‘I feel I’m just really starting’: 87-year-old Unangan artist is a work in progress

While hunting for an old picture of her parents at her mom Gert's house, Sharon Svarny-Livingston came across a drawer she hadn't yet explored.

Her mom advised her to ignore the drawer.

"She said, 'Don't bother with that one, it's just all my artwork,' " Sharon recalled.

Sharon opened it anyway and was exposed to hundreds of pictures her father Sam had taken of her mother's art.

"The pictures represented all types of works including soapstone, alabaster, African wonderstone, wood, whalebone, ivory, grass. There were photos of sculptures, bentwood hats, weavings, carvings of masks …" Sharon Svarny said. "I just had never realized the body of work that Mom had produced until that moment, because there was never much of anything around to remind us because most everything sold immediately. I just felt that the dedication and artistic skill should be recognized, as well as her willingness to share her knowledge with other artists."

That quick glimpse convinced Sharon to covertly nominate her modest mom for the Rasmuson Foundation's 2017 Distinguished Artist Award. Sharon revealed the secret nomination to her mom just two days before Svarny learned that she won the honor and its accompanying $40,000.

[Rasmuson Foundation announces 2017 Individual Artist Award winners]

"It's very thrilling. I think I cried a little bit," Gert Svarny, 87, said in a conference room at the Rasmuson Foundation headquarters in Midtown Anchorage in May.

"It's freed me up to buy more materials and things like that. I don't have to worry" about money, she said.

The self-taught artist, credited for helping continue and preserve Unangan art traditions, began her creative career in her 50s. As the drawer of photos  revealed, Svarny is a master of many art forms. She is also a mentor and teacher, and carries the memory of an important part of Alaska's history. In 1942, U.S. authorities evacuated Svarny and part of her family from Unalaska and relocated them to Southeast Alaska in response to Japanese attacks in the Aleutians. Svarny currently lives and works in Unalaska.

"I've known about (Svarny) for decades. I know her most for her carving and stone work. It's a mix of complexity and simplicity," said Anchorage Museum Executive Director and CEO Julie Decker. "She's become an inspiration. She experiments. She could have stuck to one formula, but she continues to stretch and grow, which is a sign of her artistic curiosity."

Decker said Svarny will have a solo exhibition at the Anchorage Museum sometime in 2018. The artist is already designing the show in her mind.

"I would like to show a little bit of everything I can do," she said. "I want to make a great big weaving with rope and put some of my carvings in that weaving."

She also wants to include baskets, soapstone sculptures and jewelry,  which she has recently started making. "I have made jewelry for my daughters and granddaughters with ivory and jade and baleen," she said.

Svarny has access to all of Alaska's natural elements, and she uses them wisely.

"I like to refer back to my culture. I think of how our people lived, what they wore and how they subsisted," she said. "The Unangan people had the most wonderful hunting hats. They'd find the wood on the beach and they'd work it and bend it, and make these visors."

Svarny has crafted several bentwood visors. Some sprout sea lion whiskers, and are painted with red ochre, a natural pigment common in ancient Unangan art.

"I love to use ochre," Svarny said. "It gives me a connection to what our people used to do."

Where it began

During a stroll on an Unalaska beach in 1980, Svarny found some whale bones and brought them home.

With no previous carving experience, she sat down with the bones, an X-ACTO knife, a melon baller and her own instincts.

"I cut out some figures and masks and entered them into a little local art show and they sold before the show started," she said. She said her success inspired her to continue creating art.

Svarny still isn't sure how her hands knew what to do with that whale bone.

"I don't know," she said. "It just came about."

Prior to that auspicious carving session, Svarny's art experience consisted of grade-school projects and a little painting. Her family did have an artistic bent, however. Her father was a photographer in addition to his job as postmaster of Unalaska. Svarny also sensed talent in her mother.

"I always felt like my mother was very artistic, but she didn't have time," Svarny said. "She had seven children. I'm a middle kid."

The family was torn apart in 1942 when Svarny, her mother and three of Svarny's siblings were evacuated from Unalaska and relocated to an abandoned cannery in Burnett Inlet.

"My father was white, so he couldn't come," Svarny said. "He was postmaster and he had to support us, so he really had to stay there."

Svarny said the relocation didn't feel traumatic at the time. Rather, she remembers it "being great fun," she said, noting that "I'm remembering from a 12-year-old's mind."

She said she didn't realize how stressed and concerned the adults were during the relocation, but later in life she came to understand their frustration and fear.

There were a couple hundred fellow villagers in the abandoned cannery,  Svarny said. The first night there is still fresh in her mind.

"We were sleeping on the floor and we could see through the ceiling," she said. Svarny also remembers how her people met the challenges of adjusting to their new life.

"In the winter we had to go across the bay to get water. It was tough times, but my people were very resilient," she said. "They got together and built houses and repaired houses and fixed them all up."

After three years, the Svarnys were free to return to Unalaska.

"It was marvelous to get back home," Svarny said. "I felt so happy."

Hiatus and return

Perhaps Svarny's greatest source of support was her husband, Sam, who passed away at the age of 88 in 2014.

"I didn't know whether I'd be able to go on working after he was gone," she said. "He helped me so much. He would do all my financial stuff and all the shopping. He just would do everything for me. I would work from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and he would have my meals ready."

When Sam started slowing down, so did Svarny's productivity, she said. Taking care of him became her first priority, and she took an unofficial hiatus from making art.

"I used to get calls almost every day asking if I had any art, and gradually people stopped calling because I never had anything," Svarny said.

Svarny got back to work last year. She was a little worried that she had been out of commission for so long that her fans and patrons might think she had passed away. She shared this concern with her daughter Sharon.

"I said, 'Sharon, everybody thinks I'm dead. I gotta get my name out there,' " Svarny said. "I am 87. What would you think?"

With the recognition from the Rasmuson Foundation, Svarny's admirers can be assured she's alive, well and as motivated as ever to grow and create.

"I feel I'm just really starting," Svarny said. "I have lots to learn yet."