Artist Talks @ Bunnell

October 1, 2021 First Friday: John Hagen, Kristin Link and Michael Walsh

Alaska artists explore the intersection of environmental observation and nostalgia in a group show, “Sound of Wind and Grass,” featuring photographs by John Hagen, cyanotype, drawing and collage by Kristin Link and video audio art by Michael Walsh.

July 2, 2021 First Friday: Linda Infante Lyons

The intention of my work is to create contemporary Indigenous icon imagery, recover and elevate the beliefs of Alaska Native people as equal to those of the Western world. My paintings of Alaska landscapes and other subjects such as seals and ice represent the connection to the environment of the subjects in these portraits. 

During the long introspective period of the pandemic lockdown, my mind wandered to landscapes visited long ago, Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands and Chile.  Some of my paintings will reflect these places. Having witnessed the pain and suffering of the most vulnerable in 2020, my work may suggest the warm embrace of refuge and care. In all my paintings, I invite the observer to quiet the mind and consider the belief that all things, living and inanimate are instilled the light of divine energy.  

Biography
Linda Infante Lyons is a visual artist from Anchorage, Alaska. Her family is of Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Alaska Native heritage from Kodiak Island. She earned a BA at Whitman College, WA and studied art at the Viňa del Mar Fine Arts School in Chile. She has been exhibiting her work for over 20 years. 

Linda’s work can be found in permanent collections including the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH, the Anchorage Museum, the Alaska State Museum, the Alaska Contemporary Art Bank, the Alutiiq Museum and Archeological Repository, Kodiak, AK, the Museum of the North, Fairbanks, AK, and the Pratt Museum in Homer, AK.

Linda has received various awards including a 2020 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, a 2020 and 2017 Rasmuson Foundation Fellowship, a Santa Fe Arts Institute Fellowship and a Native Arts and Cultures National Artist Fellowship. 

Linda lives in Anchorage, Alaska with her husband, British artist, Graham Dane. 

August 6, 2021 First Friday: Sheila Wyne

Sheila Wyne presents The Strata Series. Strata are layers of rock that tell us stories—sometimes vivid and startling—of geological time. The found and manipulated signs are detritus from our built environment.  Signage is a symbol of our species priorities for how to care for and direct ourselves often to the exclusion of other ecosystems. 

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 the Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Homer Museums.  She has designed over 20 public artworks.

June 4, 2021, First Friday: Antoinette Walker

 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- Inspiration and Adaptation: Dasha Kelly Hamilton

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 9, 2021- Inspiration and Adaptation: Land acknowledgment with Argent Kvasnikoff and Thorey Munro

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 2, 2021- First Friday: Emily Schubert

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 26, 2021- Inspiration and Adaptation: Shared Universe Bookclub discusses cultural appropriation

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- Inspiration and Adaptation: Skövde, Sweden residency exchange with Mandy Bernard and Berith Stennab

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 5, 2021- First Friday: Sara Tabbert

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.