Arts

Papke’s paintings focus on an internal search for the deeper meaning of the images, mythology, and visual narratives that captivate his imagination. He paints layered images on large hand-stretched canvases using oils, alkyds, wax mediums and classic glazing techniques. Daniel Papke is one of eight artists selected for the Alaska State Museum 2017-2019 Solo Artist Exhibition Series.

Ben is an Alaska-based portrait and landscape photographer and the founder of the independent publisher, Ice Fog Press.

In this NEA Big Read keynote event, playwright Vera Starbard, poet Joan Naviyuk Kane, and novelist Don Rearden discuss the power of art in a colonized, indigenous Alaska. Through an examination of their own work and the Big Read selection, Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, the panel will discuss the notion that “survival is insufficient” in the wake of widespread cultural and social upheaval.

This live, onstage conversation preceded a Q and A session and book signing.

On September 1, 2017 Jackson Polys (aka Stephen Paul Jackson and Stron Softi) gave an artist talk about his work on the Seward shame pole that was raised in Saxman Totem Park in April, 2017.
Jackson’s Seward pole is the third iteration. The original pole was erected after Secretary of State William Seward’s 1869 visit to southeast Alaska. The Tlingit honored Seward with a potlatchand gifts that he did not reciprocate, which led to the creation of the ridicule pole. In 1941, theoriginal pole was replaced by a Civilian Conservation Corps replica. In 2014, the second pole had deteriorated beyond repair and Jackson was selected to create a replacement. Jackson’s version features a more detailed carving of Seward’s face than its predecessor, a tribute to the original pole.

Jackson is a carver and visual artist based in Ketchikan and New York.He began carving with his father, Tlingit master carver Nathan Jackson, and obtained a BA in Art History and Visual Arts in 2013 and an MFA in visual arts in 2015 from Columbia University.

Robert Murray’s large abstract sculptures begin with a model. Murray builds the models in his workshop before creating the larger works which require an industrial process involving welders, metal fabricators and painters. The exhibit highlights 8 working models, including the one Murray made for Nimbus in 1977. Author Jonathan Lippincott, whose book, Large Scale: Fabricating Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s, explores the history of sculptures made at Lippincott, Inc., where Nimbus was fabricated, will discuss Murray’s relationship with Lippincott metal fabrication company.

Alaska State Writer Laureate Ernestine Hayes for a discussion of her writing that examines our society’s histories and heroes from a deeper perspective. Hayes is the author of The Tao of Raven and Blonde Indian and a professor at the University of Alaska Southeast. It was recorded on Friday August 4th at 7pm At the APK Lecture Hall.