With several galleries closed for February, art openings for First Friday are scattered. What First Friday lacks in quantity it makes up for in diversity. Several venues fill in the gap with First Friday events a little beyond the usual.
A big highlight on Friday is the reopening of the Pratt Museum after its January hiatus — an opening that will be huge with “Encounters: Whales in Our Waters.” That’s huge as in a 38-foot gray whale skeleton bone guy Lee Post directed the articulation of last summer. Bits and pieces of the skeleton could be seen in the Pratt workshop, but it’s now together as one big swooping beast in the main gallery. The Pratt anticipates such a large opening it’s added an extra hour to the opening.
K-Bay Caffe, part of the art crawl on Pioneer Avenue, pumps up the night with some electro music with DJs Red-5, Xelikron and Panda Party. Catch some more performing art at 8 p.m. at the Homer Council on the Arts with “Best of DramaSlam,” following the opening of a show by photographers Sierra Smith and Joshua Veldstra.
Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.
armstrong@homernews.com.
Bunnell Street
Arts Center
106 W. Bunnell Ave.
59 degrees North, encaustic sculptures
by Susan Delgalvis
5-7 p.m., First Friday Opening
Reception; 6 p.m., artists talk
1-3 p.m. Saturday, demonstration and workshop
Alaska encaustic painter Susan Delgalvis presents her sculptural encaustics built up from layers on wood panels. “An appreciation of life forms and their interactions is inherent in the human condition,” she writes in her artist’s statement. “I have been a healer in my professional life — very much an art form. My paintings express the knowledge and experience I have gained through the healing arts and are influenced by the shapes, colors and textures of nature. My work is a reflection of my inner feelings and life experiences which fly onto the surface with a freedom of movement and unbridled color, coming to rest in a fluidity of shapes and lines. I push the boundary. I take a chance. This unfolding of the life of me creates my art. I accept the reality that my art is an expression and exploration of who I am.”
Delgalvis also presents a workshop at 1 p.m. Saturday to talk about and demonstrate her encaustic technique. The workshop is free.
Homer Council
on the Arts
344 W. Pioneer Ave.
Cultural Expression, photography by Joshua Veldstra and
Sierra Smith
5-7 p.m., First Friday Reception
The Best of DramaSlam
8 p.m., Friday and Saturday
“Cultural Expressions” is an invitation from two Homer-grown artists to “take a walk around your global neighborhood.” Their collection of portraits features faces both old and young performing tasks from their daily lives and around the world. Celebrate similarities and differences in various lifestyles from India, Belize and Guatemala.
Joshua Veldstra specializes in portrait photography and runs his own photography business in Homer, Joshua Veldstra Photography. Veldstra has traveled the world and has photographed many different people and cultures. Capturing the essence of a person through their eyes and their expression is the goal he strives for, he said, and he’ll travel far and wide to get the perfect shot.
Sierra Smith grew up in “Homer’s culture of towering spruce, spring potholes and seaside finances at the end of the road,” she said. Her first experience in another country was traveling to Brazil in high school to study. There Smith said she found her passion for other languages and cultures, appreciating how our global community can flourish through collaboration. This is her first art exhibit. She enjoys looking through her camera lens as a hobby, especially while on vacation. Sierra said she strongly believes learning is a lifelong process and encourages everyone to try new things and then have a show and invite everyone to celebrate.
On Friday and Saturday, Homer Council on the Arts and Pier One Theatre present the best plays from five years of DramaSlam, the marathon of play writing, directing, producing and acting.
K-Bay Caffe
397 Pioneer Ave.
Electronic Music, by DJs Red-5, Xelikron and Panda Party
5-7 p.m., First Friday concert
Colors of Homer
7 p.m., Saturday
Three local DJs and producers present an evening of epic electronic music with dubstep, drum and bas, trap, trance and other styles. Dustin Davis, a.k.a. fiend, presents the visuals.
On Saturday, Colors of Homer offers Homer youth a chance to express their creative passion. Perform music, read poetry, tell stories, sing, juggle, act, dance and show off your talents.
Pratt Museum
3779 Bartlett Street
Encounters: Whales in Our Waters
5-8 p.m., First Friday Reception
The Pratt reopens after the January hiatus with “Encounters: Whales in Our Waters,” featuring the fully articulated skeleton of a 38-foot gray whale found dead in Halibut Cove in June 1999. The carcass was salvaged and the bones were preserved. Last summer during the Community Gray Whale Project, more than 50 volunteers worked together under the direction of Lee Post in the process of creating the fully articulated skeleton that is now hanging in the museum. The exhibit explores the kinds of whales found in Kachemak Bay and lower Cook Inlet as well as their cultural importance to people of the region.
Ptarmigan Arts
Back Room Gallery
471 E. Pioneer Ave.
New Works Evolving, work by Homer artists Renee Jahnke, Achim Jahnke,
Jelena Todorovic, Peggy Fisher, Jean Steele and collaborations by Kathi Drew and
Cindy Nelson
5-7 p.m., First Friday Reception
“In this year, 2013, great changes in the fabric of our lives have already begun to happen,” show coordinator Jean Steele writes. “We will probably be seeing things happen that we only have dreamed of. Most of it should be to everybody’s benefit. From my understanding it is how we deal with the changes going on about us that will make or break our spirits.” In “New Works Evolving,” Steele says the artists bring the best of themselves from the past and present it to the future. “Right now, yesterday’s tomorrow, we are enacting this evolution by presenting this as a step toward more fulfillment in our creative endeavors.”
