Students from Southeast Alaska recently demonstrated that the arts are alive and well in the region.
Alaska Student Activities Association’s Region V Art Fest took place in Yakutat this year from April 26 to 29, which concluded with a competitive art show held in the gym of Yakutat School.
JDHS student Téa Neilson in Fred Bemis’ Spoon Carving class at this year’s Alaska Student Activities Association’s Region V Art Fest in Yakutat. (Courtesy Photo / Heather Ridgway)
Approximately 70 students representing 11 schools from across Southeast Alaska participated. This included students from Haines, Mt. Edgecumbe, Craig, Petersburg, Yakutat, Klawock, Kake, Skagway, Pelican, Thunder Mountain High School and Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé.
JDHS art teacher Jordan Kendall brought the following students: Téa Neilson, Chatham McPherson, and Kaasgéiy Bowers. TMHS art teacher Angela Imboden brought students Caleb Byford, River Carroll, Aubrie Engen, Adeline Harbour, Jade Hicks, Jasmine Louwagie, Hilary Nguyen, Georgia Post, Katelyn Stiles, Keanna Tarver, Clare Snyder, Lelehua Fujimoto Vertido, Hazel Richter, and Kelsie Powers. Imboden also taught the 15-hour Zentangle Workshop.
Laci Lowery from Craig holds her prize winning formline box for which she received the Kirk Garbisch Award for Creative Excellence at this year’s Alaska Student Activities Association’s Region V Art Fest in Yakutat. She took the same award last year in Klawock for a woodcarved formline beaver bowl. (Courtesy Photo / Heather Ridgway)
Each student was enrolled in two 15-hour workshops, taught by other schools’ art teachers or local Yakutat artists. Notable classes Yakutat offered were drum-making with Skip Johnson, bears bread painting with Brittany King, ravenstail weaving with Marry Knutsen and Carol Pate, cake decorating with Lillian Jackson, watercolor with Chelsie Hann, beading with Angel Jackson, moccasin sewing with Reine Pavlik, metal jewelry with Eli Hanlon, and alder spoon carving with Fred Bemis. Petersburg artist Cindi Lagoudakis offered gelatin printing, Haines art teacher Giselle Miller taught encaustics and Klawock art teacher Eva Rowan taught beaded earrings, and Craig art teacher Ronnie Fairbanks taught bentwood boxes.
Craig senior Seth McClurgv making the bentwood box and sanding it under the Eagle totem of reused parts that is erected outside the school’s shop in Yakutat for this year’s Alaska Student Activities Association’s Region V Art Fest. (Courtesy Photo / Heather Ridgway)
Miller was awarded the Rick Mill’s Spirit of Artfest Award for putting in the extra effort to honor the best in Southeast Alaska art students. The award for Best Artwork Brought from Home went to Craig senior Amaiya Hansen for a red-cedar carving of Raven and the sun, titled “Robin Hood.” Best of Artwork Created at Art Fest was awarded to Haines’ Marin Hart for her encaustic painting, “Sorrow Smoker”.
TMHS student Marin Hart displays her beaded earrings for which she won the Best of Workshop honor for. Hart also won the award for Best Made at Artfest at this year’s Alaska Student Activities Association’s Region V Art Fest in Yakutat. (Courtesy Photo / Heather Ridgway)
Craig senior Laci Lowery took the Kirk Garbisch Award for Creative Excellence with her “Fishin’ Box,” a bentwood tackle box designed to fit in the prow of a canoe, finely painted with contemporary and traditional marine-inspired formline.
According to Heather Ridgway, visual art teacher for Juneau School District, all aspiring high school art students can start preparing now for Art Fest 2024, which is tentatively scheduled in Wrangell. Ridgway added that Art Fest 2025 is currently scheduled to be hosted in Skagway.
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
