Anchorage Daily News

Alaska folk music promoter Mike McCormick shared the spotlight with the Kingston Trio as co-honorees at the fifth annual conference of the Folk Alliance Region -- West (FAR-West) in Phoenix on Oct. 25.

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Mike McCormick

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McCormick, who lives in Eagle River, is a longtime educator and concert promoter. At this time he helps UAA students put on folk and pop music shows as a member of the Student Activities staff.

A press release from the conference saluted McCormick's long history in the roots music business, including:

• How he started promoting music in 1971 when he co-founded a Blues Music Club at the University of Massachusetts and presented legends such as Otis Rush and Hound Dog Taylor.

• How he co-founded a long-running blues magazine in Boston and in 1980 became the first person to write regularly about folk and popular music for a newspaper in Alaska, when he was hired at the Anchorage Daily News to write columns and reviews.

• How he and his wife, Katy, promoted their first Alaska concert in Juneau in 1987 when they organized a Bill Staines concert to support the Alaska Folk Festival.

• How he created Whistling Swan Productions in 1994, which has presented close to 300 different artists and produced more than 400 shows to audiences in Anchorage and other Alaska communities featuring a range of emerging artists, local performers and musical veterans including Bela Fleck, Charlie Musselwhite, Alison Krauss, John Prine and Ani DiFranco.

• How he and Katy are "Known for their hospitality with many musicians staying at their home."

The Kingston Trio, according to the press release, is a well-known band that had a hit in 1958. We're checking. (Just joking! "Tom Dooley" went No. 1 that year.)

The goal of the three-day conference is to boost folk and acoustic music with a program that includes educational panels, workshops and master classes, interaction and juried artist showcases as well as private showcases.

Two Best of the West awards are presented by FAR-West each year, one to a nonperformer (McCormick) and one to a performer (those other guys) selected from nominations submitted by FAR-West membership.

For more information, visit www.far-west.org.

Twelve Alaska artists receive grants

The Rasmuson Foundation announced the year's final recipients of its Individual Artist Awards this month. Twelve artists will share $58,917 to undertake specific projects ranging from poems and illustrations for installation in city buses to the publication of novels and music CDs to equipment and opportunities for advanced study.

Artists receiving Project Award grants are:

• GRETCHEN DIEMER (Wasilla) to promote her book, "Between Fire and Water, Ice and Sky," a full-length volume of poetry published by NorthShore Press.

• SHARON ENNIS (Anchorage) to create 22 digital paintings to be placed on People Mover buses and launch an accompanying Web site.

• GARRY KAULITZ (Anchorage) to participate in the Second China Sanboa International Printmaking Exhibition, Symposium, Workshop and Tour.

• MARGO KLASS (Fairbanks) to create an Alaska "Book of Hours" consisting of eight major constructions, four representing the seasons in their fullness and four representing transitions between seasons in Alaska.

• EMILY KURN (Anchorage) to produce a CD with up to 15 new songs that explore personal and intimate themes of the artist's family.

• LANCE LEKANDER (Anchorage) to purchase an etching press to create print editions and explore new artwork.

• MAIA NOLAN (Anchorage) to take four months off her full-time employment to complete her first novel.

• SHERYL REILY (Ester) to create several large mixed-media pieces executed in a variety of disciplines and prepare the work for three solo exhibits.

• MONICA SAVAGE (Petersburg) to attend the 2009 American Craft Show in Baltimore to build new relationships with galleries and small boutiques.

• ELISE STRAUSS (Anchorage) to attend a master beadmaking class and the International Society of Glass Bead Makers Conference in Miami.

• WAYNE THOMPSON (Homer) to photograph the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes in Alaska for an exhibit at the Ptarmigan Art Gallery in Homer. The photos will also be featured in a book of photographs emphasizing the artistic views of sand dunes.

• MONTY MYKOLAS (Fritz Creek), to create a short film using lapse photography to create the experience of the passage of time on film.

The next postmark deadline for Individual Artist Awards is March 1. More information is available at the foundation's Web site or by calling Victoria Lord at 297-2827 or toll-free 1-877-366-2700.

Craft fairs under way

Searching for gifts with a northern note? Check out videos, CDs, art or books (there's a bunch having something to do with reindeer right now) by creative Alaskans. A great place to look is the 2008 Arts & Crafts Emporium going on from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. today in the new Dena'ina Civic Convention Center.

Can't make it today? The Crafts Weekend and ReadAlaska Book Fair at the Anchorage Museum will take place right after Thanksgiving, Nov. 28 to 30. It's the 20th anniversary for the only juried crafts show in town, and a portion of the proceeds go to the museum.

You gotta buy gifts anyway. So spread the wealth locally while spreading joy globally.

Close encounter in New York

Fountain Gallery, a unique Manhattan "art space" representing artists living and working with mental illness, opened a special guest exhibition of Alaska Native art Nov. 14. The show, featuring artists associated with Anchorage's Two Spirits Gallery, was made possible with support from actress Glenn Close, a founding sponsor of Fountain.

Two Spirits Gallery, which opened in 2005, is dedicated to artists whose lives have been affected by mental illness, substance abuse or homelessness. Artists featured in the show include Robert Raphael, Tara William, Eric Tetpon, Moody Charles, Bill Kaiana, Tom Lisbourne, James Leonard and Jesse Faigle. You can see their work in Anchorage at Ship Creek Center, 333 W. Fourth Ave, or in New York at 702 Ninth Ave. More information is available at www.fountainhouse.org and www.twospiritsgallery.com.

New spot for old Rose

Speaking of the galleries at the Ship Creek Center, this is from the last batch of First Friday Rambles on the adn.com/artsnob blog.

The Artic Rose folks have just moved their Arctic Rose Alaskan Artisan Gallery into the space formerly occupied by the Alaska Native Heritage Center downtown gift store. They had been on the third floor of the Ship Creek Center for some time but were not attracting many lookers in that out-of-the-way location. As of the First Friday on Nov. 7, they'd only been in the space for two days and were still putting things on the wall. Among artists represented is popular Iditarod painter Jon Van Zyle. And yes, the Artisan Gallery uses the standard spelling of Arctic as opposed to the Artic Rose mother shop on L Street.

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

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