Anchorage Daily News

MTS Gallery looks like Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum or the detritus left behind by Mardi Gras celebrants. Erin Pollock and Steph Kese opened their show of wax masks on Friday after working it up for the past six months. Using a mix of bees wax and paraffin ordered from a candle supply store -- some 367 pounds of the stuff -- they took casts of local folks.

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"Ninety people volunteered their faces," said Pollock.

The masks were then adorned, completed, painted inside and out. "We paint them inside to give them that blood-under-the-skin feel," said Kese.

Some were then destroyed. Their backs were filled with more colored wax and then they were melted. The destruction was documented on video.

The video is shown as part of the exhibit, as are the surviving masks along with boards covered with drippings from the melted masks and other debris left over from the process.

Pollock, from Anchorage (granddaughter of former Congressman Howard Pollock) met Kese of Seattle when they were both art students at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash.

The gallery, at 3142 Mt. View Drive, is open 5-9 p.m. Wednesdays, noon-3 p.m. Thursdays, and noon-4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. However, those hours are subject to change.

The best chance to make sure you get in may be at their First Friday event on the evening of Aug. 7. As part of that carnival, the artists told me, author B. Hutton will give a performance.

Interest high in 'Lion King' discount; deadline tonight

The half-price tickets for "The Lion King" that went on the market last week stirred up a lot of attention.

Staff at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts box office said their phones were going crazy as soon as word got out Monday afternoon.

The discount applies only to the "B" tickets for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evening shows of certain weeks.

On Friday the discounts were expanded to include the final week of the show. The production will take place in Atwood Concert Hall from Sept. 2 to Oct. 11.

Those tickets are regularly $62 but -- as sort of a 50th Anniversary of Statehood present to all Alaskans -- they've been knocked down to $31 plus fees for those who take advantage of the deal.

The offer ends at midnight tonight. To score some of the remaining tickets (if any) go online to centertix.net. To get the discount online, you must enter the password "Alaska."

Reading series continues

The Northern Renaissance Arts and Sciences Summer 2009 Reading Series, announced here last Sunday, continues through Tuesday.

Readings by and discussions with notable authors take place at 8 p.m. in Rasmuson 101 on the UAA Campus and are free.

Also free -- though you'll have to buy your own beer -- are no-host gatherings announced on www.49writers.blogspot.com. "Our plan is to meet after the readings, around 9:45 or 10 p.m., at the bar/lounge at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 600 East Benson," writes 49writers' Deb Vanasse. "All writers, published or not, are welcome. An RSVP would be nice so we can arrange some casual seating, but if you can show up at the last minute, that's fine too."

You can contact her at debv@gci.net.

Writers in the series tonight include Jo-Ann Mapson and Ernestine Hayes. Judith Barrington, David Stevenson and Sherry Simpson present on Monday and the team of Margo Klass and Frank Soos will be featured on Tuesday.

Send trash to Kodiak

Chiniak Art Works, on sunny Kodiak Island, is looking for entries in its Third Annual Talking Trash Invitational art show.

Submitted art may not exceed 12 inches by 12 inches in any dimension and should be made of recycled items. Chiniak's Gretchen Patterson told us to note that "the definition of recycled is VERY LOOSE!"

The entry fee for submissions is $5 and the deadline for getting your work to them is Aug. 15.

For more information, e-mail visiblegap@chiniak.net or call 1-907-486-4017

Back from Down Under

Welcome home to the Anchorage Youth Symphony, which performed in Australia at the Sydney Opera House as part of a music festival.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

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