The Anchorage Museum

The Anchorage Museum is a multi-faceted, multi-media home of Alaska’s history, natural wonders and artwork telling the story of the nation’s 49th state. The museum’s doors hold an account of a landscape largely untouched, yet forever altered by human occupation. The images and presentations are of the unfamiliar and familiar made foreign by an arctic prism casting an otherworldly light. Bathed in those hues, interpretations take form and messages are relayed from a living land to a transient occupant of Alaskan soil and the museum’s walls.

One of the most striking features of Alaska is the light. Prominent as the days grow short, the aurora borealis are famed the world over as an atmospheric phenomenon casting a watchful eye over a darkened wintery world. In “The Northern Lights” Sidney Laurence captured them on a canvas of dark features exhaling the glow for all to see as if god had just murmured, “let there be light.”



Into that light the mountains and rivers of Alaska awaken as if in a dream state. The colors, unreal to the lower 48 states, but are captured beautifully by native Athabascan artists Kathleen Carlo-Kendall with her landscape portrait sculpture, “Break of Day”.



With physical features awash in an abstract light, artists are obviously easily inspired. Even in the absence of the light, the wilds of Alaska are so striking they alone carry the feel of the abstract as Kesler Woodward displays in the painting “No wind, Fairbanks snow”.



Even the truer to life medium of photography buckles under the immense beauty of Alaska. Pioneering aerial photographer Bradford Washburn continuously exhibited the haunting properties of the state with his collection of Alaskan photographs.



Of course none of these works of art could have been presented without habitation of the land. Human occupation of Alaska is a major focus of the art in the Anchorage Museum. The forces at work affect us and we leave lasting reminders of our presence, as the photographs of the World War II battleground shows. The images of Kiska are particularly poignant considering it is an unspoiled battleground; the Aleutian island was unoccupied prior to the war and has been since the end of WWII.



The human affects on the land is now a constant source of inspiration for Alaskan artists such as Da-ka-xeen Mehner’s “My Right of Way, Summer”, a meditation on bushels of wild blueberries being replaced by bushels of industrial junk.



While there is profound impact humanity is having here and all across the globe, the Alaskan geography is becoming part of the collective soul as well. The painting, “Anchorage, 4th Avenue” by Spence Guerin interprets the unique color palette Alaska imparts on the Alaskan cityscape and its inhabitants.



The human race is becoming absorbed into the landscape. One of Tlingit artist James Robert Shoppert’s paintings blends the mountains and the human form into something of a mountainous Totum, “Punuk”.

Everything is blending; a tribal dance of the past and future attracts and casts out evil. It is all alive and moving to the Alaskan rhythm, swaying like Stron Softi’s video instillation, “Ketchikan”.

On the Shoulders of Giants

The devastation inflicted upon the First Nations of the Americas by the incursion of the Western world is one of the great tragedies of history. The plight suffered is long and varied, extending into today as native culture and language erodes while alcohol and drug abuse continues to be a major problem. Generation upon generation have been relegated to the fringes of society by central governments paying to keep them there with no means or direction to improve their lot in life.
This relegation happens all over the Western Hemisphere, but in Teslin, in the Yukon Territory of Canada, the Tlingit Nation has begun to retake its destiny. They have a self-governance agreement with the Yukon and with Canada that redirects power back to their clan system of government. The clans, Raven Children, Frog, Wolf, Beaver, and Eagle stand in representative Totem Poles in watch outside the magnificent Tlingit Heritage Centre just beyond Teslin.
The centre comprises the past, present, and future of the people. Visitors receive a museum style history lesson on the traditional lands, way of life, and plight of the Tlingit. There are examples of classic works of art as well as contemporary pieces by artists reintroduced to the skills by their elders. In a boathouse, fiberglass canoes, a nod to modern ways, sit painted, in stunning Tlingit artistry, awaiting their next ceremonial use.
Though fiberglass, a modern necessity, is the way of the future, traditional dugout canoes provide a path for that future. Two years ago, Tlingit Master Carver Wayne Price took 19 tribal youth with drug and alcohol problems to a remote Yukon River island with nothing but carving tools and a very large log. Over the next ten weeks, with no modern conveniences or chemical crutches and with no way off the island other than traditional knowhow, the youth learned how to and carved a 30-foot dugout canoe out of a 13,000 pound red cedar log and carved a path for their own future development.
The Tlingit Heritage Centre is but a drop of restitute water for a culture that once lived off of the vast Northwest waterways, but it is a significant step. With no way to undo history’s gross injustices, there is no way to go but forward. These First Nation people are taking the steps to preserve their past, address and solve their present issues while building a better future that is tied to a proud heritage.

Marked For Home

Fairy Tales will tell you it is always good to be able to find your way home. Hansel and Gretel left markers of bread that were a great idea until they were consumed by wild animals. Consider the lesson learned because in the adult world, markers left to guide the way home are made with materials that will stand the test of time.
The Inuit people of the North built stone markers called Inuksuit to point out features important to their civilization. There were specialty ones as well, turaaqtilt, that were meant to point you home in the best direction. These Inuksuit can still be found dotting The Alaskan Highway speaking to you in an ancient form of communication for anyone still capable to read it.

For those who can no longer decipher their meaning, a more modern way of marking home was started by a U.S. Army soldier during construction of The Alaskan Highway during World War II. Carl K. Lindley posted a sign marking his home and travelers have been leaving their own signs in the town of Watson Lake ever since.

The Watson Lake Signpost Forest appears to be as dense with signs as the forests along the highway are with actual trees. The signs are markers to our civilization and how far we have spread. The travelers who have left the signs that now totals over 61,000 remind us that no matter where we go in the world, it is always important to remember where we’ve come from.

Joy Divisions

Every decade or so, stars align to allow a city to become the center of a musical movement. Legends are born and idols combust under the scrutiny of their personal hells. Joy Divisions, a traveling exhibit featuring the music of Joy Division and artwork inspired by their music and the genesis of their name, recalls Ian Curtis' role in this tragically reoccurring phenomenon.

Just as Manchester faded as a musical center, Seattle would eventually rise. Perhaps the most chilling piece of the instillation is an ink sketch that echoes the similar role Kurt Cobain would play over a decade later. The drawing is of a monstrous personification of "love" boasting that it has done it again while standing over a pitiful crumpled mess of humanity lamenting that love had torn it apart, again.

As Joy Division's songs announce from the speakers Curtis' personal demons, fans who mostly were not born at the time of his suicide sway in the shadow of the Columbus Public Library. They had found a rock god from the past and will see a similar one rise in the future. Like Curtis and Cobain, this new god will rise in the glory of an emerging sound and self destruct in the glaring spotlight while the rest of the world continues to dance, dance, dance to the radio.