May’s First Friday includes one of the livelier openings, when the students of Paul Banks Elementary School hold their annual Art Extravaganza. These young artists take their work seriously, and have even written artists statements. The event includes refreshments, live music and a silent auction of donated art.

Make it a day to celebrate youth art with West Homer Elementary School’s Writers’ Fair. From 9:45-11 a.m. Friday at the school, students read their work. Teachers and writers also offer comments. From 5-7 p.m., the students also display thier work in the school gym.

Another big yearly show is the Kachemak Bay Watercolor Society’s 19th annual spring show at Fireweed Gallery. This year’s show includes the popular collaborative painting in which artists take a square of an image and paint their interpretation of it, with the squares put together to form a finished work. This year’s painting, “Lost Dreams,” shows derelict boats, and illustrates the variety of techniques that can be used in one medium.

Many of the watercolor artists paint the beauty of Kachemak Bay. At Ptarmigan Arts, artist Joanna Thordarson focuses even tighter on the natural environment with her show, “Birds.” Just in time for the spring migration of shorebirds and other birds, her show is a celebration of our avian friends.

While open for the winter, the Art Shop Gallery’s gallery openings have been on hiatus. Their season starts off with collages by Guitta Corey.

At Bunnell Street Arts Center, a four-artist invitational show, “Shaping Alaska,” looks at how artists use diverse media and experience to redefine Alaska’s landscape. At the Homer Council on the Arts, conceptual photographer Kate Henry’s show, “Making Love to Business and Politics,” uses art to raise consciousness about “political and corporate injustices to mankind and our Earth,” she writes.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.