![June 4, 2021, First Friday with Antoinette Walker]()
June 7, 2021
In my work I strive to tell a story through my experiences and imagination. My creativity and life stories are expressed with coastal marine themes that capture the wild beauty of my home, Alaska.
The medium of encaustic is my material of choice; a blend of molten beeswax, damar crystals, and pigment.
The inspirations for these paintings are weathered canneries, set net sites, and fishermen working their gear. My first hand experiences with the dangers and excitement of fishing draw me to the historical Bristol Bay. Here, ghosts of past storms emerge through the fog. From a 32-foot wooden sailboat without navigational equipment, to the eroding river banks, dilapidating canneries, all surfaces are beaten by heavy winds and torrential seas, developing the rustic landscapes I find beautiful and tell a compelling story.
I live in a coastal community where the natural elements of wind and salt are constantly altering the environment. With every year there are subtle changes and inspirations for a fresh perspective.
I’m drawn to these surfaces with textural layers that disclose a story of the lives they had. Using encaustic, painting, scraping, and scratching, I seek to reveal pieces that speak of the past and the present. For me, inspiration is often a mystery. One thing inspires while another fades away, the ideas warp and changes are absorbed and lost, as in the landscapes with eroding edge.
April 23, 2021
Dasha Kelly Hamilton is a writer, performance artist and creative change agent, applying the creative process to facilitate dialogues around human and social wellness. She is the author of two novels, three poetry collections, four spoken word albums, and one collection of personal vignettes. She has taught at colleges, conferences, and classrooms and curated fellowships for emerging leaders. An Arts Envoy for the U.S. Embassy, Dasha has facilitated community-building initiatives in Botswana, Toronto, Mauritius, and Beirut. Her touring production, Makin’ Cake, uniquely engages communities in a forward dialogue on race, class, and equity. Dasha is a national Rubinger Fellow and, concurrently, Poet Laureate for the City of Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin.
April 10, 2021
How can land acknowledgment spark other ways of knowing, being and listening into action? Board members of Bunnell and artists, Argent Kvasnikoff of Ninilchik Village Tribe, and Thorey Munro from Homer, discuss the significance of language, materials, space and time in land acknowledgment.
more.
April 3, 2021
Drawing from mythology, folktales, memories, and personal experience she creates narratives and characters that aim to make some sense of our existence by giving form to our collective anxieties and desires. Enthralled by the emotive power and depth of expression achieved through puppetry and storytelling, she believes that within these realms lies a source of real-life magic that is deficient in much of our daily lives.
more.
March 27, 2021
What is the value and purpose of writing alternative histories of Alaska? What responsibilities does a person who operates from a distance have to a culture?
Shared Universe Bookclub discusses cultural appropriation. With Nathan Shafer, Richard Perry, Lucas Rowley, Leslie Kimiko Ward, Vivian Faith Prescott, Jaclyn Bergamino & Patrick Lichty. more.
March 12, 2021
How are international artists-in-residence managing pandemic, distance and dialogue? Fiber artists Berith Stennab (Skövde, Sweden) and Mandy Bernard (Homer, Alaska) discuss their intercontinental collaboration of shared communication and textiles.
Stennab and Bernard are participants in a residency exchange between Bunnell Street Arts Center and Skövde Museum sponsored by the Alaska Community Foundation’s Irma Scavenius Fund for International Understanding. Curators Tomas Gustafsson and Mette Muhli from Skovde Museum join us for this conversation. more.
March 10, 2021
Sara Tabbert – Signs of Life
"Certainly I am but one of many artists whose lives were completely rearranged by the ongoing pandemic. Of all the things that were supposed to happen in the last 12 months, this exhibit at Bunnell is the only event on my calendar that wasn’t postponed or canceled.
This collection of recent work reflects my continued interest in the less celebrated landscapes of Alaska — what we do in them and what we (as well as what our animal and insect neighbors) leave behind." more.
February 26, 2021
Nina Elder, February 2021 artist in residence at Bunnell Street Arts Center, discusses her fascination with fraying materials, lines, tension, release and mending with artist Billy Joe Miller. Both will share images and discuss their work. Elder has been collecting and drawing frayed rope in Homer. Elder and Miller have made work out of ropes together in Gustavus, Alaska. Miller has made art out of rope waste at the Tides Institute in Maine. But more than the ropes themselves, Elder is fascinated by Miller's acumen with the cycle of life, as an artist and a shepherd for the dying. "As I was conceiving of It Will Not Be The Same, But It Might Be Beautiful, his perspective really influenced me. That there is something gorgeous after the breaking. He also does exceptional work in communities, and it is no coincidence that my art practice grew into public collaboration after traveling for a month with Billy Joe on the Alaska Ferry." more.
February 20, 2021
Artist Holly Mititquq Nordlum speaks about cultural resistance and revitalization through her present projects including public art, acknowledgment through art, film and traditional tattoos. more.
February 13, 2021
With NPN’s support, Nina is developing It Will Not Be The Same, But It Might Be Beautiful. This multimedia project poetically explores how humans are implicated in the Anthropocene and are also tasked with moving towards a more holistic future. Through video installation and large-scale drawing, this investigation of change focuses on objects that have been exhausted by use and transformed by time. more.
