October First Friday

Art Shop Gallery

202 W. Pioneer Ave.

Let the Sun Shine Through

5-7:30 p.m., First Friday Opening Reception

Guest artist Lisa Carlon presents new three-dimensional stained glass work, larger Alaska flowers and sea life and smaller sun catchers. From Soldotna, Carlon has been creating stained glass for more than 25 years and is dedicated to handcrafting her 3D designs with old-world techniques. Each piece is hewn from raw glass sheets at the workbench, hand-tooled, and locked in place with molten solder. The result is an endless variety of glass sculptures with an old-world feel.

Bunnell Street Arts Center

106 W. Bunnell Ave.

Navigating Ambiguous Waters: Natural Resources for Customary Artists

5-7 p.m., First Friday Opening Reception, with 6 p.m. artists talk

Indigenous artist Theresa Woldstad is Bunnell’s Artist in Residence for the month of October, offering an exhibit, workshop and Open Studios. Born on Kodiak Island and currently living in Fairbanks, Woldstad creates work that explores the challenges of navigating legal access to resources as an Indigenous artist in Alaska today. Her hybrid workshop model combines virtual lectures, live Q&A sessions and Open Studios and includes weekly online lectures exploring Alaska Native Arts Permitting and Regulation theory, linking Native Artists and the diverse Land Managers of Alaska who regulate materials’ harvest. Lectures are released weekly on Bunnell’s YouTube Channel throughout the month: 10/8: What is Native Arts and Who Creates It; 10/15: Navigating Treaties and Harvest Manuals; 10/22: Artistic Creation, Intent, and Modification. Registration and information at bunnellstreetarts.org. Open Studios are Wednesdays, 10/12, through 10/26, noon-5 p.m. at Bunnell Street Arts Center.

Creative Fires Studio and Dean Gallery

40374 Waterman Road

New Work

5-7:30 p.m. First Friday Reception

The Dean Gallery is family owned and features a wide range of contemporary Alaskan art, from significant focal point wood and metal wall art to bronze sculptures, intricately carved wood panels, and specialty prints on wood, metal, and paper, as well as greeting cards and stickers. The gallery with its circular construction and reclaimed redwood timber frame displays provides a taste of what people experience during the two-hour Dean Family Farm and Art Studio tours. Jeff Dean’s 9-foot-long, heat-colored steel and black cherry Salmon Stream Table is now on display, along with new originals and prints by Jeff, Ranja, and M’fanwy.

Fireweed Gallery

475 E. Pioneer Ave.

Our Town

5-7 p.m., First Friday Opening Reception

Fireweed Gallery presents OUR TOWN, a vibrant collaboration of colorful drawings by two local artists, depicting many of Homer’s recognizable buildings, as well as rustic cabins and barns. Illustrated by Teresa Aldridge and colored by Erik Behnke, Our Town has been a year in the making and both originals and prints of their collaborative work will be available.

Grace Ridge Brewery

870 Smoky Bay Way off Lake Street

Pallet Knife Paintings

5-7 p.m., First Friday Opening Reception

Tracy Hansen has long been inspired by Monet’s belief that there are no lines in nature, only areas of color, one against another. She loves color and enjoys pallet knife paintings for the freedom it provides her in making texture and movement with color. Her goal is less about details and more about evoking emotion or memory in other and herself, whether painting a field of red and orange poppies against blue mountains that remind her of the start of summer or bright yellow’s, deep reds and oranges contrasting with blues and whites that remind her of driving in the woods on an autumn day with her father when she was a child. In this exhibit, Hansen displays her colorful new work.

Homer Council on the Arts

355 W. Pioneer Ave.

Panda Mick’s RV Park and Stay-In

5-7 p.m., First Friday Opening Reception

Homer textile artist Abigail Kokai has fabricated a world of little fuzzy haired characters that have manifested into human-size form as they visit Panda Mick’s RV Park and Stay-In. Located on the fringe of civilization, in the remote coastal town of Homer, Alaska, Panda Mick’s is the smallest RV Park around. Here, you can enter an alternative universe, which provides shelter from the storm of reality. You can enter a time when feelings, friendships, and freedom were much simpler…and everything was tactile. Your favorite toy was a stuffed animal, and it went everywhere with you. And that handmade quilt on your bed had magical powers against monsters or bad days. You ‘believed’. Here you don’t have to believe; just…BE. Enjoy your time at Panda Mick’s. Through a collection of small sculpture, air-blown inflatables and paintings, Kokai has constructed a universe of creature comforts inside the gallery.

Homer Public Library

500 Hazel Avenue

Western Lot Project Open House

4:30-6:30 p.m., First Friday at the Library

The Friends of the Homer Library is partnering with the National Park Service to create a new community space in the 2.24-acre land parcel between the library and Poopdeck Trail. On First Friday, they will host an Open House to showcase three concept designs for the Library’s Western Lot Project created by landscape architects Peter Briggs and Elise Huggins in partnership with The National Park Service – Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance program. Can’t make it Friday? Stop by on Saturday, noon-2 p.m. when the Open House continues with a Power Point presentation, site walk, and collaborative discussion. More information can be found at cityofhomer-ak.gov/library/western-lot-project.

Ptarmigan Arts Back Room Gallery

471 E. Pioneer Ave.

New Work by Pat Ahern

5-7 p.m.

Ptarmigan Arts welcomes Pat Ahern as the newest member to the Art Coop. A long-time Alaska resident who currently resides in Homer, Ahern is not formally trained in any art styles, but has dabbled in art his entire life, including sketching, stained glass, and creating artisanal Shamanic rattles, harvesting natural supplies for rattle making, responsibly and sustainably using materials that would often be overlooked or discarded. Community members are invited to meet the gallery’s latest member and view his work.

Pratt Museum

3779 Bartlett St.

Salmon Culture

4-6 p.m.

Salmon Culture celebrates connections between salmon and Alaska Native peoples through contemporary, historical, and archaeological works of art. This exhibit honors salmon as a resource that has nourished our communities physically and spiritually for thousands of years. As shared by exhibition circle advisor, Erin Gingrich: “Salmon are gifts, every single one a blessing. The continuity of their ancient cycle is something we owe to the past, present and future, not just our own future generations but the futures of all that have a part in this ecosystem.” This exhibit is organized by a circle of Alaska Native salmon people —Anna Hoover, Erin Gingrich, Rochelle Adams, Drew Michael, Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi and Ilgavak Peter Williams.