First Friday
This month: Sled dogs, water musings, breakdancing and earthy tones
Juneau's Todd Mosher began painting five years ago as a way to extract himself from an extended period of grief.
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"I thought I'd be a landscape artist," Mosher said. "But I started studying color theory and doing a lot of color exercises, and I found painting was a lot more exciting when I worked from my subconscious."
His new hobby turned out to be quite cathartic, and Mosher set about teaching himself what he could. Finally, he's accumulated enough paintings for an exhibit.
His first solo show, "Bright Storms, Quiet Shadows," opens from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1, and runs through the month at the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council gallery, 206 N. Franklin St. He will have 25 paintings in the exhibit, most from 2000 to 2002. The largest is 2 feet by 2 feet.
"It's more of a poetic title, but I also felt that some of the paintings are dark and disturbing, yet they always seem to have a thread of light," Mosher said. "There always seems to be some bit of hope in them, and on the other side, the more whimsical and bright paintings always seem to have a little edge in them."
He works with alkyds - a kind of fast-drying oil made from resins. It dries to the touch in a day and cures completely within a month, unlike oil. It allows him to start with a dry painting when he returns to his canvas for a spontaneous work session.
Mosher usually tones his canvases with a muted, earthy color before he begins. From there, he starts with patches of color, blending and bouncing off the tones to find combinations he likes.
"I'm more of a seeker than a planner," Mosher said. "I just react to what I see and feel as I paint it and develop the content as I go.
"Sometimes they stay in the abstract and sometimes they're involved in these very bizarre surreal images, but I don't like to do surrealism for the sake of surrealism," he said. "I try to reflect on it and make it meaningful. It's just like interpreting a dream."
Mosher's abstractions contain fragmented forms from nature. He builds ideas by sketching short studies of landscapes for short studies, then elaborates from memory and imagination.
"I have a lot of unusual movement in my paintings," Mosher said. "I try to make the painting bounce between the second and third dimension and create the illusion of another dimension."
• ANNIE KAILL'S: Eagle River artist Jon Van Zyle, the official artist of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race since 1979, will be the featured artist at Annie Kaill's, 244 Front St., during October.
He and his wife, Jona, will be at the store from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1, noon through 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 2, and noon through 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 3. On Friday, the store will hold a drawing for a framed Van Zyle print.
Van Zyle spent this summer as the artist-in-residence at Denali National Park. He will be showing five new originals, as shown here: http:www.annieandcojuneau.comartvanzyleshowprev.htm.
He sketched "Talkotna Checkpoint" during the 2004 Iditarod. He and Jona were following Ellie Claus, who, at just over 18, became the youngest musher to start and finish the race. The Van Zyles helped Claus train her dogs and chronicled their journey on sleddogcentral.com.
The store will also carry a collection of his children's books, an assortment of mugs and many of his collector-item Iditarod prints. Van Zyle, who completed the 1,049-mile race twice, will also have copies of his brand-new 2005 race print, titled "The RunRest Schedule."
"A lot of the mushers stick to what they call a run-rest schedule: six hours rest, six hours run, four hours rest, four hours run," Van Zyle said. "This is kind of a spoof on that. It's a bunch of sled dogs lying on a couch, all spread out. They're in a big pile, and the musher's boots are there."
Jona has concentrated on jewelry, beading and lamp work for the last several years but will also be showing some leather good, etchings and drawings. Her work occasionally includes bits of salmon leather and ivory. She will also sign copies of her book, "Iditarod Memories," and show gicleé prints of "Intruding Memories," her first foray into the print market, outside of etchings.
"We've done quite a bit of living in the villages," Van Zyle said. "There are just pieces from traveling in Alaska. She'll take an old piece of fossilized ivory that somebody dug up years ago, incorporate that into a modern-day piece of jewelry and add things to make it something special."
• JUNEAU ARTISTS GALLERY: David Riccio, computer imager and traditionalist, is the featured artist for October at the Juneau Artists Gallery. Originally from northern Minnesota, Riccio begins his images with traditional etchings, woodblock or batik techniques in subjects ranging from Alaska inspirations to abstract shapes. He completes his work with computer manipulation and ink-jet Gicleé reproductions.
He co-owns Atelier Alaska, a digital printing business in town.
Riccio says he enjoys "an eclectic style" combining his love of fly-fishing and "musings of water." His background in chemistry and microbiology appear in his abstract images painted on silk or with acrylic paints on canvas.
Riccio was part of a show at the Empire Gallery in 2003.
• LITTLE CITY GALLERY: For the last three years, Juneau artist Devita Writer has been creating murals for Carnival Cruise Lines in a large studio (Suite 211) on the top floor of the Emporium Mall (above Heritage Coffee and the Nickelodeon). Her husband, Ross, has run a string shop, Music Folk and Retro Guitars, out of the same space.
It's a little more room than they need, so they've decided to convert the spot into the Little City Gallery. Devita still has her studio in a room in the back. Ross will continue to sell stringed instruments.
"It just lends itself so well the way it's laid out," Devita Writer said. "It's large, and it's more room than I need for working."
Little City is open from 5 to 7 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 4:30 p.m. Sundays. Its First Friday debut, 4:30 p.m. Friday, will include about 50 of Writer's sketches for her murals.
She's taking a break from cruise ship art. Some of the murals were 10 feet wide, and some were 812-feet high. She shipped the murals overseas to Italy and Finland, where they were placed in atriums and landings of brand-new ships. One Carnival cruise ship, the Spirit, sails to Juneau. It was built before she was hired as muralist.
"They're landscapes and different places," she said. "A lot of them are of the Juneau area, and then some of them are from the Oregon coast and some from New York, and a couple from New Orleans. Some of them I did from photos I took myself, but most of them were on-site, plein aire."
The sketches are acrylic and oil, and as small as 4-inches high. When enlarged, they fit the dimensions of the murals. Her 812-feet high paintings have accompanying 18-inch high sketches.
• ROCK PAPER SCISSORS: Juneau artist and musician Jacob Higgins will show a collection of his macabre, hand-made masks at Rock Paper Scissors, 245 Marine Way, for First Friday. He is the featured artist for October.
• EMPIRE GALLERY: Juneau artist Tyler Thomas is trying to rein in his first solo show, a sprawling, collaborative effort that threatens to turn the Empire Gallery into a maze.
One half will be his installation with old pictures, new pictures, found objects, multimedia presentations. The other half will be more "clean and orderly," - an assortment of works from friends and family.
The show opens from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1, and will also be open Saturday and Sunday, times to be announced.
Other artists expected to contribute include: Matthew Reuter, acrylic paintings and sculptures; Alli Rosen, paintings; Matt Kern, miscellaneous; Manda Thomson, oil painting; Janelle Schmidt, acrylics, pen and ink and more.
"Collaboration, installation and extravaganza are some of the key words," Thomas said.
"It's something to walk through and interact with," he said. "It's about space and balance and how objects interact with each other."
Thomas plans the show to include live music, food, cardboard for breakdancing, items for people to pick up and read, space for people to draw in magic marker, storytelling, photo-boxes, erotica and condoms.
"I want everybody, the whole community, to interact and bring what they have," he said. "A lot of this is people playing their music and making the art happen. It's like brain candy, eye candy and sound candy."
• Korry Keeker can be reached at korry.keeker@juneauempire.com.