Arts

'Blue Bear' puts emotional edge on literary meditation

Perseverance Theatre faced several challenges in adapting "The Blue Bear" as a play. There's the problem of telling a story that is 100 percent nonfiction. Lynn Schooler's memoir of his time guiding photographer Michio Hoshino in Southeast Alaska -- hoping to see a rare glacier or "blue" bear -- reveals no serious conflict between the two, the only characters seen on stage.

THEATER REVIEW

'The Blue Bear' pays off for viewers who are patient

Perseverance Theatre faced several challenges in adapting "The Blue Bear" as a play. One was trying to convey the enormity of the Alaskan landscape and megafauna on a stage. Most formidable, the play had to turn a literary meditation into a drama with action.

Kids' art celebrating Tongass on display in Ketchikan

The Tongass Historical Museum and the U.S. Forest Service have joined forces to bring a new exhibit to Ketchikan. "A Forest of Words: Youth Voices Celebrate the Tongass National Forest" is a collection of art created by Southeast Alaska schoolchildren as a way to honor the forest in which they live.

Perseverance Theatre offers Alaska classic

Last winter, readers returning from trips to Juneau raved about a new play they had seen at Perseverance Theatre, "The Blue Bear." For the next couple of weekends, Anchorage theatergoers will be able to see the two-man play at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.

ART BEAT

Anchorage travel photographer to talk about his exotic shoots

It looked like a painting to me, but I am assured by the American Society of Media Photographers that this is a photograph by Wayde Carroll. Carroll is an editorial and commercial photographer based in Anchorage and specializes in location assignments, lifestyle and travel stock photography.

Blog: Art Snob

First Friday Rambles

Friday's snowstorm may have deterred rational folk from making the First Friday art openings, but several exhibits should be caught as the weather improves.

Reading the North

New books of interest to Alaskans

Ketchikan artist drawn to paint animal carcasses

Artist Callie Bellon doesn't know what draws her to paint dead animals. "Everybody asks me for an explanation of what it means," she said. "It's just carcasses."

Trio of Alaskans offer their thoughts on 'Big Miracle'

We asked three Alaskans -- an environmentalist, an oil company spokesman and an artist with village roots in the Alaska Arctic to watch "Big Miracle" at Sunday's Anchorage screening. Decide for yourself after the movie opens in theaters on Friday.

Whale film 'Big Miracle' makes Alaska debut

Young Anchorage actor Ahmaogak Sweeney joined hundreds of Alaskans for a special preview screening of Universal Pictures "Big Miracle," the first modern major movie shot entirely in the state. What they saw was a harmless, polished romantic comedy aimed squarely at parents and their animal-loving kids.

Video: Alaska actors talk about the movie

Photos: "Big Miracle" movie stills

Light and legend: Glass artist has Alaska roots

Born in San Francisco in 1963, Preston Singletary has lived in Seattle almost ever since. But Alaska has a claim on him. His maternal grandmother was full-blood Tlingit from a Sitka area family. Traditional Northwest Indian themes and forms are fused into the glass works that have made him an internationally known artist.

ART BEAT

Cliburn award winner scheduled to perform at UAA

The announcement last week that Sa Chen, among the top winners of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will present a recital at the University of Alaska next month certainly caught my attention.

Blog: Art Snob

Reading the North

New books of interest to Alaskans

Genaux offers rare vocal 'Pyrotechnics'

Sometimes Vivica Genaux loves to sing with the precision and breakneck speed of an athlete -- in "techno rhythm." Other times, the tunes are achingly slow but still bursting with passion.

Borough votes to approve ice park zoning request

The Fairbanks borough assembly has voted to approve a rezoning request for a portion of the new ice park the organization hopes to open.

'Big Miracle' premieres in Washington, D.C.

"Big Miracle," the first major production subsidized by a state film incentive program that's among the most generous in the nation, premiered in the nation's capital Wednesday as debate burns in Alaska over whether the program is worth the cost.

Astronomer plans discussion of images in 'The Planets'

Jose Francisco Salgado, an astronomer and educational video designer with the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, will be the guest of Anchorage Symphony Orchestra conductor Randall Craig Fleischer at a free lunchtime talk at noon Friday in the Public Conference Room at Loussac Library.

Family advocate has key role in whale rescue film

Bonnie Carroll is well-known in veterans' circles as the founder of a vast organization that provides grief counseling and help for thousands of families of fallen military members. But it was her involvement nearly 25 years ago in a high-seas effort to rescue three gray whales stranded off Alaska that is now receiving Hollywood treatment.

Blog: Hollywood Alaska: Fundraising screening tonight

'Hugo,' 'The Artist' bring cinema nostalgia to Oscar nominations

The two films receiving the most Oscar nominations today offer loving looks back to the infancy of moviemaking, when flicks really flickered and visual effects amounted to actors jumping out of the frame while the camera was stopped so they would seem to disappear.

A symphonic guide to the solar system

On clear nights earlier this month, Anchorage sky watchers marveled at the sight of Jupiter -- 300 times bigger than Earth and at least 300 million miles away, adorned by multicolored bands and blotches, accompanied by a retinue of bizarre moons.

ART BEAT

Famed model to help judge 'Object Runway' this year

You've perhaps seen Ingrid Sophie Schram in Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Glamour, the New York Times Magazine, campaigns for Abercrombie and Fitch, Chanel, Anthropologie and Banana Republic. You may have caught her in the Bleu de Chanel fragrance commercial directed by Martin Scorsese.

Blog: Art Snob