Process: An IGCA member video compilation celebrating our community's ingenuity, craftsmanship, and creativity.
Artists include: Christina A. Barber, PhD, Mandy Bernard, Joe Carr, Sally Carr, Michael Conti, Maxine Fekete, AnneKathrin Hansen, Meghan Holtan, Tracy Irsik, Yulia Kalagaeva, Sharine Kirchoff, Carol Lambert, Emily Longbrake, Linda Lucky, Jacob Paiz, Tami Phelps, Gayla Ranf, Susan Joy Share, Adrienne Stohr, Sharon Trager, Owen Tucker, and Jen Wang.
Memory Bank | Katie Ione Craney
Katie Ione Craney, waiting, 5 x 7 inches; seed song II, 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches; “stay” (in braille), 3 1/2 x 5 inches
NOVEMBER 2024
SOUTH GALLERY
Memory Bank | Katie Ione Craney
This series is a reflection on my slow move from Southeast to the Interior; a process over 10 years in the making when I first started grad school and am now back to finish a degree in the Arctic & Northern Studies program. Within many of the images are words and phrases written in Braille. Some words repeat as meditations on their meaning and are in conversation with the place they are paired with. Incorporating Braille and mirrored surfaces into my work echoes a sensory experience of the lands and beings in the imagery. I’ve been learning to write in Braille as a communication attempt with my Great Grandmother Mary Etta, who was blind, as well as create space to consider many ways of knowing and being in relationship with a place or a person.
The handwritten Braille in this series is a letter-for-letter transcription, also known as Grade 1 Braille. The letters are written backwards, as I use a portable slate and a hand stylus to press the letters onto the page, or in this case, onto clear transparencies or into soft metal.
Photographs by Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Resilient: Defining Alaskans through Landscape | Jason Lazarus
Jason Lazarus, Rivulets of Gold, Castner Glacier, archival pigment print on Canson Baryta Photographique
NOVEMBER 2024
NORTH GALLERY
Resilient: Defining Alaskans through Landscape | Jason Lazarus
Alaska.
Towering glaciers, noble peaks, enchanting flora and plentiful fauna — all of these have been rendered in the idyllic perfection of a trillion photographs over the years.
Captured in the silver grains and digital pixels that shape our collective memories, these representations often fall short of truly conveying what Alaska is — they fail to define what Alaska means to Alaskans.
Shaped by their surroundings, Alaskans are a curious bunch, often taking pride in character traits that, to the outsider, seem unflattering. Old timers take pride in their tenacious and stubborn nature by being called Sourdoughs, while Cheechako newcomers are harshly mocked for their failures, yet strangely encouraged to persevere.
Our jargon-laden existence divides real Alaska (The Bush) from a more pedestrian lifestyle in the Lower 48 (the contiguous US). Our Breakup relates to a fifth season before Spring and Termination Dust signals the onset of winter.
Summed up in one word, Alaskans are Resilient. A product of our harsh climes, we have been shaped by our surroundings and carry with us a stoic nature that is reflected in the place we call home. For many of its people, Alaska’s lonely landscapes, unwelcoming frigid tundra and tumultuous winter weather reflects its true beauty in a way no sublimely captured landscape could. This work intends to capture that deep connection and our unwavering character traits through our surroundings, showing a rarified Alaska for Alaskans.
Photographs by Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Hotter Faster Louder | Sara Tabbert
Sara Tabbert, The Sultry Ditch, 2024, wood veneer, relief printing, 12 x 12 inches. Photo credit Sarah Lewis Photography.
NOVEMBER 2024
CENTER GALLERY
Hotter Faster Louder | Sara Tabbert
I spent much of the past summer in a long-anticipated residency, the Windgate Arts Residency Program, offered through the Museum for Art in Wood in Philadelphia. During my residency I continued my work in marquetry, using the focused time to dive into new ways to layer, carve, sandblast, and print onto wood veneer surfaces. This experimental approach is informed by my background as a printmaker, where I’ve grown comfortable with the push and pull of adding and subtracting material to create images. Marquetry is traditionally a woodworking technique of great precision. I embrace the ongoing challenge of executing at a high level, while also choosing to approach working with the material in a less precious, less predictable way.
Summer in Philadelphia was defined by intense heat, overwhelming noise, and my own disorientation as I wandered the city. I walked through unimaginable amounts of trash, wild vacant lots, and observed the march of condominiums through old neighborhoods. I delighted in the unplanned sky party of orange electrical insulators and nests of wiring, the city’s baby blue bridges, the murals, graffiti, and ornamentation. I felt the challenges and beauty of such a peopled place.
Upon returning home, I realized the visual contradictions I sought out in an urban setting are the same friction points I look for everywhere. In a city’s density, the collisions seem louder and brighter, but they are all around me at home as well. The elemental nature of delicate vines climbing an iron fence in a trash-filled lot is not that different from the lacy ice forming on the edge of a mud puddle in my driveway. There is an energy in the edges, where disparate things that don’t necessarily make sense together are found in proximity, forced into accidental coexistence.
On display are the result of such musings, meanders and focused labor. I see these pieces as records of place and travel, riddles of process, and a reflection of my cheerful curiosity during a time of accelerating tension.
This exhibition has been supported by the Museum for Art in Wood’s Windgate Arts Residency Program and by a grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from Rasmuson Foundation’s Career Opportunity Grant.
Photographs by Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Unfrozen | Erica Miller
Erica Miller, FE Co. Dredge No. 4, acrylic and mixed media on cradled wood, 6 x 6 inches
OCTOBER 2024
SOUTH GALLERY
Unfrozen | Erica Miller
This is a love letter to the great land. After the gold has been extracted and the trees harvested; what remains of industry, the grand machinery of human endeavor, ambition and toil, sinks into the gentle embrace of earth. So prevalent in Alaska, the rusting iron of the past is beautiful somehow. Wrecked and abandoned now, it seems to belong, becoming a part of the forgiving landscape, a witness to the passage of time. It is a story of history and decay, of nature's reclaiming force, accepting the encroachment of age on all things.
Photography by Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Listening to the Quiet | Cheryl Lyon
Cheryl Lyon, Exact Spot, encaustic on wood panel, 12 x 12 inches
OCTOBER 2024
CENTER GALLERY
Listening to the Quiet | Cheryl Lyon
Listening to the quiet is about noticing what I notice when I venture outdoors through the Alaska seasons. Taking in the beautiful complexities before me. Paying attention to the light as it gracefully skips across the water or shines through the clouds. Listening to the wind as it whispers through the trees, and gently moves around my face. As the poet Mary Oliver said about nature, “If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more”. I agree, I long ago embraced, I’m always painting, even when I’m not painting. I’m an observer, an explorer and an eternal student.
Photography by Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Alaska: My Take | Elizabeth Pohjola
Elizabeth Pohjola, Sitka Roses, mixed media, 36 x 36 inches
OCTOBER 2024
NORTH GALLERY
Alaska: My Take | Elizabeth Pohjola
A few years ago I walked into a paper store in Seattle and haven’t been the same since. I was seduced. This show of works in collage represents the products of that seduction. The images are based on elements from my homeplace, a place that has mesmerized me with its splendor my whole life. Alaska: My Take. Please enjoy!
Instagram @elizabethpohjola
Photography by Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Haiku | Shoko Takahashi
Shoko Takahashi, Against the Wind, 2024, linocut and type
SEPTEMBER 2024
SOUTH GALLERY
Haiku | Shoko Takahashi
This series of relief prints with type stamping is my visual Haiku.
Japanese Haiku focuses on capturing a moment in time, a sense of enlightenment, and images from nature. When I read Japanese haiku, I always feel a sense of calmness and fresh air. I wanted to create the feeling of Haiku by focusing on Alaskan and Japanese animals and keeping the image simple. By integrating text into the design, I created the written haiku feeling in each print.
Instagram @print_wonder
Photo credit: Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Inosculation | Kendra Harvey
Kendra Harvey, No Hard Feelings, 2024, ceramic earthenware, underglaze, watercolor, glaze, housepaint on wooden backdrop, 40 x 30 x 11 1/2 inches
SEPTEMBER 2024
CENTER GALLERY
Inosculation | Kendra Harvey
Inosculation investigates the symbolism of interconnectedness, exploring both the double-edged sword which comes with it: support and codependence, enablers and detractors, isolation and community. Using earthenware clay, I depict the organic nature of these connections by sculpting a wide cast of animal figures. These familiar forms, rendered in unfamiliar colors and poses, invite viewers to observe them coil towards and away from each other, narrating the complexities of our shared human experience.
Photo credit: Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Affinity for the Unknown | Melanie Lombard
Melanie Lombard, Devil's Club 3, cyanotype, devil's club leaves, sunlight, moonlight, and northern lights on watercolor paper and birch panel, 42 x 42 inches
SEPTEMBER 2024
NORTH GALLERY
Affinity for the Unknown | Melanie Lombard
In my work, I explore the intersection of natural imagery and abstraction through the creation of experimental cyanotypes. This process involves using light sensitive chemicals to produce contact prints, which I make with natural materials like bird nests and leaves. By working outdoors, I invite the environment to play a role in my creative process, fostering a collaboration that embraces the unpredictability of the natural world.
My practice is rooted in the therapeutic potential of art, and I find solace in the unexpected results that emerge from my process. This journey into the unknown allows me to cultivate a deeper connection with my surroundings and to embrace the beauty of uncertainty. Affinity for the Unknown invites viewers to contemplate their own relationship with nature and its mysteries.
Photo credit: Hans Hallinen
Virtual Exhibition Tour
3 Threads | Mariano Gonzales
AUGUST 2024
3 Threads | Mariano Gonzales
NORTH GALLERY
Talismans
Have you ever had your identity stolen? Your money? Have you ever been hacked or your bank account and identity compromised? I certainly have!
Talismans are supposed to protect the user/wearer from bad luck or calamity. The talismans I have made will (hopefully) protect the wearer from evil stuff that happens in our digital world.
These talismans have wall mounts so that they can function as Art…not just live obscurely in a jewelry box in the bathroom!
WARNING: Should you purchase a talisman and find that it doesn’t protect you, no refunds!
CENTER GALLERY
Killer Drones
Look at the faces of the killer drones. Look at the faces (or bodies) of their victims.
Think about the killer drones’ racism, misogyny, homophobia, love of assault weapons, and hatred for others not like them.
This is the country and world you live in.
Protect yourself and your fellow human beings!
SOUTH GALLERY
Landscapes
I am an artist who has lived in Alaska for 65 years, though I am far from an Alaskan artist!
I am consistently visually fascinated with the beautiful and amazing land mass that is this state.
As well, having driven through every state in this nation (except Vermont and Hawaii) and Canada, I also have memories of the many wondrous landscapes outside of Alaska.
So, I am always exploring alternative media and imagery to create landscapes from memory.
These days, I find that digital tools and media offer the quintessential alternatives!
Photo credit: Hans Hallinen/IGCA
Virtual Exhibition Tour
What Good is Fruit that is not Sweet? | Young Kim
Young Kim, Imported Fruit, archival pigment print
JULY 2024
CENTER GALLERY
What Good is Fruit that is not Sweet? | Young Kim
"What Good is Fruit that is not Sweet?" is a photography project documenting the life of my mother as she ages and confronts changes in her health and mobility. It explores our relationship as parent and child and how roles shift as time persists. These circumstances also pose the questions of whether we can quantify or qualify how good a person is at fulfilling a societal role and whether the romanticization of the “American Dream” can influence those parameters.
These images aim to celebrate daily life with an emphasis on my interpretation of events and with less rigidity around how the events unfolded. This body of work utilizes the indexical nature of photographs to world-build, create and preserve a past that is nostalgic and reminiscent, regardless of whether it is factual.
www.young.kim
Instagram: @theyoungkimosabe
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Panda Mick's RV Park and Stay-In | Abigail Kokai
Abigail Kokai, Grandma's Gypsy RV and the gang, Multi-media sculpture: cardboard, fabric, stuffing, yarn, plexi-glass, string lights
JULY 2024
NORTH GALLERY
Panda Mick's RV Park and Stay-In | Abigail Kokai
Textile artist, Abigail Kokai, has fabricated a world of little fuzzy haired characters that manifest into human-size form as they visit Panda Mick's RV Park and Stay-In. Through a collection of small sculpture, air-blown inflatables and paintings Abigail constructs a universe of creature comforts inside the gallery.
abigailkokai.weebly.com
Instagram: @kokaithefabricator
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Behind the Canvas | Samuel Infante Marchan
Samuel Infante Marchan, The Silence of the Girl, oil on canvas
JULY 2024
SOUTH GALLERY
Behind the Canvas | Samuel Infante Marchan
Behind The Canvas is to emerge yourself in a fascinating world of vibrant colors and captivating expressions. Each work becomes an artistic testimony that captures the essence and diversity of the daily experiences of each woman. From warm and passionate tones to fresh and lively tones; we immerse ourselves in each brushstroke that transmits an emotional range and reflects the complexity of female emotions and experiences. These works offer a visual journey through the multiple dimensions of femininity. By exploring this collection, viewers enter a universe of beauty, strength, and vulnerability.
Instagram @samuelmarchan_
Virtual Exhibition Tour
We Means 3 | Myesha Callahan Freet and Christian Freet
JUNE 2024
SOUTH GALLERY
We Means 3 | Myesha Callahan Freet and Christian Freet
We Means 3 started in 2015 using very personal images we then reserved for ourselves as moments we were reluctant to publicize. Since then it has evolved beyond its original randomness, capturing the more focused exploration of our perceived roles to each other.
Virtual Exhibition Tour
I Am Not Christian | Christian Freet
JUNE 2024
NORTH GALLERY
I Am Not Christian | Christian Freet
We think of places as simple locations, often from a perspective assuming a static existence. But, isn't the land through the flow of its inhabitants also alive and growing? Doesn't it also perceive an experience? “I Am Not Christian” is a series of insights on this divergence of the artist’s youth and those of his birthplace.
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Share The Load | Myesha Callahan Freet
JUNE 2024
CENTER GALLERY
Share The Load | Myesha Callahan Freet
Share The Load focuses on the ritualistic acts of motherhood by examining what we are attached to, and what we can detach from. I am interested in the common ground that can be found in keepsakes saved by others. This is a call to mothers to release items they have been saving from their children's past with the knowledge they will not be returned. The project questions why the items are kept, why we place emotions on items, what will happen to the items in the future, and who are the keepsakes ultimately for.
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Picture Letters | Mieko Takamae
MAY 2024
SOUTH GALLERY
Picture Letters | Mieko Takamae
This exhibition by Mieko Takamae includes a collection of both old and new ”eh-teh-ga-mi” picture letters. This year, Mieko welcomes 93 years of life. Inspired by everyday life, she finds beauty in simplicity and nature. Her work teaches us to take a moment to appreciate the small things around us and be grateful of each new day. She hopes viewers can find a sense of peace through her art.
Virtual Exhibition Tour
Fieldwork | Owen Tucker
Owen Tucker, Gold 1, collage on paper
MAY 2024
NORTH GALLERY
Fieldwork | Owen Tucker
Fieldwork is a collection of collages made with found materials, colored papers, hand-drawn patterns, and shiny garbage. Aside from focusing on subjects found out in “the field”, the images are geometric explorations of the two-dimensional field.
Virtual Exhibition Tour
3-16-20 | Joe Carr
MAY 2024
CENTER GALLERY
3-16-20 | Joe Carr
We all experienced 2020 in different ways. This exhibition documents decontamination efforts for covid-19 from March 16 to December of 2020 from the perspective of the service technicians.
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