ArtSceneAK #402 January 23, 2005

VOL 04 ISSUE 02 January 23, 2005

	SECRETS, PORES, EDDIES: KELLIHER-COMBS MUSEUM SOLO
IDIOT STRINGS, shown at right, is one of the large installations by Sonya Kelliher-Combs at the Anchorage Museum of Art and History this month. Twenty pairs of translucent mittens droop from the twine connectors that keep them with the parky. Even the idiot who normally drops and loses mittens has a fool-proof insurance. Western Alaskan born and raised of mixed native and european ancestry, Kelliher-Combs has evolved a style consonant with both ancient and modern sensibilities. Using materials that are non-traditional in both camps, she is able to take advantage of a larger vocabulary. In an eloquent text accompanying the catalog for her solo exhibition, Harvard scholar Lisa Ann Havero identifies the common phrases in Kelliher-Combs work as the circular 'pore', the oblong 'secret' and the spiral 'eddy'. Plenty of acrylic gel, sparse color, and various combinations of these tatoo elements add up to a readily identifiable style of skin art.
		SECRET PACKETS:MEDICINE NECKLACE The ubiquitous kidney form of the secrets sometimes evokes the outline of little baby feet or more visceral reminders, and at other times like in the mittens shows its practical derivation. The simple sewed form folded over and hung from a beaded string begs for decoration and embellishment, and Kelliher-Combs steps up with a display of nearly twenty small, colorful pouches. Other developments of the sewn circle include the hairy circles stitched on to cards (Secrets), the looping threads hung like handwriting from nails protruding from a wall. A grid of similar sized gel substrates are hung together in bright variety and make up the index image for this issue. Kelliher-Combs holds her BFA from UAF, and has enjoyed broad recognition in Alaska since receiving her MFA from Arizona State University in 1998. Her imaginative use of the gallery space for her solo exhibition sets the tone for visitors to the Earth, Fire, and Fibre crafts exhibition, who must transverse her space to get to the group show.
		EARTH FIRES FIBRE XXV:MCFADDEN The Anchorage Museum of History and Art has contracted outside jurors 25 times now to visit Alaska and help appraise the quality of work by Alaskan artists in what is commonly called 'crafts'. Senior Curator David Revere McFadden of the Museum of Art and Design in NY, NY, took on the chore this time. In his juror's statement, McFadden cited a 'notable lack of submissions in the fields of glass, metal, wood ... jewelry, furniture, functional table top items." Still, McFadden admitted that "the ratio of fiber and clay to other fields was not really that unusual." From 377 entries McFadden selected 82 pieces from 43 out of 138 artists for inclusion in the show, and then singled out several pieces for further merit, including honorable mentions and cash awards. Woodworker Douglas E Morris carved and turned the eloquent Offering, shown at left, from birch, bloodwood, and maple. The wooden urn is hollow and nearly translucent. The $1000 Juror's Choice Award. went to clay even so, for the body of work including Amphora II seen in the right background of the photo at left, submitted by Anna Ramsburgh, Fairbanks. Ramsburgh's vessels reach across gender lines by using diamond plate and found objects as molds to generate masculine surfaces and shapes. All three were promptly purchased by the Museum at around $500 each. In fact, someone with a budget of around $15,000 pre-shopped this show, which allows artists to offer their work for sale. With nearly 20% of the works not-for-sale (NFS), the purchasers spent nearly 70% of the asking value of all of the works offered on less than 15% of the pieces. Susan Schapira's fabric Arabesque and Mark Wedekinds ironing board Little Sue both sold before the show opening. The sales data reveals the influence of the Rasmuson Foundation Museum Art Acquisition Initiative policies which provides money for institutional purchases of art by living artists.
		REMAINS:HEIMEL STONEWARE AWARDED McFadden distributed $500 awards to Mary Hertert for dyed polyester hung simply on a pole, to Alex Phillips for a found object construction, to Fran Reed for stitched halibut gut, to Mark Wederkind for his organic table (seen at rear right in picture at left), and to Sonya Kelliher -Combs for her nicely framed rawhide, reindeer fur, acrylic, sheepskin, sealskin, and pig intestine (not shown). Honorable mentions to Anne Leutekemeyer, Monica Jerricek Lyal, and Florence M Clement. The three clay quoits under glass in the foreground at left are the style of objects being created by Denise Heimel. An American who moved to Alaska recently after an extended stay in Britain, Heimel also was awarded $500 for Remains to be Seen, the leftmost object. It is made of clay, hide, hair, and shell. Black Toad and Tree Snake are the other two objects. These stoneware icons are non-functional and interactive, feel sensational and sound pretty cool as well. A collector might want to keep their $1000 Heimel out from under glass so they can play with it. In the museum setting they look arcane and precious in their lexan box. The most perplexing of these awards was the one to Phillips for Hairy Circle. Two drawers hung vertically with axes embedded into them with wax and several plastic baggies of various stuff hanging on nails. With the exception of Ron Senungetuk's laconic mask made from an upside down cell-phone, everything else in the Biennial Craft Exhibition had been crafted from raw materials. These assemblages, however appealing, were out of place by their very nature and even easy going craftspeople might have taken offense that they were not only included, but given a prize meant to recognize crafted things. McFadden, veteran curator and lecturer, seemingly dropped a stitch here.
		SLEEPING BABY: IKENO DREAMING The hollow and airy earthenware Sleeping Baby seen at left by Mitsuko Ikeno was 'tatooed' with floral decals which washed over the caved in face and the flipper-like limbs. An earthtone jumpsuit and sleeping cap ground the somehow scary baby. This view of Baby in her box shows the east gallery in the unusually gracious state as one large room, without the H-shaped walls which habitual museum visitors remember. The open arangements are possible because so many of the objects are meant to be viewed from all sides and displayed on bases How does ArtSceneAK know that Baby is a girl? We don't, but the odds are good. More than 80% of the artists are female in this show, and the audience at the opening reception was similarly skewed.
		LIMINAL SPACE:GALLUP GEOMETRY A juror far from home and given little to no instruction on the aims and history of the exhibition can be forgiven for relying on the old koan "what I like". A common response by visiting jurors has been to select multiple items from the artists that they are enthusiastic about. This gives the work a chance to reinforce itself. The extreme example was Sonya Kelliher-Combs Pore Scraps, six separately framed pieces shown as a unit. Morris, Heimel and Ramsbaugh all showed three pieces in their unique styles. Z Denise Gallup was also favored with the inclusion of three of her fabric constructions meant to be displayed as wall hangings. The most ambitious of the three, Liminal Space, was the most successful. Modern dyes and sewing machines are technologically marvelous and Gallup works by stitching layers into the geometric forms which are then relieved with oranic dye patterns and freeform stitching that accentuates the amorphous color patterns. The stitches have the quality of labyrinthes of encouraging the following of a meandering path a step at a time. The canny juxtaposition of colored panels give the impression of looking up through a dark ceiling at the sky. The other two pieces, of felted wool, did not support the success of this piece with their less controlled properties. How well does this unguided jurored system serve the artists who compete for the opportunity? For the artists who succeed in matching the juror's expectations, the rewards are ample, since the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, the Fairbanks Arts Association, Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center, and the Pratt Museum in Homer will all host the show on the planned statewide tour. The possibility of being added to any of these museum's permanent collection is an impetus to compete, as are the cash awards. For those who submit their work and are rejected, the pleasures are grim. Artists math: 43/138= 69% of the hopeful will return to this category. Lastly, what if your tree falls the biggest in the forest, and it's not reported? ArtFacts.net has an online artist ranking system that does not receive information from curators and galleries in Alaska, and therefore no Alaskan artists are rated. Ms. Dickersbach of ArtFacts explained some of the rules. To begin with, she noted, the only artists eligible for the list are "international artists," those with long-term ties (that is representation by galleries or having a presence in permanent collections) in at least three countries. To rank these international artists, the staff of Artfacts.net starts by looking at exhibition announcements they receive at Artfacts.Net Ltd.PO Box 02 55 92 D-10129 Berlin, Germany, and from newsletters and Web sites. Solo shows are worth more than group shows or art fairs. Public museums count more than galleries. And different museums have different weights. Small museums and university museums count for almost nothing. Galleries and museums who do not report count for absolute zero by definition. Are they on your mailing list?
		CERATA & FROMIA BOX:POTTER BYE The inventive and elaborately glazed porcelain oceanic objects made by Carla Potter were also icluded as a threesome by McFadden, who saw the merits if not the relative merits of her work in Cerata and Fromia Box, seen at left. The craftsmanship and attention to detail make the improbable forms of Potter's imagination a continuous delight, as visitors to her solo show at the museum last year can attest. Potter will make use of her Rasmuson Foundation Art Fellowship to relocate to Montana to pursue her talents among the like minded at the Archie Bray foundation there. As an example of her graciousness, she threw a party for Kelliher-Combs and Earth Fire and Fibre participants at her home in College Gate. She and her husband Doug have been enthusiastic collectors and supporters of artists and they will be missed.
		ACQUISITIONS 2004:PICK & SHOVEL With a chance to save a fortune on cubed cheese, the Museum elected to include a third opening on that Sunday afternoon representing additions to the AMHA's collection from various sources. Individual gifts are among the most interesting, including this historical pick and shovel made with no metal parts donated by Rex and Dianne Harris. Many of the drawings collected for the production of the book Ice Windows by Kathleen Lapp Smith and featured in the Eskimo Drawings exhibition in 2003 were donated by her husband Verbeck Smith after her unexpected death later that year. The simple drawings are a bit imaginative, like the one showing a mastadon hunt, and others may be alarmingly from life, like Eskimo Mermaid (not shown) by James Kiktovuruk Moses. Mermaid depicts a plumply naked gal sitting on an ice floe and dangling her feet in the water. Must have been one warm day. These drawings, simply framed and mounted in a group on the west wall of the northwest gallery, are a sensible comingling of art and history. Science was perhaps represented by several of Sam Kimura's late model cameras, donated by the family.
		MAGIC MOUNTAINS:KIMURA SAMPLE William Yosaburo Kimura was another of a family of Anchorage artists active in the sixties and seventies and the painting Magic Mountains is a gift to the Museum as well. An abstract expressionist painting shown at left, Mountains is gestural while still retaining an allusion in composition to its putative subject. As painters return from the dark reaches of the journey begun by pioneers like Kimura, this style of paintings is finally beginning to appear as history, in the same way as the Modern Art movement has lost currency. Work by Graham Dane and Sandy Gillespie update the old mode through the use of contemporary materials and colors without exceeding accomplishment. Other frightening or thoughtless photographs by Lisa Grey or Mark Daughettee are inexplicable acquisitions beside the quiet authority of the photography of Hal Gage. Photographs are a large part of the acquisitions, aided as mentioned above by the support of the Rasmuson Foundations Museum Acquisition Initiative. Other surprises worth the visit are pleasant (Susan Farnham's painting Cleary Light) and unpleasant (Kat Tomka's cellophane Skin Deep). Museum Collections director Walter van Horn is reviewing applicants to be on the Acquisition Committee; this is a job for enthusiastic and knowledgeable collectors.
		TECTONIC PLATES:BROWN MAQUETTE The Museum is also conservator for the Anchorage Public Art Collection purchased through the 1% for Art ordinance ably administrated by Jocelyn Young. A display of materials including a video and several maquettes are presented representing the more than a million dollars worth of art added to the collection this year alone. The photo at left shows Kim Brown's maquette for Tectonic Plates at South Anchorage High School. Although the prospectus usually calls for 11"x17" paper concept proposal, several successful public art finalists have mentioned that they submit photos of their models on the paper. The simple elements of Brown's maquette (four rusted sheets of steel and a group of twigs on cardboard) convinced a panel to award her a major commission. (cf Issue #310).
	- ARTIST OPPORTUNITIES- 1/26/04 deadline LSU UNION ART GALLERY NATIONAL COMPACT COMPETITION seeks slide entries smaller than a 20" cube; $5000 in 8 cash awards, $23 entry fee, Juror Stephanie Hanor of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, CA. Contact gallery assistant 225-578-5117 1/28/04 deadline extended VALDEZ FERRY TERMINAL seeks price quotes for existing work or site-specific proposals for any of 4 areas in new building. Budget $30,000. Info to ALASKA STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS 411 West 4th Avenue, #1E Anchorage AK 99501-2343 2/25/05 deadline IBEW WILD SALMON ON PARADE public sculpture promotion includes a halibut category this year, seeking proposals. Stipend, proceeds benefit Anchorage Cultural Council among others. Contact Melinda Taylor 907-777-7248 3/1/05 deadline SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSIONS is seeking to establish a pre-qualified pool of professional artists for a variety of public art projects.RFQ online. 3/11/05 deadline METRO ART LOS ANGELES seeks proposals from artists working in photographic media for light boxes at four stations. Four $5000 stipends. RFQ online or contact 213-922-4ART. 3/15/05 deadline RASMUSON FOUNDATION INDIVIDUAL ARTIST PROJECT AWARDS offers multiple grants up to $5,000 for clearly articulated projects with plan, budget, timeline, benefits analysis. Guidelines & applications online or contact Victoria Lord 907.334.0514. Alaska residents only. 3/20/05 deadline BP INTERNATIONAL PORTRAIT COMPETITION seeks entries for �47,000 in prizes including a commission and a travel grant. �13 entry fee, size restrictions, age restriction (18-40 years old). Prospectus online. 3/31/05 deadline ADOBE ACTION GRANTS $5,000-$20,000 for one year only. Adobe supports schools and community-based organizations with programs that enable and inspire K-12 students to think creatively, communicate effectively, and work collaboratively, using digital technology and communication tools. In Seattle, not Alaska ALASKA ALMANAC FACTS ABOUT ALASKA edited by Rosemary Pagano The pithy observations of local funny man Mr Whitekey's amplify the facts in this book. ArtSceneAK recommends it for figuring out where the sun doesn't shine... <!--webbot BOT="HTMLMarkup" endspan --><!--webbot bot="HTMLMarkup" StartSpan --> NEXT: FEBRILE MONTH FEEDBACK Aggravated again?! Get a NO Prize for proving us wrong. Let us know you love us or hate us and tell us about your upcoming event or opportunity and get a No, Thank YOU. Help correct attribution errors you suspect. SHORTCUTS: When we use your 100 word reviews of any show you've seen recently, sweet and sour, you'll earn a free limo ride some First Friday. Form makes it easy. cf also ART IN ALASKA , a partial listing of links to Museums, Galleries, and individual Artists around the state.	FUTURE COMMITTEE:AMA TO DISSOLVE At the January meeting of the Future of the Museum Committee, Ayse Gilbert spoke on behalf of the board of the Anchorage Museum Association when she anounced that they had voted to transfer their assets and reponsibilities to the AMI (�Museum Governance Board?) on approval of their membership and then cease to exist. Lawyers had been put to work to insure everything was lawyerly. Assets include more than 50 restricted accounts of $100,000 each and dozens of contracts. The structure of this membership organization requires a vote to dissolve and this is being presented at the annual meeting Tuesday February 15 at 6 pm. Three to four hundred out of the 4000 members typically vote, and 2/3 of them must approve to dissolve. Her comments were directed at Joe Griffith, who has been appointed by the mayor to execute mayoral designs on the expansion, originally prompted by Elmer Rasmuson's generous $50 million gift to the $25 million corpus of the Anchorage Museum Foundation. Added to the foundations resources are $20 million in federal and $5 million in state funds earmarked for expansion. Private donations continue to accrue to the Foundation and are being actively solicited, and for a while, matched by the generosity of Mary Louise Rasmuson.. Despite this abundance of wealth, planners intend to place a ballot proposition before voters in April waving their hands and then asking them to increase the tax cap. In combination with $35 million in bond proposals, voters will also be asked to raise the hotel bed tax, lower the proportion of voter approval required to impose new taxes, and approve a so-called residential property tax exemption in the face of broad increases of assessment value for most residential property owners which are fresh on their minds. Pollsters, speakers, and lobbyists are being deployed to best articulate a difficult proposition for the Museum. Essentially the plan is to divide the $100,000,000 into two parts, a portion for construction and a portion to form a fund to provide investment income to support operations. With the construction portion, a fixed ration of cost per square foot is driving considerations about the size of the expansion. These two ratios were chosen for example's sake and have become frozen into ballot proposition language. ArtSceneAK suggests that neither are immutable. ARTIST MATH: 50/50 split of foundation corpus leaves $50 million in the building construction (costs of land are not germane) and $50 million in the corpus, doubling the pro forma amount available for operating costs. The construction of 70,000 additional square feet of useful space would require $700/square foot rather than the Elysian $1100/square foot currently operative. As a comparison, the hauntingly similar Chipperfield designed Figge Museum in Davenport IA came in on a budget under $40 million. Committee members are more closely examining the exemplary Figge experience in the near future. Rethinking the mantra that additional public space similar to the existing atrium is too expensive would open opportunities for the Museum building to support its own operating costs and gain some personality. Recognizing the role of the automobile in transporting people to the Museum would encourage would-be visitors. For example, the familiar view of the current buildings entrance from the one-way A Street approach will only be confusing when the entrance is closed and moved around to the other side of the building in the woods. The planned entrance will also be completely hidden from traffic following the museum locator signs from the airport one-way on 6th Avenue, nor does there appear to be any provision indicating where to park or to drop off visitors. Doubling the parking accommodations instead of partially eliminating them would add $75,000 a year in income rather than reducing income by $25G. The best argument to expand the Museum, which is already the primary Anchorage tourist destination, is that improvements can encourage visitors to stay more than one day in our city, therefore they drop more cash before they leave. This makes it a civic reponsibility for the architect to create a destination building rather than a suburban non-entity clad in fancy sheathing or interior appointments. Mr Chipperfield was quoted recently in the Guardian regarding his designs for hotel accommodations in Spain in concert with other prestigious architects. "It is minimalism with luxury". Nice in a fancy hotel, but would voters tax theirselves extra for it? Orient your new building on the east-west axis in the BACK ISSUE Index. Thank You and Welcome back to a renewing charter subscriber in Juneau. And congratulations, too, by the way. Andy Sonneborn is rallying the art loving:"Many fine artists have donated their art to benefit the Alaska Watercolor Society’s Annual Art Scholarship. Please come and do your part to support Alaska’s Art Students!" Collectors, first come first serve February first Friday at PaintSpot Gallery, 610 West 2nd Street. No, Thank You to a subscriber in Anchorage who wrote: "happy to support your efforts to connect the art community"