PRATT MUSEUM

Native Ways in Changing Times: Photography Exhibit by Lisa Williams

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Native Ways In Changing Times is the accumulation of photographs taken over a 5-year span from 2005 to 2010 in the villages of Nanwalek and Port Graham Alaska. The Exxon oil spill occurred in 1989 but the social-cultural ripple effect is felt to this day. The work shown here is an attempt at examining the tightly held traditions and values of the Native people of these two villages and their resiliency with which they responded to the impact the Exxon spill had on their way of life. These 35 images and quotes were selected from over 1500 photographs and 50 pages of transcribed interviews. This project was funded in part by the Alaska Humanities Forum.

Photo of Peter Anahanok Sr.

Meet Lisa Williams. Lisa Williams is an award-winning photographer whose images are featured in the book, “Our Changing Seas”. She received her MFA in Social Documentation from Sonoma State University in Sonoma, California. Born in San Diego, California, Lisa has spent the last 30 years hiking the mountains, making friends, and exploring Alaska. She is a two-time grant recipient from the Alaska Humanities Forum and values the opportunity this has given her to learn about and document Alaskan Native Cultures. Lisa’s passion is visual anthropology and hopes her photographs compel deeper respect and appreciation for the cultural values of Native Alaskans. Her work has been shown in museums and cultural centers throughout Alaska and she looks forward to more photographic adventures. She now resides in Chico, CA where she teaches American Sign Language and goes on walkabouts with her two wire-haired pointing Griffons; Sunny and Alma.

Rafael de la Uz: Homer’s Nutcracker

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Rafael de la Uz is a photographer and filmmaker, with more than twenty years of experience in the profession. Born in Cuba, Rafael began his work behind the cameras in his hometown, Havana, where he worked as a press and advertising photographer as well as a Cinematographer on various documentary films. In 2001 Rafael moved to the United States, and since then he has worked on projects for HBO, PBS, NYT, Discovery, TVE, and the BBC. His latest photographic work is a small portrait of the community of set netters in South Naknek, Bristol Bay, which was published by Fern magazine last fall.

Exhibit Description: Homer`s Nutcracker is a photographic exhibit that tells the story of Homer’s town staging The Nutcracker, in the midst of a pandemic. The intention of this exhibit is to show the level of effort, work, and dedication that the community invests in this ballet work. There is nothing unique about a small town that each year hosts a big event, it happens all over the country, and it is usually done with the intention of attracting tourists, however, at Homer, The Nutcracker it is a gift from the children, parents, and volunteers for the local inhabitants, who every year, for the last 33 years, come to the local theater to enjoy this ballet.

The young dancers, choreographers, and technicians do not disappoint their audiences. The child dancers may not be technically perfect, but they show up every day to give everything they have to the choreographers. The production may not have the budgets of professional theater, but that does not prevent that with typical Alaskan ingenuity a balcony gets built in an hour and that the decorations are hand-painted and spectacular. There might be a lighting error during the play, but the teens in charge of the work behind the curtains run like crazy to ensure each prop is ready when needed. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, Homer’s children rehearse with masks, maintain a discipline of soldiers to measure their temperature and work to provide their community with several nights of joy and beauty. As the curtain drops and everyone takes their bow, the tiny town of Homer gives them a great applause every night, an applause full of pride and gratitude. In the end, The Nutcracker is everyone’s work.

That spirit is what Rafael’s camera captured. In this exhibit, he documents the efforts of the dancers, parents, staff, and volunteers – their success, their mistakes, their work. This is their story.

Lives Well Lived: Celebrating the Secrets, Wit and Wisdom of Age

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Sky Bergman is an accomplished, award-winning filmmaker and photographer.

Her fine artwork is included in permanent collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Seattle Art Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Her commercial work has appeared on book covers for Random House and Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., and magazine spreads in Smithsonian, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, Reader’s Digest, and Archaeology Odyssey.

A Professor Emeritus of Photography and Video at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, CA, Sky currently has two short films about intergenerational connections currently on the film festival circuit and is working on a feature-length film that is a celebration of love.

Come explore this photography exhibit beginning in February.

What is a life well lived?
40 People.
Age 75-100.
3000 years of collective life experience answer that question.

Homer Drawdown Peatland Project

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Homer Drawdown: Peatland Project is a community-wide collaboration to protect and restore peatlands. Peatlands are special wetlands that store a lot of carbon and play critical roles in our local ecosystems, cultures, and economies.

The Pratt Museum & Park is delighted to collaborate with Homer Drawdown and Bunnell Street Arts Center to present art programs that elevate the importance of peatlands for planetary sustainability. Art for Peat includes a residency, an exhibit, and a mural opportunity. ‍

Art for Peat Artist in Residence 2021: Artist in Residence Sheryl Maree Reily will spend two weeks in mid-June and mid-September exploring, documenting, and interpreting peatlands in the Homer area through photographic research and documentation, interviews, and community engagement. More information about Sheryl’s residency. ‍

Art for Peat at the Pratt Museum & Park is an exhibition for art highlighting the importance of Art for Peat. The exhibition will be from September 10th until October 10th  in the museum’s lower level. The show includes a new installation by Sheryl Maree Reily and an exhibition opportunity for additional arts on the surrounding walls.  Artwork may be of variable dimensions and media, wall-mounted, projected, performed, etc. Call for proposals coming soon!

For more information:
https://www.bunnellarts.org/call-for-proposals-art-for-peat/
https://www.homerdrawdown.info/art-for-peat

Finding Home in Homer

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Finding Home in Homer is a new project hosted by the Pratt Museum for young people (ages 14-24) who have lived experience with homelessness, housing insecurity/at risk, couchsurfing, unstable home environments, or car camping, or teens seeking emancipation due to parent relations. The goal of this project is to connect young people in the community with local artist mentors, workshops, and a group of peers to create art, music, and writing in response to the question “what is home?”

We hope this project provides a platform for young people in the community to share stories, make connections, and call Homer to action to work to end youth homelessness. Concluding this year’s program, youth participating have the option of submitting their artwork for the Finding Home in Homer exhibit.  This exhibit will be open to the public in our community gallery throughout the summer.

 

Alaska Positive: Juried Photograph Exhibition

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Join us at the Pratt Museum to see Alaska Positive on display in our People and Place Gallery May 7 – August 28, 2021.

Now in its 49th year, Alaska Positive is a statewide juried photographic exhibition organized and toured by the Alaska State Museum. Its purpose is to encourage the practice of photography as an art form in Alaska. Alaska Positive was on exhibit at the Alaska State Museum from December 6, 2019, through February 15, 2020, and then traveled to Cordova in 2021, and will now be on display in Homer from May through August. After Homer, the statewide tour continues, as the exhibition travels to museums throughout Alaska.

The juror for Alaska Positive was David Michael Kennedy, whose photographic career spans over 50 years. Kennedy selected 38 photographs by 26 photographers for the exhibit. Overall, 202 photographs were submitted by Alaskan photographers for the competition. The top award, the Juror’s Choice, went to Cody Swanson of Anchorage for the photograph titled Dipnetters. The Awards of Recognition went to Mike Gates of Ketchikan for Self, and Iris Korhonen-Penn of Juneau for Auke Lake, Bunchberry, Eagle Beach, and Lincoln Island. These awards are sponsored by the Friends of the Alaska State Library, Archives, and Museum.

In a Time of Change: Microbial Worlds

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June 4 – September 25, 2021Impermafrost by Gail Priday
An Art / Humanities / Science Collaborative exhibit

Discover the hidden world of microscopic organisms as seen through the lens of the arts. In this collaborative exhibit sponsored by the arts-humanities-science consortium, In a Time of Change, fourteen artists and writers magnify the physical beauty of microbes and illuminate the many roles they play in human and environmental health.

 

Familiar Faces: Portraits of Community

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Familiar Faces: Portraits of Community 2021 Exhibit imageJoin us February 5 – May 29, 2021 for our newest special exhibit, Familiar Faces: Portraits of Community. During an era of social distancing, this exhibit provides visitors the opportunity to ‘meet’ our neighbors and community members throughout history, with up-close observations of individuals and the stories that surround them. Familiar Faces features special content by guest community members Joshua Veldstra, Christina Whiting, and Clark Fair, and draws on the Pratt Museum’s permanent collections to illustrate the deeper stories behind – and beyond – these seemingly simple images. We hope you take an opportunity to discover the soul of our community portrayed in this exhibit, and explore what portraits can reveal about the people of Kachemak Bay.

Greetings from the Past: History in Postcards

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An exhibit at the Pratt Museum exploring the history of Postcards and the stories they hold

What is your hope when you send off a postcard? For over 150 years, this seemingly ephemeral form of communication has run the gamut of uses, and has proved itself to be an indispensable form of community recordkeeping across the globe, giving us bite size glimpses into the past. As we live through the current COVID-19 crisis, we have an opportunity to save our stories of this unusual and trying time. Just as stories from events of the past have created snapshots of different eras for us, we are able to pass our stories through time for future generations. What might someone learn about your life if they read a collection of postcards you’ve written? As you explore this exhibit of postcards from the Pratt Museum permanent archives, think about how stories from the past inform us about lives lived. How might you explain this current time we’re living in with just a few short lines and a picture? End your exploration of the past by dropping a note for future generations in the Postcards from Unprecedented Times mailbox, and answer a question for years to come: What’s in a postcard?

Greetings from the Past: History in Postcards will be on display in the Pratt Museum Community Gallery through March 31, 2021.

Shifting Tides: Convergence in Cloth

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One ocean, 45 artists: International art quilt group exhibit probes the Pacific

The Pratt Museum in partnership with Studio Art Quilt Associates is pleased to announce the premiere of Shifting Tides: Convergence in Cloth at the Pratt Museum from October 9 to December 19.

Created as a group exhibit to shine a light on the issues facing the Pacific Ocean today, Shifting Tides is a collection of work by 45 artists chosen from the seven Pacific-facing regions of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA). An international organization that promotes the quilt as an art form, SAQA has a history of inviting artists to explore topical, sometimes controversial topics. With this latest show, the organization’s west-coast members explore the earth’s largest ecosystem.

From their strikingly different vantage points—from Southern California northward to Western Canada and Alaska, plus Hawaii—artists from a range of backgrounds were asked to express their concerns and feelings about the Pacific. “Merely because we live in this part of the world, we as individuals are part of the Pacific ecosystem. On a daily basis we may not recognize the changes that are happening,  but they are of vital importance to our world,” write Georgia French and Sonja Campbell, co-chairs of the exhibit planning committee. “We were stunned with the variety and emotional intensity of their responses, as well as with the beauty and graphic impact of their work.”

The 45 works range widely in content and technique, drawing on realism, abstract, and nonrepresentational depictions. The pieces on display were chosen from more than 160 submissions for SAQA artists. Curated by renowned textile artist, Ann Johnston, the exhibit offers a variation of style and context about the plight of oceans and the communities they support. “The topic demands a passion we all feel, and the quilts dealt with the subject and the passion in many different ways; all of them hit me as having merit and value,” explains Johnson. “The intention of the exhibit was not only to choose good pieces but also to include a representative range of habitats and issues in reference to our Pacific ecosystem. I also wanted to include a range of design approaches and construction techniques. I think the resulting exhibit is a showcase of art that will enlighten the viewers about quilts and encourage exploration of solutions to one of our most anguishing ecological problems.”

Whether you want to learn more about the issues plaguing the Pacific Ocean, crave a forum that amplifies your concerns, or just want to immerse yourself in images of its beauty, Shifting Tides: Convergence in Cloth promises to deliver. And if you haven’t experienced the artistry and power of this genre, Shifting Tides is an unforgettable entrée.

This exhibit will be on display at the Pratt Museum from October 9 – December 19. Bring your cellphone to enjoy an interactive call-by-cell experience featuring audio from all of the participating artists!

In conjunction with Shifting Tides, the Pratt is excited to offer new fall programming: