On Wednesday afternoon I revisited Sarah Davies' "100Stone" installation at Point Woronzof. The project involving body casts set up in the tide flats of Cook Inlet was put in place last month and was almost immediately demolished by winds, high water and, especially, ice floes. The event triggered a rescue operation that was even more heroic than the big outdoor display itself.
The 60 or so statues that survived the disaster were hauled as far up the shore as possible and placed in standing positions with more substantial anchoring that Davies and her crew of volunteers hoped would withstand the ravages of nature.
So far, so good. As of Dec. 23 they remained in place. High water had left layers of ice one on top of another along the high shore, piled almost to the toes of some of the figures. It served as a dike or levee, protecting the survivors from the rapidly moving ice in the ocean only a few feet away. I watched as a giant pan of ice rolled toward the beach, snagged on another chunk of ice stuck in the mud of the shallows and sheared away.
The hypnotic mosaic of the migrating floes that filled Cook Inlet, speeding by with the pace of a tireless jogger, made their own kinetic art show. Several people were on the site. Some told me that they'd been out of state when the installation went in. They'd learned about it and kept up with developments online and, arriving in Anchorage, made it a point to see it.
Any artist hopes that her work gets an audience, preferably an audience beyond the immediate locale. It seems that Davies' piece has succeeded on that count.
I also hope it succeeds in the artist's greater goal and that visitors to the site find some emotional connection to the situation that people with mental illness -- and physical illness for that matter -- often find themselves in. And I hope the little wall of protective ice continues to fend off the enormous forces sweeping by until the installation can be removed later this spring.
It's a lot to hope for. But Christmas should be a day for hoping.
Hanukkah book goes online
For the following, we flash back to just after Hanukkah. That's when former ADN columnist Barbara Brown found out that her children's book, "Hanukkah in Alaska," had been turned into a video for the SAG-AFTRA Foundation's "Online Storyline" series.
In the seven-minute video, the book, which came out in 2013, is read by Molly Ephraim, a regular member of the cast of the hit comedy series "Last Man Standing," starring Tim Allen. The "Online Storyline" series features well-known actors and actresses reading children's literature as a way of encouraging literacy and expanding the imagination.
Brown's story involves a little girl in Alaska who encounters a stubborn moose and the northern lights during the holidays. It is illustrated by Stacey Schuett. The video is getting plenty of clicks, Brown tells us.
Get rich with short films
There are filmmaking contests, then there are million-dollar-prize filmmaking contests. The promise of the latter in a BBC story caught our attention this week. "A film festival in Japan is to award nearly $1m to a director it decides has the best new movie idea," the BBC reported.
As it turned out, the winner of the contest sponsored by the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia in Tokyo will not receive $1 million, but actually 100 million yen to cover production costs of their film idea. The website tells us that's about $800,000 in U.S. currency, which is still pretty darned good for something that may just be a few minutes long.
The festival was founded in 1999 by actor Tetsya Bessho ("Godzilla vs. Mothra," etc.) and has gained momentum as more people watch videos on their smartphones and expect complete and compelling stories in a short span.
Knowing that there are a bunch of people making short films in Alaska, we thought we'd pass along the news and the chance to win between 400 and 800 Permanent Fund dividend checks to finance your dream project. As best as I can tell, you don't even need to have a movie, just a 500-word story pitch in either English or -- if you really want to impress the judges -- Japanese.
The deadline is Feb. 29. Five finalists will be picked and the winning submission will be chosen from those five. Details and submission information are available at shortshorts.org/index-en.php.
Pond takes helm at Cyrano's
Longtime Anchorage thespian Teresa K. Pond has been named the new producing artistic director at Cyrano's Theatre Company. Pond's work in Anchorage stretches back to the 1980s and recently included directing "Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some)" at Cyrano's. She's also directing, as "an independent labor of love," an upcoming "The Winter's Tale," co-produced by Out North and RKP Productions; her father, Robert Pond, is the "P" in that organization. Her career has also taken her to several assignments in other states, including New York and Pennsylvania, but the job should keep her in her hometown permanently, she said.
Fairbanks quilt heads to Switzerland
"Climate Change," a quilt by Interior sewers Susan Malen and Ann McBeth, will be included in the Quilt Challenge Exhibit at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland, opening March 22, which is U.N. World Water Day.
The challenge invited quilters to create work around the theme of "Water Is Life: Clean Water and Its Impact on the Lives of Women and Girls Around the World."
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that the 24-by-28-inch piece is made mainly from blue fused silk and depicts drops of water splashing into the well, surrounded by a brown border to stress the limits of available liquid water.
"Wildlike" set for NYC reprise
The made-in-Alaska wilderness film "Wildlike" is set for an encore screening in New York on Jan. 13, provided 100 advance tickets can be sold. The "beautiful and intoxicating tale" is about two trekkers who team up on a hike through the 49th state, but the star is really the scenery. Some of the wildlife scenes were shot at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage. The screening will take place at the AMC Lowes on 19th Street East. Let your Big Apple friends know and give them the link to the tickets, tugg.com/events/77217.