Homer’s Ptarmigan Arts will host a gallery event on Friday, Oct. 4 in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Pioneer Avenue artist cooperative venue.
Founded in 1984 by Sharon McKemie-Bauer, the business — which has operated as a cooperative since 2013 — was initially a retail art gallery but there was rental studio space available for artists.
Member Ted Heuer, one of the members of the cooperative, and his wife, Beth, manage the treasury division of the board.
Heuer said the gallery space is very eclectic with a current membership of 38 artists who each rent and manage their own small space in the gallery. The artists sell a variety goods, including products created with leather, wood, textiles and fabrics. Some members make jewelry and carvings; there is photography available and other forms of artwork, as well.
Over the past 40 years, the gallery has had a total of 230 artists who have sold art at Ptarmigan Arts.
“One of the nice things about the gallery is that everyone’s work is different. Everyone’s style is different. We complement each other instead of compete and the clients can come in and find the variety of work they are looking for; we don’t have an overall theme,” Heuer said.
However, much of the art on display in the gallery has a Kachemak Bay or Alaska theme or is created from natural Alaska products.
Existing as a cooperative rather than a gallery means that the artists take a much larger profit from their sales, with an average commission of about 14% provided from sales. The artists are also invested in working the shop in positions such as cashier, bookkeeping and general cleaning, Heuer said.
At the end of the year, if the store makes a profit, that is divided among the members, “so financially it’s a better deal for the artists,” Heuer said.
For administration, the membership has a president, vice president, treasurer and manager. There are also 15 board members. These are all nonpaid positions. The artists rent their display areas and share the cost of gallery utilities, according to the Ptarmigan Arts website.
“It’s a very collaborative structure but it’s good because everybody has an ownership stake in the gallery, and they have a responsibility to make good decisions,” Heuer said.
Ptarmigan Arts has been located on Pioneer Avenue since it first opened. At one point, artists would be able to come in and work in the space allocated to them and clientele could come and watch them work on their products.
There is now a backroom gallery space that can be set up for traveling shows, exhibits, student art displays during events such as the annual Jubilee event and larger, multi-artist group shows.
The structure for the backroom gallery has changed slightly over the past few years in order to display more membership artists work but they do still offer short “pop-up” shows that take up a smaller space and typically just run for a few days. In these cases, the touring artists pay a rental fee for the space and then take all proceeds from the work that they sell, Heuer said.
Artist Gary Lyon, who has provided work to the gallery since it first started, shared one of his most memorable experiences at the gallery.
On Aug. 1, 1991, the Homer News ran a story on a burglary of $28,000 worth of jewelry and other goods from the gallery. Artist Kathy Morton who saw the suspect, assisted Lyon in creating a sketch that led Homer Police to identify a suspect.
The Oct. 4 event will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. and will display gallery memorabilia collected over the years. Ptarmigan Arts will also provide a celebration cake and visitors can enter to win a $40 gift certificate.
All of the current artists who are members of the cooperative are listed on the Ptarmigan Arts website at www.ptarmiganarts.com. The website lists the artist’s name, the medium they work in, a brief description of their work, their personal websites if they have one and links to other social media sources.
