Cody Swanson won the $1,000 top prize in the current All Alaska Juried Art Exhibition with two surreal mixed-media landscapes. But how he created the pieces may be as intriguing as the artworks themselves.
"Beluga Point Ferris Wheel" and "Fire Island Crossing" began as photographs of the Anchorage landmarks, but they weren't taken with a familiar Canon or Nikon, Swanson said. "(They) were made using a pinhole camera that I constructed from a cast of my head."
When in use, the life-size head sits on a tripod, which must catch the attention of passers-by who look too close. Swanson has actually built two of them. The first he built with both eyes functioning to make double vision on large format film.
The prize-winning pieces in the current exhibit, now at the Anchorage Museum, were made with a second "head camera" that has one eye closed. The other eye serves as the lens.
"The pinhole is located in the pupil of one of the eyes, which exposes the film I place inside the head," Swanson explained. The film is rolled through the inside of the head using a mechanism that Swanson has devised for the purpose. It is then developed as a traditional gelatin silver print on which he paints incongruous elements -- an amusement park ride, a bridge -- with oil pastel and ink.
Beads, spades and video
Swanson's unusual technique is not described at the exhibit and it seems that juror Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson of the Portland Art Museum was not aware of his unique camera when she selected the pair from nearly 600 entries for the Juror's Choice Award.
The entire exhibit consists of just 40 works, a smaller-than-usual group for what is often cited as the state's foremost art show. In her comments, Laing-Malcolmson said there were some individual pieces among the submissions that she liked but did not include in order to create a show that would "hang together."
Her selections include abstract images, mixed-media and found objects, as in Katherine Coons' fabric piece "For the Gods, Love Tibet" or Don Decker's wild "Trail Mix." Two sets of photographs by Patrice Helmar and Zhanna Lukyanova and a pair of Alaska landscapes by David Rosenthal anchor the representational end of things.
The $500 merit awards occupy less clear-cut territory. They include a large charcoal evocation of fog by James Behlke. ("There's no picture in it!" one visitor exclaimed on opening night. A second Behlke canvas in the show, "Lux Brumalis," might be the same view looking across Cook Inlet on a clearer day.) A beadwork triptych by Kate Boyan, "Dipnet Group," depicts a day at the beach and Betany Porter's "VW Camper Van" is a pop-artish acrylic nearly as big as the van itself.
Amy Meissner's fabric piece "Girl Story" seems abstract. Red dots along one side become whiter as you follow them down; then you see the words ghosted into the other side: "Scrub harder." Meissner's "Girl Story 2," with the same theme and same words, is included in the international juried quilt show "Quilts=Art=Quilts" now on view at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York.
The fifth Merit Award winner, "Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel" by Michael Walsh, is the most complex piece in the show. An old oil drum on its side contains two video projectors; they project into two other upright drums where viewers can see moving images of fish, bears, construction equipment and other Alaskana images accompanied by soundtracks that one listens to on headphones.
Particularly well-crafted pieces include "Large Chisel Chandelier" by Rachael Juzeler, with dangling chisels made of glass; Justin Spurlin's "Things a Shovel Would Know," a mounted handcrafted iron spade with math formulas scratched on the back; and "Great Gray Owl" by Yumi Kawaguchi. The owl is listed as a woodcut print, but the simulation of feathers is so detailed that I couldn't tell they weren't real.
My personal favorite in the show is the pair of "Beaver Mittens" by Judy Robinson, made of moosehide and long, luxurious untrimmed fur. The backs are decorated with elaborate beadwork and large gem-like stones set inside fancy arabesques.
Straight-on portraits
The biennial All Alaska exhibit is one of three notable group shows of local artists now on display at the museum. The atrium is showcasing "Rarefied Light," the annual statewide fine art photography competition. It consists of 55 photos selected by Joyce Tenneson, an internationally exhibited portrait photographer whose work has often appeared on the cover of Time, Esquire and The New York Times Magazine.
Some of Tenneson's photos are featured in the hall leading to the ground floor bathrooms. They are mostly of women directly facing the camera. She seemed to favor that angle with her show picks. The Best of Show award went to Linda Smogor's "Sarah;" the main difference between it and the Tenneson women is that Smogor's subject is younger and smiling.
Of the six honorable mentions, two have a distinctly Tenneson feel: "Free" by Javid Kamali and "How Extraordinary" by Vanessa Powell. But there are several other basically straight-on portraits in the show. Clark James Mishler's "Swans" shows a young man similarly posed squarely in front of his house and yard. Kris McCleary has two such "American Gothic" views of Cubans. Others -- Mike Huff's "Jo," Brian Beckworth's "Age of Wonders" and Gary Postlethwait's "Linda," another honorable mention -- show the subjects presenting their backs to the camera.
Another theme that seemed to attract Tenneson's attention was that of derelict machinery. Linda Infante Lyons' "Going Nowhere, Wales, Alaska" shows the buried cab of a construction vehicle on the Bering Sea; "Abandon" by Chris Arend and "924 (Jean's Place)" by Mary Virginia Stroud feature vehicles buried in snow. Robert Crews' "Alaska Bonnie & Clyde" brings out lively color in a rusting car that has obviously been used for target practice.
Artists and their stuff
The third show can be found in the balcony above the atrium where "Rarefied Light" is hung. "It's All Material" is billed as a celebration of craftsmanship using natural materials found in Alaska, like ivory, fur, clay, wood, grass, baleen and gold. The objects on display seem largely drawn from the museum's permanent collection. They include items by masters like John Hoover, Margo Klass and Delores Churchill.
Among the many fascinating pieces in this display, we noted gold jewelry by Nathan Jackson, basketry by Edna Deacon and a magnificently fragile ivory sculpture by Kodo Okuda titled "Fallen Leaf," so finely carved that it borders on breath vapor. Unexpected items include "Smoke Signals," a beaded telephone by Paula Rasmus-Dede, and "Tlingit Warriors," a painted skateboard by Rico Lanaat' Worl.
Videos with the exhibit document different artists working with metal, glass, weaving and wood. A series of boxes lets you touch the raw material, including soft squirrel fur, smooth baleen and polished wood.
One wall is dedicated to pictures from the 1950s on by photographers Steve McCutcheon, Ward Wells and James Barker showing Alaska Natives gathering or working with traditional materials. They are mixed with even older photos from the museum's archive.
ALL ALASKA JURIED ART SHOW XXXV will be on display at the Anchorage Museum, 625 C St., through February and will then travel to other Alaska cities.
RAREFIED LIGHT will be on display at the Anchorage Museum through Feb. 22. It will be exhibited concurrently at Bear Gallery in Fairbanks Dec. 7-30 and at Kenai Peninsula College in Soldotna Jan. 11-March 6.
IT'S ALL MATERIAL will be on display at the Anchorage Museum though Feb. 22.