First Friday, Juneau’s monthly art gallery walk, takes place on the evening of May 5. Tlingit artwork from local weaver Lily Hope and devil’s club earrings from local crafter Heather Dillon are featured this month in the premier First Friday of the cruise ship season.
Events start at different times at many local businesses downtown, with most beginning at 4:30 p.m. and lasting until 7 or 8 p.m. Below is a listing of all events.
Hope, a Tlingit weaver, will present her Chilkat robe, commissioned by the Portland Art Museum, at the Sealaska Heritage Institute in the Nathan Jackson Gallery. In addition to Hope’s regalia work, the exhibit will include a collection of 50 masks from indigenous cultures across the state as well as the jewelry of Juneau-based Tlingit artist Renee Culp. The SHI exhibit takes place from 4:30-8 p.m.
Dillon will present her innovative jewelry work at Shoefly, a shoe and clothing store at 109 Seward St., from 4-8 p.m. Dillon uses electricity to create lightning or tree-like patterns on devil’s club, a thorny local plant.
Other events include “Decolonizing Alaska,” at 4:30-7 p.m. at the Alaska State Museum and “Kissed by Fire” an exhibit of raku ceramic work at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center at 4:30-7 p.m.
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“Alaska Native Masks” exhibit, Tlingit weaver Lily Hope and Tlingit artist Renee Culp
Walter Soboleff Building
105 S. Seward St.
Reception: 4:30-8 pm
SHI will offer free admission to the exhibit “Alaska Native Masks: Art & Ceremony” in the Nathan Jackson Gallery. The exhibit features more than 50 masks from across the state; new masks have been recently added. In the lobby, Tlingit artist Renee Culp will be selling her jewelry and other handmade goods, and in the Delores Churchill Artist-in-Residence space, Tlingit weaver Lily Hope will be working on a Chilkat robe commissioned by the Portland Art Museum. Also, the SHI Store will be offering a 20 percent discount to active duty military personnel in May in recognition of the arrival of the Navy ship the USS O’Kane May 13-18.
Kissed by Fire: Raku exhibit by David W. Riccio, Joyce Payne, Kaki Shields, Louise Kuntz-Tada, Doris Alcorn, and SueAnn Randall
JAHC Gallery
Juneau Arts & Culture Center
350 Whittier St.
Reception: 4:30–7 p.m.
David Riccio has this to say about the exhibit:
Ceramics are primarily raku and sawdust-fired pieces done in the last few years. Most have not been previously shown. The show includes work that is mine and the work from a group of friends (aka the Raku Club) which has been meeting on a semi-regular basis for the last few year to jointly fire a raku kiln. The show consists of ceramics and photos of the raku process.
I have come to love the methods and designs of raku. The look and feel of raku ceramics is unique, and the color and surfaces one can create are very attractive and engaging for me.
In conjunction with the show, the Raku Club will be offering a workshop at the Canvas (for two weekends in mid-May, 2017) Interested potters (some experience in ceramics is required) can join the workshop to learn the process of raku and have the experience the firing of a raku kiln. The firing of the kiln will be available to the public to observe from a safe distance for those that are curious but don’t have the time to take the workshop.
Featured artist: Heather Dillon
Shoefly Alaska
109 Seward Street
Reception: 4-8 p.m.
It all started with a microwave. Heather Dillon’s artistic style evolved as soon as she started dabbling with combinations of wood and electricity. Over three years of fine-tuning her craft, she’s found her own niche and passion within the art scene. Like electrode pulsing though wood, this wasn’t a straight path to success.
Dillon has always loved Devil’s Club and now incorporates the plant into her hand-crafted earrings. Each Devil’s Club has a mood or personality that dictates the aura of each set of hand crafted earrings, according to Dillon. The eccentric, spunky, in your face kind of clubs get crafted into dynamic earring pieces. Then there are the low rider clubs, the ones that hide out and would rather not be noticed until you step on them and they jump up or nail you in the back of the arm. These ones are the smaller more subtle pieces, but once you take a closer look, the details jump out and grabs you.
Dillon uses electricity to create unusual lightning or tree-like patterns on the devil’s club. This she does by using a microwave transformer that she has rewired. If you don’t see Heather hunting the forest around Juneau, you will find her working on a number of other wood-working projects that range from pieces like her custom-made gardening and bathroom stools to custom wood photo transfers.
Decolonizing Alaska
Alaska State Museum
395 Whittier Street
Reception: 4:30-7 p.m.
As the world’s attention shifts to the shrinking polar ice cap and the future of our planet, Alaska’s place in the world has moved from the fringe to the center. Concerns about climate change and cultural survival resulting from colonization have pushed Alaska to the forefront of global conversations. Decolonizing Alaska is a multi-media visual art exhibit that explores how 30 diverse contemporary Alaskan artists grapple with these issues and present new possibilities for cultural sustainability. Artists create and express resilience and adaptation through a confluence of indigenous, global, traditional and contemporary concepts, technologies and media.
A panel discussion with the exhibit curator, Asia Freeman, and artists Joel Isaak, Rika Mouw, Ricky Tagaban, Michael Walsh, and Crystal Worl will follow the opening reception at 6:30 p.m. in the APK Lecture Hall. Decolonizing Alaska is sponsored by Bunnell Street Arts Center, curated by Asia Freeman and supported in part by grants from ArtWorks, The CIRI Foundation, and the Rasmuson Foundation with additional support from the exhibit venues and the Rasmuson Foundation through the Harper Arts Touring Fund, administered, under contract, by the Alaska State Council on the Arts. Isaak is offering a fish skin workshop on Saturday, May 6. More information about this exhibit is on page 5.
Featured artist: Carl Avery
Juneau Dipsticks
101 Egan Drive
Reception: 4-7 p.m.
Mixed media artist Carl Avery will show art.
Featured artist: Nell McConahey of Spiral Studio
Juneau Artists Gallery
175 S. Franklin St.
Reception: 4:30-7 p.m.
Stained glass and jewelry artist Nell McConahey of Spiral Studio will be the featured artist for the month of May at the Juneau Artists Gallery. Inspired by spring and a recent trip to the gem show in Tuscon, Arizona, McConahey has created new works to show. Her new pieces will go fast.
After taking a metalsmithing class in college, Nell began a long relationship with creating jewelry. It’s been her full-time job, along with stained and fused glass, for more than 18 years.
Yes, Juneau Artists Gallery will be open during the construction of Franklin Street.
Stuff, Stories, and Sticky Notes: Collection Objects & Community Stories
Juneau-Douglas City Museum
Fourth and Main streets
4:30-7 p.m.
For this exhibit, 11 Juneau community members selected objects from the museum’s permanent collection and wrote stories, poems, and historical pieces inspired by these objects. The objects and written works will be on view in the Murray Gallery through October 28. The objects on view will be diverse, including a typewriter used by Dale DeArmond, a flight bag from Alaska Coastal Airlines, a coat from Nina Chapman’s “Nina’s Originals”, and Floyd Dryden’s World War I victory medals. Community members who contributed to the exhibit are William DeArmond, Puanani Maunu, James Brooks, Kim Metcalfe, Marie Darlin, Rich Ritter, Renée Loree, Robert Barr, Ariel Rolfe, Brenda Wright, and Kaia Henrickson. Feel like writing your own story about an object? You can! Objects from our Education Collection will also be on view with large sticky notes for visitors to add their own writing to the exhibit.
Special deal on Authors at Sea cruise tickets
Hearthside Books downtown
3-6 p.m.
Save $5 on Authors at Sea whale-watching cruise tickets, which will take place May 26. During First Friday at the downtown store only. Confirmed authors include Eowyn Ivey, Ishmael Hope, Kate Troll, Bob Fagen and Mark Kelley. Cost without discount is $65.
Salon Cedar
175 S. Franklin St. (Senate Mall)
5-7 p.m.
Salon Cedar will present some of its new products on offer.
Featured Artist: Chris Frary, master wood turner
A Little Bazaar
1117 W. 9th St.
Reception: 4:30 – 7 p.m.
Local craftsman Chris Frary will show his collection of exquisite hand-lathed bowls shaped out of Juneau’s cottonwood and alder trees. By bucking/splitting the wood himself Frary finds the natural beauty in the grain and spends many hours turning, sanding, and finishing each bowl with natural tung oil. He has even been known to grow his own trees for his craft. Each piece is food-safe.
A rectangle labradorite pendant created by Nell McConahey of Spiral Studio. Courtesy of Nell McConahey.
