Artist Talks @ Bunnell

June 20, 2020- Inspiration & Adaptation w/ Nathan Shafer & Melissa Shaginoff

Friday, June 19, featured guests Nathan Shafer and Melissa Shaginoff. Nathan Shafer is a new media artist from Alaska specializing in augmented reality and digital humanities. He is one of the founding members of both the Meme-Rider Media Team and Manifest.AR. He was profiled by PBS Digital Studios as part of an online collaboration called The Future in 2014. Shafer’s geobased AR works have been displayed on every continent in multiple venues across the world. He contributed chapters to Augmented Reality Art, Augmented Reality Games II, and Augmented Reality in Education, in 2020. He received a Creative Capital award in 2020 for Wintermoot. Melissa Shaginoff is part of the Udzisyu (caribou) and Cui Ui Ticutta (fish-eater) clans from Nay'dini'aa Na Kayax (Chickaloon Village). Melissa is an Ahtna and Paiute person, an artist, a social activist and currently the curator of Alaska Pacific University’s Art Galleries. Within her current curatorial work, Melissa has focused intently on potlatching. She believes that the only future in which institutions embody Indigenous ideologies is one that publicly recognizes its power, and autonomously gives it away. Melissa has participated the Island Mountain Arts Toni Onley Artist Project in Wells, British Columbia as well as the Sheldon Jackson Museum Artist Residency in Sitka, Alaska. She has been published in First American Art Magazine, Inuit Art Quarterly, and the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Learning Lab page. Her artwork is collected by the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Palmer Museum and the Pratt Museum. Melissa is also a part of the N-Collective, a new media group focusing on transparent and accurate representation of Indigenous experiences in fiction and science-fiction content. Melissa was selected for the Skövde Musuem’s AiRs International Artist Residency in Skövde, Sweden, she is currently working on a year long project revolved around social engagement and conversation as art practice. more.

June 12, 2020- Inspiration & Adaptation with Kat Moore and Tim Easton

Friday, June 12, featured guests Kat Moore and Tim Easton. Kat Moore, multi-instrumentalist and creative force known as The Forest That Never Sleeps, weaves a sonic tapestry with her compositions. Kat lives and teaches music in Anchorage. Tim Easton is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter playing rock and roll, folk and Americana music. He tours extensively and often plays in Alaska. Tim is based in Nashville. more.

June 5, 2020- Inspiration & Adaptation with Tamara Wilson & Jimmy Riordan

June 5, 2020, featured guests Tamara Wilson and Jimmy Riordan. Tamara Wilson is a Fairbanks-based artist and creator of The Lemonade Stand, a mobile exhibit space with the mission to grow and connect creative community. Jimmy Riordan is an artist and educator living in Anchorage. He is currently working on the Alaska Bookmobile Project, bringing a 20 year old bookmobile out of retirement and re-imagining its role as a mobile library, community venue and art space in its new home of Anchorage. more.

May 28, 2020- Inspiration in Isolation w/ Catie Bursch, Amber Webb & Thorey Munro

May 28, 2020, featured Catie Bursch, Amber Webb and Thorey Munro. These artists have all lived and worked along Bristol Bay for many years.

Catie Bursch intertwines art, science and commercial fishing on a daily basis. She has fished in Bristol Bay for the past 30 years where she and Tom raised their two girls in the summer. She just finished a fellowship with Alaska Salmon Fellows exploring salmon sustainability, equitability and the Alaska Salmon/People system.

Amber Webb is an artist & activist from Dillingham, Alaska of Yup’ik and Unangan heritage. She received a Rasmuson Individual Artist Award and a Project Award. Amber explores pictorial Yup’ik storytelling to tell contemporary stories of oppression and resilience.

Thorey Munro spends her winters in Homer, Alaska and her summers salmon fishing on the Egegik River in Bristol Bay. She recently completed a masters degree in architecture and had an exhibit, May 2020, at the Bunnell Street Arts Center.

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April 30, 2020- Inspiration in Isolationw/ Bruce Farnsworth & Sheila Wyne

April 30, 2020, featured visual artists Bruce Farnsworth and Sheila Wyne. Bruce Farnsworth is an Anchorage based writer, artist and community organizer. He founded and directed MTS Gallery in Anchorage and Light Brigade, a multimedia collaboration of artists who stage site specific art interventions in the built and natural environment. He is Co-Lead of the Pan-Arctic 8Boxes Project. Farnsworth was the recipient of the first ever “President’s Award” from the Rasmuson Foundation, an award created by the foundation’s President and CEO to honor his work in neighborhood revitalization through the arts.

Sheila Wyne is a visual artist based in Anchorage. Her studio work has been shown across the state, the Lower 48 and overseas. Her work is in permanent collections of several Alaska museums, and she has designed over 20 public artworks. Wyne has worked as a set designer with theatre companies in Alaska and the Northwest and she is core Member of The Light Brigade. Wyne has been awarded a national NEA/TCG Fellowship in set design, a Rasmuson Artist Fellowship and grants from Alaska State Council on the Arts, the NASE Development Program, the Andy Warhol and Rockefeller Foundations as well as the Governor’s Award for Individual Artist. more.

May 21, 2020- Inspiration in Isolation (Homer Youth Speak) w/ Asa Panarelli, Ella Parks & Drew Wimmerstedt

May 21, 2020, featured Homer Youth guests: Ella Parks, Drew Wimmerstedt and Asa Panarelli

Asa Panarelli is a locally grown actor and musician. A recent graduate of Homer High, he looks forward to delving deeper into all the art and creativity that Homer has to offer.

Ella Parks is a singer-songwriter who was born and raised in Homer. She currently resides in Austin, Texas where she is making new music and hopes to build a career out of it someday.

Drew Wimmerstedt is a visual artist raised in Homer’s art community. Closing to finishing their Associate in the Arts at Kachemak Bay Campus, Drew hopes to continue contributing to Homer’s healthy obsession with art. more.

May 14, 2020- Inspiration in Isolation w/ Francesca DuBrock & Michael Walsh

May 14, 2020, featured Francesca DuBrock and Michael Walsh. Francesca DuBrock is Chief Curator at the Anchorage Museum. She is passionate about creative practice as a method of understanding and questioning the world, often collaborating with artists and community members to develop projects highlighting cultural diversity in the North. Before returning home to Alaska, Francesca worked as an artist, educator, archivist, translator, server and (briefly) in wood conservation in Maine, California, and Mexico.

Michael Walsh is assistant curator/archivist for the Ruben/Benston Film Collection at the Walker Arts Center. A teacher and studio artist, Michael Walsh has worked in moving image art since the early 1990s. He has curated programs for Korean galleries, San Francisco museums and microcinemas, Milwaukee’s urban meadows and shipyards, Alaskan airplane hangars, bunkers, and mountain tops. more.

May 7, 2020- Inspiration in Isolation w/ Amy Meissner & Carla Cope

May 7, 2020, featured Alaska artists Amy Meissner and Carla Cope. Amy Meissner combines traditional handwork, found objects and abandoned textiles to reference the literal, physical and emotional work of women. She has shown internationally with textile work in the permanent collections of the Anchorage Museum, the Contemporary Art Bank of Alaska and the Alaska Humanities Forum as well as various private collections. Carla Cope, from Homer, graduated with a BFA from Oregon College of Art and Craft in 2003 and lived and painted in Oregon, Wisconsin and California before moving back to Homer in 2010. Carla “finds fresh inspiration in this beautiful and quirky place. I’m driven by color and pattern. My imagery is derived from personal narrative and the messy, lyrical, tragic and profound experience of being an Alaskan woman, an artist, and a mother.” more.

April 16, 2020- Inspiration in Isolation w/ David Pettibone & Ryan Conarro

David Pettibone is a figurative painter. He makes paintings of people and places which seek to convey the visceral emotions that arise from our convoluted relationship with the natural world.Ryan Conarro makes story-centered performance and sound works that aim to cultivate relationship and community more.

April 9, 2020- Inspiration In Isolation w/ Amber Webb & Emily Johnson

Amber Webb is an artist and activist from Dillingham, Alaska of Yup’ik and Unangax̂ heritage. Amber explores pictorial Yup’ik storytelling to tell contemporary stories of oppression and resilience. Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work.  She is based in New York. Raised in Soldotna, Alaska, she is of Yup’ik descent. more.