Arts & Culture

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Murals will soon adorn the Marine View building parking garage near Juneau’s cruise ship docks. 

It’s part of a project years in the making that teaches local artists about the legal and creative sides of murals.

Maddox Rasmussen washed paintbrushes in between sections of a mural he was working on at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center on a recent Sunday afternoon. The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé junior was painting a realistic orca swimming through the tendrils of an ethereal kelp forest. Rasmussen finished the orca’s fin and moved to a section of its body that’s white. 

“I like blending on the palette or on the piece itself,” he said. “So sometimes, if I have leftover blue in a section that I want to be more white, it’ll mess it up.”

Rasmussen is one of 13 artists participating in a workshop to create murals in downtown Juneau. It’s the first time he’s worked on a large project like this. But art is not his only interest: he also swims competitively and works as a lifeguard.

He said it’s been a bit difficult to make time for the project on the weekends while balancing his other interests. He had a swim meet earlier in the day.

“It’s definitely a little hard, because the swim meet lasts all day, so I have to sacrifice the finals to come here,” he said. “But it’s okay.”

Rasmussen’s project is sandwiched between two artists along the wall of the JACC. Every mural has a different style – one artist is experimenting with spray paint and another carved a massive block print. The designs vary from folk art to landscapes and wildlife.

Each mural is 8 feet wide and 4 feet tall. Altogether that’s more than 100 feet-worth of new art for downtown Juneau.

Dezarae Arrowsun is at the helm of the project, which is a collaboration between her business, the Downtown Business Association, the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council and Princess Cruises.

Arrowsun owns Picture This, a custom frame shop in downtown Juneau with a view of the concrete walls of the Marine View parking garage that will be the future home for the murals. She said the idea came from wanting to beautify space downtown outside of her store, and she turned it into an opportunity to teach local artists more about mural making.

“A lot of the things that are very intimidating to artists is the permit process, the legal side of it, contractual side of it, and then site preparation. What do you have to look for as warning signs, those kind of things,” Arrowsun said. “So that’s how we came about this.”

The artists don’t get paid. Instead, they get education and materials, including large sheets of plywood that are treated to withstand the elements. After a year the murals will come down and the artists can either keep or sell their work.

Arrowsun said she put a lot of thought into making sure the murals will last an entire year in the Southeast Alaska elements. She said she wants it to be art for the community as a whole, not just something for tourists.

“I want us in Juneau to appreciate it all winter long, especially when it’s dark and, you know, we need some brightness and some beauty,” she said.

Arrowsun has a three-year contract with the Marine View owners and plans to run the workshop again next year. She said they plan to take applications this September.

Lillian Egan is another artist in the workshop. They work at the Pottery Jungle as a ceramic studio assistant, and have had their art featured around Juneau in the past. They’re painting a landscape with a little bit of fantasy added to it.

“I was thinking of, you know, what it’d be like to be up at Gold Creek, and kind of being the salmon in the river and coming up,” Egan said. “But also being able to be aware of the city in the backdrop and seeing the channel in the distance and stuff, but kind of seeing it from a perspective of, ‘This is what Juneau is.’”

They said it’s been fun to do more community art and they feel the city needs more of it.

“It’s been really cool to find out that it is kind of attainable for people, even in Juneau, to do community art and … have it like, actually support you financially,” they said.

In the future, they want to use their newfound skills to create more art in the community.

“How can I apply that into ways that can help our community more? I don’t know. I think about our recycling center right now, and how could I maybe make a mural like this, but with recycled materials in the future, would be pretty cool,” Egan said.

The murals are going to be installed in late April, with a celebration taking place May 1.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks student is out on bail after ripping almost 60 images off the walls of a university art gallery and eating some of them earlier this month.

The incident has since gone viral — prompting countless social media posts and even reaching national outlets. Lizzy Hahn, an undergraduate journalism student at UAF, broke the story in The Sun Star, the school’s student-run newspaper.

She said the incident is shaping culture and policy around AI on campus.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Lizzy Hahn: A student was tearing Polaroids off of an exhibit in the UAF Art Gallery and putting them in his mouth, chewing them, swallowing some bits, but spitting some bits out. This was a protest against the use of AI art, since this exhibit was made in collaboration between the artist, Nick Dwyer, and AI — like, he used ChatGPT to help him make it.

Shelby Herbert: Whoa. Tell me what happened to the protester.

LH: His name is Graham Granger. He was arrested by the UAF police and charged with criminal mischief in the fifth degree, and he was taken to the Fairbanks Correctional Center, where he was for about six or seven hours, I believe. So, he’s out on bail.

SH: That was quite a splashy headline, and that story has really sprouted wings. I’ve had folks texting me from the East Coast about it. How does it feel to see your work get so much exposure?

LH: It’s really insane to me. I am a young journalist here at UAF. I’m a senior graduating soon, so like this is my first story to go — some people have said that it’s going viral. It has definitely been picked up by multiple, multiple, multiple news sources. Art News for one, Brut America for another.

SH: I think I just saw it in the New York Post?

LH: Yeah. Just so many media sources that have taken the information and my images and spread them to their corners of the world.

SH: Tell me about where you were when you found out this was going down.

LH: That’s actually kind of a funny story. I’m in a pottery class, and it’s in the fine arts building. And as I was walking in, I noticed that there was a police car outside of the building. So, I walk into class, and then my editor, Colin, starts texting our whole staff’s Slack. And he’s like, “Hey, is anyone in the arts building? There’s a student protesting in the gallery.”

So I asked my pottery teacher, like, “Hey, do you know anything about this?” And she’s like, “Yeah, I do.” So we walk into the gallery together, and all we see is just these torn up, chewed up bits of Polaroids. The artist was there, Nick Dwyer, and he was like, “Yeah, someone came and he started chewing up my work.”

SH: And how does the artist feel about all of this?

LH: He was upset, and rightfully so. This was his MFA exhibit. It’s hard to see your art destroyed like this. He had put a lot of time and effort into this. He wanted to press charges, and he had begun to press charges. But then the next day, things had kind of cooled down, he had talked to some of the art professors, and had realized that pressing charges maybe wouldn’t be the best idea.

SH: Lizzy, you’re a journalism student and a student-reporter, but you also have a foot in the art world — you’re an art minor. Can you tell me about how AI content and tools are being received on campus, especially in the humanities?

LH: Yeah, so every teacher has an AI policy. This has been a fairly new development to the syllabi that we are getting. It’s gone from teachers saying, “You’re not allowed to use AI, don’t use AI.” But in the past year, there’s been kind of a shift towards like, yes, you can use AI, but cite it.

Then also, in the art community, we’re starting to see a little more use of AI, and that has really been because of Nick. Like, Nick is really spearheading the use of AI. Art and AI is kind of an interesting mashup because you don’t really think of them going together, but Nick has really used AI in his pottery and now in this AI art exhibit.

I don’t know that many students personally, besides Nick, who are using AI art, but I think that in the future, it totally could change and the use of AI could become more common.

SH: You’re working on part two of the story. Can you give us a little tease about what comes next?

LH: Yeah, I’m kind of looking into what is happening here at UAF, because since this protest has occurred, there has been a lot of uprise. Our student government here on campus has actually proposed a resolution to ban AI art in the department. But at the same time, the art department is creating a statement about their AI policies. So, unsure where that will go, but bright futures ahead!

Local master Chilkat and Ravenstail weaver Lily Hope has been awarded a national fellowship that bolsters culture and tradition across the United States.

She is one of the United States Artists awardees for 2026, which means she gets $50,000 toward her work with no strings attached. 

“It’s a wild gift to have somebody just hand you some money and say, ‘Do what you will,’” she said. “There is absolutely zero parameters on how it is used.”

The award is nomination-based. United States Artists partners with foundations and philanthropists to support artists and cultural practitioners of all disciplines. According to its website, Hope’s award was supported by the Rasmuson Foundation.

Hope found out about the grant a few months ago, and she’s been thinking of what she can do with it ever since. 

Hope has taught hundreds of traditional weavers, and she herself has weaved seven Chilkat and Ravenstail robes and ensembles, innumerable sets of earrings, face masks and even regalia for Labubus. 

Recently, in a conversation with another weaver, Hope had a realization – she wanted to think deeply about the work she wants to do. That weaver was Shdendootaan “Shgen” George. 

“I kind of had a coming to reality moment with Shgen,” she said. “And thank you, Shgen, for waking me up and being like, ‘hey, what if you made regalia for your clan members, your family and work that would stay in Lingít Aaní?’”

Hope is excited to find out what will come of that deep thinking. She closed her public studio downtown last fall to focus on weaving that will stay in the community.

Hope joins fellow Chilkat weaver Sainteen Anna Brown Ehlers, who was awarded the fellowship in 2006. Several other Southeast Alaska artists have received the grant over the years, including writer Shaankaláx̱t’ Ernestine Hayes, Perseverance Theatre Artistic Director Leslie Ishii and carver Nathan Jackson.

Two Juneau artists spent this snowy Friday framing and mounting 18 block prints that correlate with myths — ones they wrote themselves. 

The prints are a part of a show titled “My Mother’s Bones,” opening Friday at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

Rachel Levy said thinking about folktales and their morals inspired the series. 

“Things you wouldn’t even consider mythology, just like certain truths we hear over and over again and all the stories that are told to us growing up,” she said. “And stories we tell each other as adults.”

She wanted to write her own — ones that reflect themes she holds dear: the gifts that our mothers give us, both the ones who birth us and Mother Earth. 

One print shows a heart with a dagger through it. 

“This is about a mom and a daughter who kind of like grow up in this garden together, and the daughter never appreciates life, is never content,” Levy said. “And so the mother decides to slowly cut out her heart and feed it to her daughter piece by piece, so that way she can enjoy life.” 

Levy said it represents her gratitude to her own mother, and the sacrifices she made raising her. 

Alex Bookless was also inspired by her own family for her prints, including the four-legged kind. She pointed to a print of a dog shooting through the darkness with the sun in its teeth. 

“Basically, it’s a story about how much I love my dog,” she said. “And how much I think that loving my dog teaches me how to love myself.” 

That story — and 17 other new folktales — can be found at the JACC Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. The show runs through January. 

As a well-known prop designer for community theater productions in Sitka, Jack Petersen is no stranger to construction. He holds up one of his proudest works, a wooden nutcracker adorned in a blue marching band uniform.

“As an artist, I do get very particular about…not just like the visual aesthetics, but also how things feel, how they sound and stuff, and I love how this one feels when it cracks a nut,” Petersen said. “For being the first Nutcracker that I kept myself, I am very proud of the construction.”

Reaching into a basket of walnuts, Petersen plucks one out and places it into the nutcracker’s mouth, preparing for a satisfying crack.

This nutcracker is the first of three that Petersen has made. They are part of his large nutcracker collection, which features over 130 nutcrackers. Since the beginning of the month, the majority of the nutcrackers in Petersen’s collection have been displayed at Wildflour Cafe and Bakery, where he serves as a year-round line cook. The nutcrackers are spread out across the restaurant in an array of sizes and materials, some made from various kinds of wood, and others from relatively unconventional materials like iron and brass. Their uniforms are adorned in details marking their country of origin, from Germany to Russia. Wreaths of fake pine boughs and Christmas lights wrap around the room, a playful reminder to patrons that the holiday season is upon us.

While many of them are displayed out in the open by Wildflour’s entrance, some of the nutcrackers have more cheeky hiding spots.

“I do like hiding the nutcrackers really high up on shelves, especially for kids who like to look around and stuff,” said Petersen. “I have nutcrackers hiding in the rafters in the bathroom by the salt shakers there. It is a wonderful little game of ‘I Spy’ for people who want to come in and look around.”

Petersen’s fascination with nutcrackers began when he was around three years old, when he saw a local production of the iconic ballet, you guessed it, The Nutcracker.

“It was just like something magical,” Petersen said. “I like the ideas of toys and dolls and things coming to life when we don’t see them and stuff.”

While many young audience members who attend the yearly production often walk away inspired to become ballerinas, the show took Petersen’s imagination in a different direction.

“This may seem silly, but I remember being a kid and wishing that I could crack a nut with a nutcracker and having daydreams of some whimsical Drosselmeyer figure of my own to [say] ‘Hello, young boy. Would you like to crack a nut?,’” said Petersen.

As his admiration for nutcrackers persisted over time, Petersen began the work of collecting them to fulfill his childhood dream.

“Eventually, when I became an adult with adult money, but none of the adult responsibility, I started looking online, reaching out, and started researching nutcrackers that could actually crack nuts, and one thing led to another, and we are now here,” he said.

When it comes to determining what nutcrackers to add to his collection, Petersen is drawn to those that have unique designs that resonate with his inner child.

“I really love finding the ones that are homemade, like they’re ones that individual people made, or smaller crafters, or some older oddities,” said Petersen. “I look for ones that look like they could have leapt off of the children’s books I used to read as a kid because I don’t know, there’s just something really magical about that.”

And it is that very magic that Petersen wishes to share with the community through displaying his collection at Wildflour.

“I love sharing my collection with people, and I specifically love being able to share nutcrackers that actually crack nuts, because it’s a very mundane thing, but it’s also not something that the average person gets to do in a lifetime,” he said. “And it’s a bit of holiday magic to be silly.”

Petersen’s nutcrackers will continue to be displayed up until Christmas, before being packed away once more as Wildflour begins renovations in January. In the meantime, Petersen hopes his collection can spread some Christmas cheer, and that he can maybe even help some folks crack a nut for the very first time, just like the nut-cracking mentor he dreamed of having as a child.

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After more than 16 years as a staple at Juneau’s State Office Building, a local musician has played his last theater organ concert. In a holiday-themed show on Friday, T.J. Duffy said goodbye to a packed audience filled with longtime listeners and soon-to-be regulars.

A crowd of people gathered in the State Office Building on a frigid afternoon. Sunshine streamed through windows as they listened, and some sang along with classic Christmas carols performed on a nearly century-old Kimball theater organ.

T.J. Duffy manned the keys of the massive organ, using his hands and feet to control pedals that play various pipes, wind instruments and drums behind a nearby glass display case. Duffy moved to Juneau in 2008, but heard about the rare organ even before arriving. He said he had to clear a couple of hoops before the state approved him to perform.

“I contacted the State Museum who owned it, and they had to interview me and vet me to make sure, you know, that I knew what I was doing, because it is a museum piece. And they said,’ Sure, go ahead,’” he said.

In 2009, Duffy started joining another organist, J. Allen MacKinnon, in performing on Fridays at noon. He kept it up for more than 16 years. 

He said some of the younger audience members are one of his favorite parts of performing.

“I used to have what I called my cult following of preschoolers,” he said. “They would come over here, they’d take their jackets and their boots off, they’d eat their peanut butter and jelly, and then they would get up and dance. So I would specifically save my danceable music for when they were ready to dance. And then they would rush the organ.”

After concerts, Duffy typically gave what he calls an “organ tour,” where he let children check out the instrument and play a few notes. Friday’s concert was no different. He said it’s a way to get them interested in music.

“The State Museum prefers I don’t, but I’m a big believer that if you want your kids to be musician[s], you have to put musical instruments in their hand and take them to musical events,” Duffy said. “Everybody says, ‘How can I get my kid interested in piano?’ Get him a piano. Let him play it, let him see people playing it.”

Runa Curry went to the concert with her mom. It was a first for both of them. 

“I like the sounds because, and then, you look in the case and there’s all, there’s like drums that go with it too,” Runa said. “There’s so many different, like, instruments that go with the organ.’

She said she’s sad that it’s Duffy’s last performance, but wants to come back for future concerts with other musicians.

Duffy said his last concert coincides with his retirement from the state’s law department. The years have also taken their toll.

“It’s affected my hearing and my abilities are decreasing, so no more public,” he said.

There are still two other performers who will continue the Friday concerts, but it’s unclear how much longer that will go on. The organ is near the end of its usable life, and it would cost $250,000 to ship it to Portland, Oregon for repairs. On top of that, Duffy said it’s difficult to get young people in Juneau to play the organ.

“There’s not that many organs in Juneau. Organists are a dying breed. AI starts manufacturing music now, you know?” he said. “So this organ may very well be in its final days. And I want everybody to know that.”

Now he hopes to leave the state and pursue his other interest: poker.

“I’m actually hoping to move to Las Vegas this summer and check out professional poker,” Duffy said. “I love playing poker. That’s my other passion, next to music.”