Culture

Artbeat: Restaurant paintings offer feast for the eyes at relocated Arctic Rose

After 28 years in downtown Anchorage, Arctic Rose Gallery relocated to Spenard in November. But they'll have their grand opening reception starting at 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 30. The first featured artist is Kurt Jacobson, whose show, "The Art of Dining In Anchorage Restaurants," includes 16 paintings of local diners and kitchen crews. "I'm known as a landscape artist," Jacobson said, "so this is going definitely out of the box for me."

Jacobson said the idea for the show "has been in my head for three years. Art and food stimulate our senses and satisfy our souls, so why not combine the two art forms together? I wanted to showcase some of our top restaurants, and not just the chefs but the restaurants and the atmosphere each has."

He came up with a list of eight popular eateries, contacted the owners and got permission to come in and take hundreds of photos that he used as starting points for the oil paintings, two per restaurant. The establishments are: Club Paris, Ginger, Fat Ptarmigan, Sacks Cafe, Kinley's, Simon & Seafort's, Brown Bag Sandwich Co. and Villa Nova.

Gallery owner Jana Latham said she's hoping to have signature appetizers from at least some of the featured restaurants at the opening, which will include giveaways and prize drawings. The new gallery space will be attached to a new coffee shop, Boheme Coffee Lounge, which promises to have specialties like cold-brewed coffee and Alaska natural chaga tea, made with a tree fungus that grows locally and is currently the rage among health-food and antioxidant fans.

She also said she's hoping to encourage a "Last Friday" art opening schedule for Spenard and other locations south of Fireweed. Find the gallery at 1443 W. Northern Lights Blvd., across the street from Title Wave Books.

Writers’ opportunities abound

We approach the deadline for the UAA/Alaska Dispatch News Creative Writing Contest, which is Feb. 10. For many years, the contest, which includes cash prizes and publication, has served to boost the careers of some of Alaska's most important writers of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Categories include elementary and high school, college and general public. Rules and entry information are available at adn.com/creativewriting.

As always, we're particularly interested in seeing what Alaska's students are writing.

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The deadline for the 21st Annual Statewide Poetry Contest, sponsored by the Fairbanks Arts Association, is March 2. Categories include elementary, middle, high school and adult. Once again, cash prizes will be awarded and winning work will be presented at a literary reading. This year's judge is award-winning poet Joan Naviyuk Kane. Find the rules and online submission form at fairbankarts.org.

Poems in Place, which puts poems by Alaskans on permanent displays at state parks, will take suggestions for their next round of in-place poetry through April 1. Since 2011, Poems in Place has dedicated work at Beluga Point, Totem Bight State Historical Park, Chena River State Recreational Area, Independence Mine State Historical Park and Lake Aleknagik State Recreation Site, near Dillingham. This round is seeking poems for Caines Head State Recreation Area, near Seward and Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park, a World War II historic site near Kodiak.

It is hoped that the selected poems will have some connection to the place where they're located. For example:

Fort Abercrombie is stout and remote.

The wide North Pacific provides a fine moat.

Its canons and guns never shot at our enemies,

but lobbed a few shells at yon clams and anemones.

Berries and grasses abound there today

and fat fishes splash down the slope in the bay.

Kodiak brown bears and wilderness purists

protect it from vandals and bus loads of tourists.

Wherefore we'll retreat to thick-walled Abercrombie

In event of apocalypse, nuclear or zombie.

You know you can do better than that, so send in your best work. You'll find previous examples, information and the entry form at alaskacenterforthebook.org.

Denali artists announced

Three writers and four artists have been picked to spend 10 days each as artists-in-residence at Denali National Park and Preserve this year. Participants will include Fairbanks poet Jon Kooistra, Cordova painter David Rosenthal, Indiana poet Marianne Boruch, Connecticut essayist Yelizaveta P. Renfro and Californians Brooks Salzwedel, an artist, Camille Seaman and Sonja Hinrichsen. Seaman is listed as the program's first fine arts photographer. Hinrichsen is known for a "participatory community arts project" titled "Snow Drawings," likewise a first for the program.

The seven were selected from 300 applications. Four will be at the park over the summer, the other three -- we're not sure which lucky three -- will have their residencies during the winter and early spring. The next open call for resident artists will take place May 1-Sept. 30 and include the park's first-ever residency in music composition. Apply at www.nps.gov/dena/historyculture/arts-program.

What capital?

A recent press release from the University of California, Riverside announced that a team of seismologists and volcanologists will come to Alaska to set up a series of seismic stations to monitor the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone. It is hoped that this "Aleutian Array of Arrays" project will provide information that can be used in the very different faults found in California.

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But what caught my attention was information attributed to team leader Abhijit Ghosh, a UC Riverside earthquake expert, who referenced the 9.2 Good Friday earthquake in 1964. "Ground shaking due to this earthquake and the resulting tsunami caused severe damage in the entire region, including Anchorage, Alaska's capital," the press release said.

I recall that Anchorage received severe damage and casualties from shaking ground, but no damaging tsunami ever reached here, or Kenai or Knik or other locations in the "entire region." And we're not sure what creative cartography shows Anchorage as the state's capital; perhaps such a map is on file at the California capital -- Hollywood. (The italics are intended to indicate sarcasm, folks.)

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham was a longtime ADN reporter, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print. He retired from the ADN in 2017.

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