contemporary and experimental vein of local art. I intended to one day show at that gallery. I was inspired to know there were people in the Anchorage scene who didn’t espouse support only for artists who had “made it” outside Alaska, a once-dominant attitude toward local creators. Too bad I never got the chance. The Decker-Morris Gallery closed its doors in 2005; the space now houses the downtown Kaladi Brothers on Sixth Avenue in the Performing Arts Center. Lucky, humorous and perhaps ironic that our first meeting would take place there. A second meeting in her studio space followed. Our interviews bring forth a welcome internal celebration. “This is a place where you can make a difference,” says Julie. The first hour-long conversation was recorded; I’ve sat and “It’s not so big like San Francisco, where you know, there’s listened to it in a quiet space more than once … like a good already so much, it doesn’t really need you, where you’re just book I keep getting more out of it. one more penny in the piggy bank.” Julie has a rich art background. She holds a bachelor’s in Through our conversations I find Julie is very complex – and fine art and journalism, a master’s in arts administration and I mean that in a complimentary way, like a decadent pastry a doctorate in contemporary arts history. Perhaps even more that is slyly the healthiest item on the menu. Levels of depth, impressively, she is the new director of the International Gallery curiosity, intelligence, faith, humility and generosity existing of Contemporary Art – the only person on their payroll. She is in the form of wife, mother, teacher, daughter, artist, worldalso an instructor at UAA, a frequent curator for the Anchorage traveler, author, academic … Talking about Julie could turn Museum, and one of the driving forces behind the upcoming into a list of qualities and titles, but those still would not cover Andy Warhol exhibit. the ground necessary to give a reader much of an idea about I point out to Julie her propensity for juggling numerous this woman who has steadfastly, quietly helped Anchorage’s activities at a time. blossoming arts culture. “Yeah, I don’t know if I’d want to go back to doing one Her artwork conveys that density. It holds thought and thing,” she says with a smile. “I have this fear of being idle. If intention and could quite easily be thought of as essays on you’re idle are you going to lose interest, are you going to lose color, line, space, and whatever it is that is holding her interest motivation, are you gonna get out of the loop? And then I think at the time. that we’re still just babies here. There is a lot that can happen An avid reader, she reads about art consistently, having more – still a lot that hasn’t happened. There is a need for people to recently completed the book-long interview with famed art give.” collector Charles Saatchi (“I Am This drive to help and be of Charles Saatchi’”), a biography service is one half of the equation “I love the idea of art on Willem de Kooning, and she that makes Julie so renowned in says, “everything Warhol over being on the street the last two years.” Anchorage. The other half would be that she is so good at it. I was Julie began painting in her and art being in the early curious why she decided to stay college days in Oregon. Her in Alaska when obviously her community and art being father, Don Decker – an artist talents could have carried her far and teacher – has influenced her something you happen more than she initially realized. and away like it has for so many others. She says she took to it like an upon.” – Julie Decker “I grew up here, it’s home,” she adrenaline junkie, finding it explains. “So in a way you have an “attractively scary” and more aversion to staying in the place where you grew up... you know: challenging than any other endeavor previous or since. With a Are you a failure if you stay?” I could definitely relate to that five-year hiatus after college, she came back to painting. sentiment – for a long time it was backed up with the notion “There is no other thing that allows me to stop thinking about that an artist had to make an out-of-state name for themselves everything else,” says Julie. “For a long time, I would never before having much hope of garnering attention in-state. say in public that I was a painter. I felt like either that was my FHideout.org

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private life and I needed something to be separate, or else I felt like it was in conflict with my desire to serve artists. And I never wanted to be self-serving in what I was doing. I kind of stayed in hiding.” Julie’s first show took place in Homer in 2006. She has taken part in various solo and group shows since (including the most recent Renegade Art Show), but her first solo show at IGCA (May, 2011) will be comprised of 40 works on canvas, and will marks the first time she has shown her work in a gallery she is associated with. Partly responsible for the show is Michele Suchland, Julie’s studio-mate. Michele laughs as she tells me, “Julie had so much work crowding up the place it was time for a show. She works so fast. I’ll be working on one painting for hours and I’ll turn around and she has two more done.” Ten years of painting in private impressed within Julie a burgeoning sense of how she could help artists in the Anchorage community. “I had this urge to – it sounds so corny – but serve,” says Julie. “That idea that artists needed a voice, that there was value to what they were doing ... and all I was interested in doing was creating venues and creating a platform for that.” Julie says she sees herself as a translator, reaching across the too-often great divide of commercial living and artistic integrity. As she sees it, there are challenges unique to an artist’s life – it is rich with rejection and that is something that takes a mature artist to consider, weigh, and accept. She has helped artists show their work, sell it, obtain grants, and recognition. Her ability to be on both sides of the fence at once as artist and administrator is a large part of what makes her such an impressive figure, and all the more so because she used the dual roles to grow as a human being in the midst of it all. “What it helped with was to take away my artist ego. I realize, that, my work is my own, and I’m gonna struggle with it, and outside validation is really fleeting, and fickle,” Julie smiles that easy smile of hers as she tells me all of this. “So I think it kind of took away that whole immature phase where you’re just, like, wanting, you know, a banner out there saying ‘look at what I did.’ I’ve learned an appreciation for both risk and reason.” Her book “Icebreakers” is a beautiful coffeetable exposé of local artists. Her photo-rich tomes “True North: New Alaskan Architecture” and “Modern North: Architecture on the Frozen Edge” do the same for

the specialized architectural needs and qualities of not only places like Alaska, but Scandinavia and Canada as well. Julie is currently working on bringing contemporary artists throughout northern climes to Anchorage as well, not only in pieces of artwork, but also in person. She says she envisions these artists getting outside the regular venues to “make art all over the place. “I love the idea of art being on the street and art being in the community and art being something you happen upon.” As she sees it, there are challenges unique to an artist’s life – it is rich with rejection, which is something that takes a mature artist to consider, weigh, and accept. Accept too, that typically there are limited avenues available to artists who are out to put food on the table and keep it there. She points out that it takes a level of maturity for most artists to realize steady income will most likely come from another source besides artwork, whether from the grant system, or from levels of compromise in one’s work. “There are so many people that have risk-aversion … [I can help] manage risk … I can go to meetings, you know, help with the fear that artists are just these rogue, temporary risks. “In the ideal world, we free artists to be immersed in the work,” she says. I wrote that quote down, recorded it and replayed it more than once. I’ve tattooed it on my brain – as an artist with 10 years of work under his belt, it conjures up a wealth of gratitude and relief that yes, there is a real community in Anchorage, one that will support artists in following their creative dreams and wishes. "

|8 By Benjamin Allen Ellis

With the November 5 opening of one of the biggest exhibits to ever come to Anchorage, artists and patrons alike will have the chance to celebrate the vision,

aesthetic and lifestyle of one of the most influential artists of the last century. Venues such as Midnight Sun Brewery, MTS Gallery, Snow City Cafe, Sub Zero Lounge, The International Gallery, Border’s Books and Middle Way Cafe will showcase Alaska talent under the banner of “Pop 11,” a media-blitz helmed by Anchorage artist and curator Julie Decker. Pop 11 events run the length of the “Warhol Season,” three months during which 7,500 square feet of the Anchorage Museum will showcase a broad mix of Warhol’s work, from the widely known to the little-seen. Warhol was on the short list of artists who were felt to have the range and relevance to draw in a vast majority of

spectators. From school kids to Alaska bourgeois, from sports extremists to Alaska’s indigenous people, Warhol’s name and visuals are known far and wide. Getting his start in the 1950s as a successful commercial artist, Warhol

mediums of film, music, painting, screen printing, photography, selfportraiture, and his stillreigning influence find display under her careful eye. Not only can we view Warhol’s more acclaimed works, we are also afforded the opportunity

“He would have loved the iPhone.” The exhibition runs through January 27, 2011. Pop 11 events will run in conjunction, with the season kickoff at The Factory Party, November 13 at the International Gallery of Contemporary

surfaced into public consciousness during the ’60s. Picking up the mantle of “Pop Art,” he became its arbiter and center. Pop Art challenged previous traditions by asserting the use of mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture by an artist is contiguous with the perspective of fine art— similar to the revolution and acceptance of street art taking place today. Warhol amassed nearly three decades of fame, praise, criticism, and a body of work testifying to the power of experimentation and challenging the status quo before his death in 1987. Decker spent the last two years immersed in Warhol media. His life, his diaries, his work in the

to glimpse into the private aspects of the artist’s life, which in his lifetime were considered taboo. Photos of Warhol in drag may indeed push some buttons. “Anchorage seems to be about 10 years behind in terms of dialogue concerning gay issues,” said Decker. “Hopefully these little-seen portraits can be a small part of the maturing dialogue.” Which is what Warhol was so good at: dialogue concerning the surrounding world. Be it soup cans, Liz Taylor, or a night’s sleep, he wasn’t afraid to experiment or embrace technology. On view will be video and Polaroid artwork. “Andy was really one of the first video artists, and he was the first to use a Polaroid camera,” said Decker.

Art. The event is hosted by a local community of artists and architects who are affording Anchorage the opportunity to taste in the revelry through self-expression of fashion and community. The Factory Party will be one of the biggest events of “Warhol Season,” and finds its inspiration in the legendary community of Warhol-anointed superstars, artists, and otherwise interesting people. Inspiration, not imitation, is key. Decker sums it up: “Andy … was not about a muted lifestyle. [We] wanted to create an experience paying homage to Warhol and his concepts in a contemporary way.” The invitation is to be yourself, your exaggerated self. Ok, now. Ready, set …

pop!

“Andy Warhol: Manufactured” On view November 5, 2010 - January 30, 2011 at the Anchorage Museum [anchoragemuseum.org]. Pop 11 events will run in conjunction, with the season kickoff at The Factory Party, November 13 at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art [igcaalaska.org]. 1998.1.2502.1 Andy Warhol, “Moonwalk,” published edition, 1987, screen print on Lenox Museum Board, 38 x 38 in. Image credit: The Andy Warhol Museum

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October | 9

R a re li g ht

by Kellie Doherty

Images courtesy of the Anchorage Museum

2010

By Brian Adams

By Kevin G. Smith

The largest juried photo exhibition in the state, sponsored by the Alaska Photographic Center, will only grace the walls of the Anchorage Museum until October 31 -— after which it will tour the rest of the state. This year’s “Rarified Light” exhibit features 50 photographs in all, with seven honorable mentions and two for best in show. The judge, Keith Carter of Beaumont, Texas, saw fit to choose both “Fire Eyes” by Ward Hulbert of Anchorage and “Prodigal Daughter” by Maggie Skiba of Eagle River. The two photographs won the same award, though they differ vastly from one another. According to Carter in his juror’s statement, “The submissions to ‘Rarefied Light’ represent photography’s continued evolvement and passion for life on our small, elegant planet” — though “rarified,” by definition, means to be esoterically distant or exclusive from the

lives and concerns of ordinary people. Skiba’s “Prodigal Daughter” is centered mainly on a little girl sitting on a fence. Angled straight forward, the camera’s eye is focused on her. The entire photo is blurred, however, and the edges are blackened as well. While the actual picture may not be mind-blowing, the depth certainly is intriguing. Punctuating the photo in the upper-right corner is a smaller photo of presumably the same girl but as an infant sitting with her parents. This family photo is sharp and bright in contrast — it looks like a professional family portrait. The title of the piece is probably the key to understanding this cryptic contrast. Perhaps Skiba wanted to portray the disappearing childlike nature only to reassure the viewers that the little girl was still young and there was plenty of time for fun. Hulbert’s “Fire Eyes” takes a vastly

By Bob Hallinen

different approach in photography. This photo is quite dark in more ways than one. First of all, surroundings in the picture are hardly distinguishable. The subjects, most of whom are children, are darkskinned. There is very little light except for the whites of their eyes, teeth, and lightcolored clothing. The subjects are intently watching something not within the photo, though one might assume it’s a fire. The image is very dark with splashes of grey and white — a stark, glowing white against the subjects’ skin. While this year’s best in shows were not my personal favorites (Jay Barrett’s “Rotary Vista Rainbow, Kodiak” was), it is clear they were chosen because they were so different from all the rest. Each made me deeply contemplate what it was that I was looking at, and because of that, they both seem to have deeper meanings beyond what meets the lens.

| 10

Sitka artis man. He’s t Nicholas Galanin th and he cu e founder and pro is something of a R prietor of rates and enaissanc H e songs o Festival. fr Last July rganizes the label’ ome Skillet record s, (http:/ om “Digital Indige s yearly H ’s installm music fest n ent was a /indiannic ome Skille in Sitka, w k.bandcam ous” online on his B t fiv and record h The first a p.com/alb s folk tune ich featured 28 acts e-day, multi-venue um/digita ndcamp page . Galanin s under th But Galan and electr track, “Electric lin a e ls digenou in a o o li In n w is a ic s d ri also a ia Silve tes deliv d art in univ ery addre ance music, with ns,” flirts with te s). ersities in n accomplished visu r Jackson. ss G chno ing differe alanin’s g undergrad al artist. H London a The resu ru nt u a master’s ate degree in jewelr nd New Zealand, e studied for old lt is similar to Gala Native American ff and fluid earning a y design a in Indigen stereotyp n ever b ideas, making them nin’s visual art — n traditiona een. “Histo a new con es. l techniqu ous Visual Arts. H d silversmithing an a s fr e sh d herita text and poign is approac es and cu ry Repeats with conte ge ltu an h ” m work that’ porary aesthetics, ral identity of Alask pairs the the sam with its chanted v is even more steep t as they’ve ed in cult s o e re a ura art even d been displayed in g sulting in a strikin Natives so atten idiosyncratic deliv cals, but the song e rew the a a still featu l ti g ry ll o e b n ri th o -g d es across a y ra t m o b ttention o f b res a who linke in k e g Indigenou s the prev the countr f hip d to s” a succe . That’s all part of ious track Since that Galanin’s work on -hop megastar Kan y. His of the su w ss h at ma on so on a new m brush with Intern his personal blog. ye West, the see bject matter, the u many levels. There kes “Digital ming effo et fame, G n usical ven ’s th e x pected tw rtlessness alanin has Jackson. ture, and it together. ists and tu e levity The proje w e ’s it m a h b sh rns, a w rk arp d hich these ed ct Indigenou Galanin p guys put and s,” which is a hip-hop oriente eviation from Silve la n s it all to release r record Nick. he’s relea d one call the sing unde e o r the mon d “Digital consist n his own Home S full set next month The proje as iker India k n will b of the two songs m illet record label. T a seven-inch producers ct is a collabora e a remix e he A-side n tion with — Seattle ti o n e d of each. W a Astronom it listener’s e hile remix bove, while the flip will ar — wit e P Smoov and fo a couple differen x p e ri e e -s n rmer Jun s h the tra of the infl eau reside t its original senti ce, divorcing the p can sometimes less ide cks u erformanc ment, Astro nt mana en a time of th ential indie hip ho mixed by Budo, e of ges no p is writing a , Indian N troupe Rhymesay member the tra to walk that tightr mar’s remix of “His a song from ck ers op to ick has re leased thre . At the subject as a dance floor sh e. Astronomar re-c ry Repeats” ontextuali aker, and of the son e of four zes thou g as thankfully remains fa well as the origin gh it doesn’t fit the ithful to it al backing s eccentric track, it ities.

by Matt Sullivan

Silver, metallurgy and hip-hop Indian Nick Pushes Creative Boundaries Photo by FHideout.org Nicholas Galanin

October | 11 F |

2010

woodworking By Kellie Doherty

Tucked away in a corner of the Irwin Building, shielded from the downpour of rain, the steady hum of the wood-turners continued throughout the day. Many thank yous from the most unlikely of sources — kids — punctuated the steady hum. The volunteers of the American Woodturner Association held a booth at this year’s Alaska State Fair in Palmer, where they spent their days creating wooden tops for the little ones who stopped by to watch. While they tested the balance of their new toys, their parents inquired about turning — what type of wood they were using, how long it takes to make certain things and so on. One mother asked if they could make magical wands, a nod to Harry Potter. I spent a good amount of t i m e at this booth,

watching the volunteers turn beautiful functional objects out of plain pieces of wood. My own sister Jessie even tried her hand at it — mind you, she had previous experience and our dad, Ed Doherty, was one of the volunteers so she had an in. (A word to the wise: Don’t try this at home! These machines are dangerous!) Jessie made herself a wooden top — which was happily snatched up by the next child who saw it. There was something mesmerizing about watching the volunteers turn wood. One moment an ordinary tree limb was clamped to the lathe, the machine quickly turned (or spun) the limb, and the turner then placed a special metal tool that bit away at the spinning wood. Chips flew every which way, and soon a piece of art appeared. Ed liked to tell the passersby that the volunteers imagined artwork in the wood and brought them out into the light. — During some downtime (the crowds had mingled back outside and the machines were quieted), a volunteer asked if I had ever tried it. I laughed and told him I had, but failed, as I ended up splitting the piece. He just smiled and told

me that woodturning was beneficial regardless of the outcome. On one hand, if it’s good you get a piece of hand crafted, personalized artwork — here he nodded toward the bowls and tops decorating the table in front of him. On the other, he had said, if it’s not good, you have something to keep you warm at night during the long Alaskan winter: firewood! He gestured toward the scraps of wood behind him and smiled again — either way it’s a good deal. This is a wonderful way to approach woodturning — indeed, how to learn any craft of the arts. Either way, good or bad — even if the outcome is not what you expected — the result can always be useful. When the downtime ceased, the hum of the machines started up again and intensified. As wood chips decorated the air, I watched through the protective plastic shield separating us from the danger and smiled. Perhaps my next work of art will be an amazing novel that all the world will love ... or maybe it will simply be a starter for a warm fire on a cold night.

| 12

Witness for the Prosecution ACT starts the season with mystery

Photo courtesy of ACT

By Jessica Bowman I have a passion for Agatha Christie. Not a creepy, undying love or anything like that, just a fervent devotion to her work. Of course, I can’t resist a good mystery in general, but the Dame of Deviousness brings a new level of sophistication, wit and intrigue to the traditional “whodunit.” And one of her most famous plays, “Witness for the Prosecution” is a classic example well-presented by a slew of local actors and a small community theater. You can’t have a Christie mystery without a good twist — and in this case, it’s a doozy. The play (first performed in 1953) is about a young man accused (in his opinion, wrongly) of murder. His lawyer and an esteemed judge take on the case and attempt to get him out of all charges. Of course, complications ensue, and things aren’t exactly what they seem. I can’t tell you any more because trust me; you’ll want to figure it out yourself. Lauded local Robert Pond, formerly Anchorage Community Theatre’s Artistic Director of more than 40 years, directs the season-opener and brings an air of formality and gravity to the show. He’s a helpful coach, and a hands-on director — the actors listen to his every word as he moves across the stage in another skin to show this actor how to pick up a book, and this one how to sit on a chair just so, with an ease and presence that denotes decades of experience. The set is classic 1950s courtroom drama and classic Christie as well, down to the fake books in the false-fronted library shelving and the bejeweled antique desk lamp in the judge’s study. ACT has placed the set directly in front of the audience this time, with one half for the first act (on the right) and one for the second (on the left). And it sets up the quintessential Christie story rife with all the necessary ingredients — the naive, blundering young man with “money trouble”; the mistrusted foreigner; the

overzealous inspector; The cast and cr ew : and the heavy-footed, Bob Pond, Director nearly painful efforts at Melody Paynter, Stage Manager politeness and British Lynn Murphy, Costumes sensibility. It’s cleverly Brian Saylor, Set; Producer presented in a neat Steve Hunt, Lighting package, and, for a “Butler Did It!” buff like A cto rs: me, watching a show like Justin Birchell, Leonard Vole David Flavin, Mr. Mayhew this is the perfect treat Jardin Husser, Liz/the other woman for a weekend evening. Monique Karajaris, Greta It’s also pulled off Ralph Lynch, Sir Wilfred Robarts with a nice mix of acting Chris Mello, Mr. Myers talent. The dialogue Susan Metcalf, Janet Mackenzie (another Christie Kelton Oliver, Inspector Hearne feature) is intricate, Mark Oliver, Warder/usher Melody Paynter, Ms. Clegg lengthy and riddled with Michale Ratzlaff, Clerk of the Court elitist verbiage and can Tamar Shai, Romaine become sort of plodding Andy Varner, Carter/the Judge if you’re not listening closely. But again, that’s like any thick Christie plot — the proof is in the posh accents. Justin Birchell (“Leonard Vole”) will be a clear crowd favorite in his representation of the archetypal “troubled young man,” and his British accent is good clean fun. If you like a good, sink-your-teeth-in story, this is the play to attend after dinner. It’s like “Law & Order,” except you’re supporting local actors and the Anchorage theater community at the same time. ACT deserves credit for continually providing an experience where, from the recycled Fireweed Theater seating to the painted plywood set, you comprehend just how important, vital and enjoyable volunteer community theater can be — and that’s something special.

“Witness” kicks off the ACT season, but visit actalaska.org for other upcoming shows, including “Fourplay: Four Short Plays by Alaskans” (October 15 through 24), “The Christmas Story,” (November 26 through December 9), and “Little Women” (January 28 through February 20). FHideout.org

October | 13 F |

2010

Note to Self —by Ella Harrison Gordon

We need to get this straight, right from the start: ridiculous self-pity, freezing doubt and angst attend commitment to this art. You write because you love to: but this path’s no easy, constant synthesis poured out. We need to get this straight, right from the start. At times, you’ll fear it’s all a pompous farce, posed arabesques, dissembling awe, fear, pout: such angst attends commitment to this art. All inspiration will at times depart, you’ll languish in the thirst of wordly drought. We need to get this straight, right from the start. You’ll dread critique, rejection, looks aslant, yet feel compelled to send your writings out, in keeping with commitment to this art. It’s just like any matter of the heart what you love most can deal the keenest hurt. We need to get this straight, right from the start: there’s angst attends commitment to this art.

Ars Poetica, Ars Vivendi —by Ella Harrison Gordon

We are so miraculous, and so contingent. I have been waiting for awakening. Contingent, we reach for the miracle: I want the filters gone, the fallacies of parallax replaced by fulsome panorama so that my senses, stripped, would thereby be also amplified, would grip and be grappled, contingent but contacted, forms in florid focus, transcendent essence, the unique frequency of each existence reverberating micro to macro so that my real life can begin. Meanwhile, I wait, I watch, riding my body, hoping to learn. But today I looked out at the ground, drab and monochrome, Fall echoing fall over again, a lone low dandelion flowering defiantly there: this is all there is, this being here, being with colors, listening for the note of the moment, being present, to merge into panoptic re-memberment. Later, before the ground freezes, I will dig up that dandelion by the root and make it into tea.

Poetry Is Not Denali* by Peter Porco

Writing poetry is not climbing Denali. Your crampons, your screws, the authority of ice axes grind away in the end. But your words, shouldn’t they outlive bedrock? The alpinist makes quick work of beginnings: Five or six peaks— medium height, light crags, loose fitting tundra— will qualify you and me for a shamble up Denali’s cow path: chilled, breathless, triumphant. But poetry? Why, no fewer than three million poems will do— and you must read each one four or five times before you can take up your pen, aim at the stones in your doubtful hands and crack them open with a few good head butts.

* Denali is the best-known Athabascan name — and the name preferred by most Alaskans — for the highest mountain in North America (20,320 feet), known principally as Mount McKinley.

| 14 FHideout.org

October | 15 F |

2010

He Said / She Said

Dialog Tags & Other Words for Writers By Rebecca A. Goodrich

Chuck bloviates. It happens on page 153, in a sprightly romantic comedy, The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway by Janice Weber (1985). This particular interior literary voice also commands, clucks, echoes, moans, instructs, and tortures, as well as prescribes, as in: So back up, Chuck prescribed. Our Heroine, a feisty hymn-composer married to A Very Nice but Wrong Man, also has a few literary twists and shouts of her own: “So, cutie,” I postured, executing Pooh with my eyes, . . . ” she says on page 162. All these dialog tag words and more, in addition to told, whispered, muttered, soothed, insisted, panted, and explained, decorate this novel. And of course, he said, she said. Victoria Mixon, author of a March 2009 article on dialog tags, notes that her favorite “antique dialog tag is interpolated.’” Ellery Queen, she says, was a great one for interpolating. Now, I wouldn’t call Ellery Queen antique, I’d call him classic. Goes to show how one writer’s sour is another writer’s tang. Just because Victoria Mixon bears the name of a bodice-ripped protagonist, one mustn’t assume she will blithely promote the use of antique, er, non-contemporary expostulations. In fact, her article gives her own severely limited list of dialog tags; she uses six. Six. Should we follow her example? Only if we want to get published, Ms. Mixon admonishes. (Says, says, says.) English is a wonderful language. As Ms. Mixon highlights, uh, you know: “. . . you can use any verb as a dialog tag that is, in fact, a vocal act involving words. This means “moaned”, “babbled”, “sang” (but only with lyrics), and — yes — “ejaculated”. They all, technically, qualify. The real question is: should you?”

A very good question indeed, I affirm. (Say.) I don’t want us to rashly dispense with all the wonderful dialog tags that can become part of the construction and mood of a wonderful work. Written words, properly chosen and used, have a magic all their own. Have you come across a book called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clark? This fat fantasy is written in near-Dickensonian prose, set in an alternate Britain in the throes of the Napoleonic Wars. A review on Alibris.com calls it: “One of the most important literary events of the year 2004. Published to enormous critical and popular acclaim. Not since Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’ has an 800-page novel garnered such praise and become an international bestseller in the best sense of the word.” Even more amazing, this was the author’s first novel. It also has bleak charcoal-pencil illustrations that evoke an atmosphere as dense as anything else in the book. In addition, the author has scribed voluminous footnotes for this novel, as well as a judicious use of archaic spelling, to wit: shew, chuse, surprize, spoilt, stopt. Dialog tags in this eminently received work include cried, continued, answered, exclaimed, agreed, screeched, interrupted, explained, muttered. Not as florid as one might have reasonably expected, yet a respectably panoramic collection. It just goes to show that one cannot necessarily insist on being bound by the conventions of the day. After all, Thursday’s conventions may have made a radical shift from Tuesday’s. One must always ask, What will best serve this work? Therefore, I entreat you: Let your inner muse decide which words must be called forth by your pens! (I mean, keyboards.) If you must bloviate, if only that word accurately describes speech that is pompous, boastful, and grandiose, and that word is bloviate, then allow your character to bloviate away. With my blessing.

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