Though Homer might be going through a late winter with mud and dust at a time when in earlier years the first crocuses might have popped up, at art galleries around town spring has come. Youth art tops the list with Jubilee! art shows at Homer Council on the Arts and the Pratt Museum. Don’t miss the Paul Banks Elementary School annual Arts Extravaganza, featuring art from the next generation of talents. The event also features music by Preludes violin students and the Homer Youth String Orchestra.
More youth art can be seen in “What a Wonderful World” at the Art Shop Gallery, a challenge art show that asked elementary students to create art on the themes of preventing waste and protecting ocean health. Also challenged are Kenai Peninsula quilters, who explored the theme of “Between the Tides,” a quilt exhibit that asked fiber arts to create works based on that them.
At the Pratt Museum, Argent Kvasnikoff looks at the relationship between language and culture with “Qena Sint’isis,” a visual representation of the Dena’ina language.
The old saying “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” proves false with two shows by teacher artists: Scott McDonald’s new show opening at Bunnell Street Arts Center and Alayne Tetor’s new show at Grace Ridge Brewery. Both artists demonstrate that the best way to expand one’s art is to teach it to others.
Held over for another month is the splash of color and delight seen in Homer artist Chelsea Horn’s show, “Playing with Color,” at the Fireweed Gallery.
As part of its program to inspire and educate people about reducing waste, particulary marine debris, the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies put out a challenge to all Kenai Peninsula Borough elementary school students: create art on the themes of preventing waste and protecting ocean health. Through April 15, the Art Shop Gallery shows the works of winners and other contestants.
Bunnell Street Arts Center
106 W. Bunnell Ave.
New work, by Scott McDonaldr
5-7 p.m., First Friday Opening Reception; 6 p.m., artists talk
Anchorage and Homer painter and teacher Scott McDonald uses repetition of shape, color, imagery, textures, and line to explore unique outcomes. “I use paper, paint, crude printmaking processes, and scissors. I scratch, brush, roll, spray, and glue,” he writes in his artist statement. “I’m interested in exploiting imagery as a catalyst for emotional outcomes. My subjects have always been iconic, singular and archetypical: figures, boats, guns, beer cans, potted plants.”
A teacher in the Anchorage School District, McDonald also spends his summers in Homer. He studied at the Minneapolis College of Arts and, more important, said he makes new art everyday. “I like to resolve the problems I create for myself. I like to work,” he writes. “I work to see what will happen. I experiment. I adjust and alter and re-adjust. I ask my work what it needs and it tells me what to do.
Fireweed Gallery
475 E. Pioneer Ave.
Playing with Color, paintings by Chelsea Horn
5-7 p.m., First Friday Reception
Chelsea Horn’s vivid and colorful paintings of Kachemak Bay and other Alaska settings continue for an encore exhibit.
Grace Ridge Brewery
3388 B Street (off Ocean Drive)
New work by Alayne Tetor
5-9 p.m., First Friday
Homer High School art teacher Alayne Tetor shows her latest work, this time in the genre of representational painting. For the past year she has dedicated herself to learning proper techniques in workshops and classes. This show includes still life paintings of objects from the minimalist outdoor activity of backpacking. “Studying what is in front of me and learning to truly see it for all of its visual nuances is a great act of appreciation,” she writes. “These essential items are truly sacred to me, as they are means for survival and comfort in the backcountry and they have traveled across hundreds of miles of diverse landscapes.”
Homer Council on the Arts
344 W. Pioneer Ave.
Jubilee Youth Art, by various youth artists
5-7 p.m., First Friday Reception
April is Jubilee! month in Homer, the annual showcase of youth arts. For First Friday, HCOA shows a selection of art by local young artists.
Paul Banks Elementary School
1340 East End Road
Paul Banks Arts Extravaganza, music and art by Paul Banks students
5-7 p.m., First Friday Reception
Paul Banks Elementary School once again features its spring Art Extravaganza with art in various media from all students. The evening also includes a hands-on art table where students will be able to make a fun art project with their family and bring it home. Live music is by the Homer Youth String Orchestra with violin performances by the Preludes. Appetizers will be served by staff members.
Pratt Museum
3779 Bartlett Street
Qena Sint’isis, by Argent Kvasnikoff
Jubilee! by youth artists
5-7 p.m., First Friday Reception
Argent Kvasnikoff’s Qena Sint’isis presents a unique form of cultural expression that describes a new take on the indigenous culture of the southern Kenai Peninsula using the universal experience of language. This visual representation of the Dena’ina language conveys the importance of people’s relationships with all language, and how cultural information can be found within visual language.
In the downstairs gallery, more Jubilee! art by youth artists is shown.
Ptarmigan Arts Back Room Gallery
471 E. Pioneer Ave.
Challenge Quilts, fiber art by varioius artists
5-7 p.m., First Friday Reception
The quilts on display are mostly “challenge” quilts, small quilts created according to a specific theme. There are two local quilting challenges each year: one for the Kachemak Bay Quilters annual quilt show on Mother’s Day weekend in Homer, and one sponsored by the Kenai Peninsula Quilt Guild, to which many of the Homer quilters belong. The KPQG quilts go on tour around the Peninsula together or one year and are then returned to their quilters. Some of the past challenges represented in the Ptarmigan Arts show include Trees, Self-Portrait, Alaska Flowers, Animals and Chaos. The challenges for 2017 are “Between The Tides,” which will debut at the Homer quilt show, and “Chemistry,” for the Kenai Peninsula Quilt Guild.
