"I Draw the Line ... on Ignorance, Racism, Violence and Hatred" is a juried art show in which Anchorage teenagers explore King's dream and celebrate Black History Month with postcard-size drawings, paintings, collages and mixed media.
The show was juried by award-winning photographer Zoe Strauss, a Philadelphia art organizer who is an artist-in-residence at the museum for a month, courtesy of grants from the United States Artists Fellows program and the Rasmuson Foundation.
From a field of 250 submissions, Strauss selected three to win $100 prizes. "I'm looking for a combination of technical skill and the ability to interpret the assignment," she said, "and a little bit of connection with the present."
She picked "Laos Government Continues to Hunt Former CIA Secret Army" by Paochoua Her, a descendent of one of the Hmung soldiers in that army for the way it showed past events still haunting the present.
Also winning top prizes were untitled pieces by Paulette Mordin and Erin Cofer. Strauss said the latter was "rockin' out a little bit in the design department," and that the line-drawing figure ripping the word "Hate" took obvious effort to execute.
She was surprised, though, at the focus on King's era, 40 years ago and more. "I was sure there'd be a billion Obama things," she said. Instead only a handful of the submissions included references to the president-elect.
Jody Jenkins, the museum's curator of art education, agreed. "I thought we'd see more of what was going on now."
One New Yorker-like cartoon with no time reference whatsoever caught Strauss' attention, however, and she singled it out for special mention. Jacob Hakala's vibrant "Peel" shows a rainbow-colored banana leaping out of its peel while another scandalized fruit hides her child's eyes.
"I thought it was hysterical," Strauss said.
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