Alaska News

Up-and-coming Alaska glass artist debuts new work on First Friday

Looking ahead to November's First Friday art openings, we see that glass artist Keeper Nott will have a solo show at Artique Ltd., where his work is regularly displayed. Earlier this year Nott was the Alaska representative in American Craft Week's "Masterpiece E-Xhibit & Sale," which featured one artist for every state.

Alaska-born Nott was raised in Anchorage and graduated from West High School, where he was first introduced to clay and ceramics. His work showed up in juried art shows and he went on to study art at Alfred University in Allegany County, New York, one of the best-known design schools on the East Coast and home of the New York State College of Ceramics. Eventually he got into hand-blown glass and was hooked.

"Glass is a full-contact sport," he writes in his artist's statement. "In the glass studio, you are working in a fast paced, hot, sweaty, and stressful environment, which takes incredible amounts of physical and mental endurance, and the glass is certainly not a forgiving material; it pushes back. … I am exploring through my own physicality the limits to which I can push my medium, my design and myself."

Yet Nott's final products tend to produce a delicate and detailed result that is as evocative and expressive as it is physical and permanent. "The glass exactly captures the environment that it was created in," Nott writes. "Without exception, every effort, movement, and touch of the artist is frozen in time, and reflected in the final piece.

"It is because of this that glass has taken over my world."

The new work was made at the studio of Judy Warwick in Fairbanks. Nott says he's looking into setting up his own glass-blowing studio in Anchorage next summer, but the timeline is still in flux.

He also plans to have a new crop of his one-of-a-kind Christmas ornaments available next season, but has put them on the back burner because of other projects this year. However, he tells us he thinks Artique still has some of his ornaments from Christmas past.

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Museum addition update

In a work session on Oct. 23, the municipal assembly received an update on the process involved in the pending construction of a significant addition to the Anchorage Museum. The new 29,000-square-foot space will be used to display work from the museum's permanent collection.

"We have lots of objects in storage that are not always in public view," said Julie Decker, the museum's executive director. The addition will make it possible to display around 200 pieces from the collection, primarily paintings, where people can see them without arranging a trip to the basement, she said.

Decker also stressed that the estimated $24 million cost for construction is being covered by private donors.

John Weir, principal architect with McCool, Carson, Green, the firm engaged by the museum in the design and planning process, told the assembly that construction would require the closing of the left lane of A Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues and the right lane of Sixth Avenue between B and A Streets for one year starting around Feb. 1, 2016. Sixth Avenue would need to be reduced to one lane during low-traffic hours — like at night — from March 30 to May 10, 2016, to accommodate the loading of steel panels that will be used for part of the exterior.

The exterior will also feature yellow cedar, which is expected to age into a gray color in time.

Insofar as possible, exterior construction will be done during daylight hours, Weir said. If circumstances require extending the work to after dark, that work will be done on the interior to keep noise contained.

The new gallery and office space will be built over the current single-story portion of the original museum, built in 1968. Weir's plans showed two tall galleries crossing at right angles, flanked by additional gallery space with administrative offices on the side. A portion of the space will be used to provide additional room for the Discovery Center/Imaginarium.

Decker told the assembly that construction would be done in a way to minimize disruption to ongoing museum activities.

The museum expects to present its plans to the Planning and Zoning Commission on Nov. 2, start construction in February and open in the fall of 2017.

Residency artists selected

The Rasmuson Foundation has picked four Alaska artists to receive out-of-state residencies with art organizations in the Lower 48. Anchorage multimedia artist Sheila Wyne will pursue two series of artworks, "Landmarks" and "Adaptations" at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation in Charlotte, North Carolina. Printmaker Sara Tabbert of Fairbanks will go to Zygote Press in Cleveland, Ohio. Cordova writer Rosemary McGuire will take part in the Djerassi Resident Artists Program near Woodside, California. And sea otter hunter/designer/skin sewer Peter Williams of Sitka will work at the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico.

The names announced on Oct. 23 are the reciprocal participants in a program that also brings four out-of-state artists to Alaska for residencies at Alaska art organizations each year.

New program for Native artists

Alaska's Silver Hand program has helped Alaska Native artists identify and promote their work, but only Alaska Natives living in Alaska can receive certification to use the Silver Hand symbol. Alaska tribe members who have moved to different states are ineligible, which has become something of a problem in our increasingly mobile world.

To address the issue, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska has created a new "Certified Tribal Artist" program to certify tribally enrolled artists who reside Outside as well as those who live in Alaska.

There are thousands of Haida and Tlingit tribal members who live outside the state, said Central Council's Business and Economic Development Manager Myrna Gardner. The new program will provide a way that they can certify their work as being Alaska Native art.

Fred Lauth Sr., a Haida carver originally from Hydaburg, was the first person to receive certification. Lauth moved to Seattle where he attended college some years ago and is now a Seattle delegate from the Tlingit & Haida Washington Chapter.

More information is available by emailing Myrna Gardner at mgardner@ccthita.org or calling 800-344-432, ext. 7177.

UAA faculty in concert

Timothy Smith, Lee Wilkins and John Lutterman will present a program of music for piano, violin and/or cello at 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, in the UAA Fine Arts Building recital hall. The program includes music by Beethoven, Dvorak and conclude with the wrenching Trio in E Minor by Shostakovich. Advance tickets are available at uaatix.universitytickets.com.

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Brahms double-bill in Fairbanks

Also on Nov. 1, the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra will present a concert consisting of the two Brahms piano concertos back-to-back. I've heard of this programming before, but it's more common for a pianist who wants to show his or her stuff to play the two concertos on different nights. To do both in the course of 120 minutes will require near superhuman pianism, and conductor Eduard Zilberkant may have found one of the few musicians capable of the challenge. Alexander Kobrin is in the front ranks of the new generation of Russian pianists and his Brahms has been particularly praised by critics. The performance starts at 4 p.m. at University of Alaska Fairbanks' Davis Concert Hall.

So you think you can play

Think you may be the next Kobrin? Applications for the 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition are now online at www.cliburn.org/competitions/cliburn-competition/2017-competition. The contest will take place in Fort Worth, Texas, in May and June 2017. If you need time to work up your scales, the application deadline is Oct. 13 next year.

The jury will be chaired by veteran conductor Leonard Slatkin, who will also lead the Fort Worth Symphony in the final round of concerto competition. The five-person screening jury will include Janina Fialkowska, who old-timers will recall performed with the Anchorage Symphony back in the Maurice Bonney era.

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham has been a reporter and editor at the ADN since 1994, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print.

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