Sunday, December 4, 2011

Downtown dilemma: Life on the street

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Editor’s note: Freelance writer Courtney Nelson interviewed several people who are living on the streets about their lives and their drinking habits for this first-person article. We are using only their first names.

Juneau’s chronic inebriates live in a complex sub-culture. Like many homeless people, they were hanging on until some event forced them into the street. Their situation is further complicated by their heavy dependence on alcohol. In many cases theirs are stories of generational alcohol abuse. In many cases, a new generation is being born on the street.

Emily
I met Emily, 27, sitting on the spot where she sometimes sleeps in Marine Park. She was holding a pair of wool socks someone gave her because hers were stolen off her feet while she slept. Emily described a typical night.
“If I don’t have a place to crash I start walking around at 3 a.m. and if I get lucky, and it’s a weekend, I can find someone to hang out with. We are all kind of on the buddy system here.” She drinks and walks to stay warm.
Emily has three children, ages 4, 6 and 7. Emily met the father of her children the first time she was homeless in 2002. As of early November, she was looking for housing so she could keep them from going into foster care.
She quit drinking for a while, but says losing her sister to lupus last year was a shattering experience, and she started again. When she tries to stop drinking she has seizures, though she says she is tapering off alcohol.
Her 70-year old mother is couch surfing.

Nick
Nick, 25, came to Juneau from Seattle. He’d gotten into some trouble. He was also drinking, and into heroin and other drugs. He was let go from his boat yard job when production slowed. He said he has only used alcohol in Juneau.
“I needed to change something so I figured moving would help,” said Nick who says he has members of his family in Seattle who are either in recovery or alcoholics.
He met Emily when she was grieving for her sister and moved in with her, her children, and her mother. When they were evicted, the three kids went to their father, and Emily and Nick to the street, where they do whatever they can to get by, panhandling and sometimes selling their food stamps to pay for their cell phones.

John
John, 46, is a roofer from California who took a job on a tender in Petersburg for a year. After losing his identification, a pastor advised him to go to Juneau or Ketchikan. “It was a spur of the moment thing and that’s how I ended up in Alaska. It’s all gone downhill since I moved here.” He’s been on the street for eight years.
John says he broke his neck when he fell off a roof. “I’m in constant pain and have no medical insurance to care for my condition.” He takes small jobs to pay for the two “tilts” of beer a day he says uses to treat the pain.
John says his family in the Lower 48 refuses to help. He wants medical care and solid employment so he can take care of his fiancée, Valerie.

Valerie
Valerie, 44, from Hoonah, has been living in Juneau for 24 years, and on the streets for the last 10. She says life on the streets is tough.
“Some people think because I am a female, that they can take advantage of me. My boyfriend, my fiancée, takes good care of me, but it’s tough down here. There’s nowhere to go, we have nothing to do,” said Valerie, who has faced several criminal charges involving violence.
Valerie graduated from Rainforest Recovery Center but hasn’t maintained her sobriety. She says she needs to drink two 40-ounce bottles of beer a day to maintain her alcohol level or she has seizures.
Valerie says she has fetal alcohol syndrome. She had a child with FAS who was taken away from her when the child was 6 months old and was raised by his father. Her child said in an article that he doesn’t harbor any ill will towards his mother. She had two other children with a homeless man, Greg. Those children were also taken away.

Greg
Greg, 48, has a grown daughter from a previous relationship who isn’t in the picture, besides his two children with Valerie. He is no longer with Valerie. He says he drinks to forget a past that makes him sad.
Greg has a half-brother in Juneau, Dan, who he met for the first time at their mother’s funeral. Dan says his mother was an alcoholic and drug addict who killed herself when Greg was 18 years old.
Dan, who also was a heavy drinker, has struggled with his own sobriety so he can’t take Greg in. Greg managed a restaurant in the valley, but when his relationship fell apart and he lost his children, he moved into the woods.
“If I could get my personal identification back then I could get a real job and stop living the life I’ve been living,” said Greg, adding, “what I really want is a cabin in the woods and a life of peace.”

Joni
Joni, 50, was born in Metlakatla. She moved to Juneau when she was 19, and has been living on the streets for the last five years. She became homeless after her husband left her, and she experienced another personal trauma. She has an 18-year-old daughter in town who she says is not returning her calls right now.
Joni says she has fetal alcohol syndrome. She chose to start drinking at 19. She averages a couple of pints of whiskey a day, but is trying to taper off on her own because Rainforest Recovery Center is full.
“I’m freaking out so I’m drinking myself to death,” she said with a laugh. She later said her laughter was a cover for her pain. Joni says people give her money because she did the same when she worked and had money. In November, when the nights were getting too cold, she was filling out documents so she could move in with her best friend, Doug.

Doug
Doug, 50, is from Skagway. He and Joni have been living on the streets of Juneau for five years together. “I don’t care where we live, I just want a warm place for her to be,” said Doug.
Doug was a construction worker who came to Juneau after he said his marriage ended. “I came to Juneau to get away from Skagway,” said Doug. His two children live in California.
Doug, who’s retired, is drinking about a quart of whiskey a day, and living off his union pension.

• • •

Life on the streets of Juneau for people who are homeless and alcoholics is a tough life, especially in the winter.
Chronic inebriates do whatever they can to earn money to support their alcohol habits, which for most means drinking a minimum of two 40 ounce beers a day. Some I met were drinking as much as two pints of whiskey a day. If their alcohol levels drop below a certain point, they may start having seizures, and some die.
Some are picked up by Rainforest Recovery Center or by the police who first take them to the hospital for medical clearance before they are taken to what’s called the drunk tank at Lemon Creek Correctional Facility.
To get their alcohol fix, they panhandle, barter, do odd jobs and look for financial help from charitable organizations, among other things.
Because they are almost always under the influence, they tend to lose important documentation like Social Security cards and driver’s licenses, which for many appear to be insurmountable problems and they just give up.
This feeling of helplessness often leads to anger and self-pity. They drink and then lash out and people walking down the street or aggressively panhandle and berate those who won’t give them money.
People living on the street tend to bond together and form alliances. Women say they must pair up with men for safety and warmth. This often leads to pregnancies and babies born with FAS that are taken away from the mothers. These children often end up homeless themselves.

Downtown dilemma: Giving people aid in their darkest hours

Michael Penn / Juneau Empire

Reserve Officer George Gozelski of the Juneau Police Department checks on an inebriated local man at Gunakadeit Park (also known as Pocket Park) on Franklin Street last July.

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Several institutions and individuals are tasked with dealing with Juneau’s chronic inebriates. Here is a look at three of them:

The Juneau Police Department
Last summer, for the first time, the Juneau Police Department, after pressure from the Downtown Business Association, assigned an officer dedicated to the downtown area to monitor inebriates and to manage any problems that might arise. Downtown shop owners appreciated the efforts of the first liaison, Officer Tracy Murphy.
Murphy moved south, and this winter, Officer Thomas Penrose has stepped into his shoes. Penrose is still learning the job. He said that one of his main goals is enforcing Title 47, which is concerned with personal welfare, social services and institutions. Basically they administer public assistance for adults in need, which are often people who have passed out from alcohol abuse or are in medical danger.
“They really want me to be boots-to-the-ground to interact with business owners, inebriates, homeless, customers or citizens on a positive level, to try and figure out how we can move,” said Penrose.

Rainforest Recovery Center
“One in every 10 people in this country has troubles with alcohol or drugs,” said Sandy Kohtz. Kohtz is the director of Rainforest Recovery, a 16-bed facility that’s an offshoot of Bartlett Regional Hospital. She has been working in the substance abuse field since 1977, first as a social worker, then director, of a 175-bed statewide treatment center in Nebraska.
She said clients arrive at the door of Rainforest in different ways, but often their clients are picked up because they’re considered a public nuisance. Besides getting calls from the community, Rainforest actively looks for individuals who are obviously drunk. If an individual refuses services, they may be held for 12 hours at Lemon Creek Correctional Center.
That 12-hour stay, or “sleep-off”, is considered the first stage of a five-stage recovery. “Most people in sleep-off are in the pre-contemplative stage,” said Kohtz. Stage two is contemplation, stage three is preparation, stage four is action, and stage five is maintenance.
Kohtz says no two people arrive at sobriety the same way. Sometimes it’s like a revolving door.
“Relapse is part of the disease. The lucky ones are the ones that come back”, said Kohtz. “Unfortunately sometimes they die.”
Though many seem treatment resistant, Rainforest’s staff never gives up on a client. For example, one person had 76 admissions, and on the 76th he stayed sober for the rest of his life.
Kohtz said she never knows what is going to be effective.
“They have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. And they have to do some recovery on their own,” said Kohtz. She has seen many people recover in her 35 years in the field, and she knows one thing for sure; if the outreach people are working harder for the sobriety than the client is, it’s not going to work.
Kohtz said the workers have to have a broad attitude. She doesn’t like the term “chronic inebriates,” as she thinks the term implies hopelessness.
“I would rather them be called a person who has a disease and aren’t ready to change,” she said. “If you don’t treat them as if its treatable, and if I didn’t believe that some of these people can get straight and sober, then there is no point.”
“For the most part I’ve been doing alcohol and drug treatment because you can see people get well. Even if it is 1 out of 10, it’s that one that keeps people going.”
This is one of the things that keep doctors and nurses going as well.

Bartlett Regional Hospital
Rose Lawhorne, a registered nurse, has been the Emergency Department manager at BRH for two years, after working for many years as an emergency room nurse. Lawhorne says inebriates are in the ER almost every day.
“Inebriates are one of the highest risk populations because there are so many things that can behave like intoxication. Blood sugar problems, strokes, low oxygen from heart problems, lung problems or infection,” said Lawhorne. Sorting out the problems can be tricky.
Every nurse feels differently, but some find their patience tried, especially when they see the same person twice in one day, or have to deal with violent behavior caused by drugs like methamphetamine. Consequently the hospital has security watching potentially violent people.
Frequently inebriates picked-up downtown must pass through the emergency room for a medical clearance before being transferred to Rainforest Recovery or Lemon Creek Correctional Center.
“We have to watch them at the hospital if security isn’t available, and it starts to take up time,” said JPD patrol officer Sarah Hieb.
Lawhorne says individuals average blood alcohol levels between 0.2 and 0.3, but there are many who blow 0.4, 0.5, and even above 0.6 because of their tolerance. A level of 0.08 is presumed by Alaska law to be too drunk to drive. Sometimes they are given medication to help relieve withdrawal symptoms before being released. Some simply get a sandwich and a warm blanket before being sent to Rainforest.
“At the same time we are seeing heart attacks and strokes, traumas, sick children, injuries,” said Lawhorne. “People come to us in their darkest time and the thing that keeps the nurses going is being able to meet them in their hour of need and support them.”

Downtown dilemma: Impacts of chronic drinkers a fact of life for downtown merchants

Larry Spencer, of the Downtown Business Association, thinks the city assembly decision to ban smoking in bars and thus force people to smoke on the sidewalks has made Juneau a more dangerous place.

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

The Glory Hole in downtown Juneau was established in 1984 to help anyone in need. At that time, people were passing out in the cold, sometimes even dying. Until the economic downturn, chronic inebriates were the main clients. Executive Director Mariya Lovishchuk described the Glory Hole in 2009 — the year she began work there — as “strange and unmanageable.” She noticed most of the problems involved just a few people, and were always alcohol related.
The Glory Hole instituted a breathalyzer policy in 2009, which effectively eliminates services for 10-15 percent of the people who used the facility. Lovishchuk feels bad about turning them away, but she said the situation became much more manageable within a few months.
“Most of the people at the Glory Hole come to us and use us as a stepping stone to get back on their feet, but the chronic inebriate folks have been here for many, many, many years,” said Lovishchuk. Back outside, inebriates wander the streets, and look for cubbyholes in which to sleep and stay warm.
Many business owners who interact daily with inebriates, though angry and frustrated, would not speak on the record for fear of retaliation.
They all agree the inebriates need the right kind of help.
“Look at the Canvas,” said Joan Deering, owner of Paradise Café, “I consider the inebriates to be disabled and in need of a space where they can be helped.”
“I’ve been in business nine years at this location and it’s a thoroughfare from the Glory Hole to Marine Park. What disturbs me the most is that I’ve seen the same faces year after year,” said John Chapman, owner of Picture This. He thinks the problem is getting worse.
“I was driving to work one morning and saw a guy stealing booze off the back of a delivery truck, then he took off to share his score with his friends — I mean it really has a carnival type atmosphere — it’s lively,” said Chapman.
Larry Spencer is president of the Downtown Business Association (DBA) and owner of the Senate Building on Franklin Street.
“I don’t view this as a downtown problem, I view this as a community-wide problem. We have inebriates that hang out downtown and in the valley,” said Spencer, who said people focus on the problem downtown because of its economic importance.
“We’re the face of the capital city, the entertainment and cultural center, we have bars, restaurants, local shops. We’re the economic engine with the tourism and we’re a major center for work, public and private,” said Spencer, who said the DBA is concerned with the vitality and safety of downtown.
He said he didn’t know of any attacks, but thinks inebriates pose a perceived safety problem.
“It’s perceived safety, I don’t know how valid it is but when people are allowed to stand on the street and shout obscenities it doesn’t make it a good place for mothers and their kids to shop,” said Spencer, who spearheaded the panhandling ordinance that was passed by the city in 2007.
“They also responded with a private contract through the DBA in the summertime that the cruise ship tax pays to roust people from private property in the mornings so they’re gone before the cruise ship tourists arrive,” said Spencer.
Spencer believes the inebriate problem has gotten worse since the smoking ordinance was passed, because bar patrons and smokers congregate on the street. “We gained clean air in the bars and dumped the problem out in the streets,” said Spencer, who said there was more to the problem.
“I think when we have problems in the villages, lack of economic opportunity, people come here from the villages for a variety of purposes, for social services, and they come here for jail,” said Spencer, who says jail is one source of the problem.
“Once they get out, we socialize them and try to line them up with housing. Some fail and some succeed, and the ones that fail become our public inebriate problem,” said Spencer. “The more services we provide, the more of a magnet we are, or dumping ground, for an inebriate population. If you build it, they will come.”
Spencer said the DBA has discussed the topic many times over the last 10 years and they believe stricter law enforcement of panhandling and open container ordinances is the answer.
Shop owners who felt too intimidated to go on the record tell the same story of daily encounters rousting people from doorways before opening their businesses. Of cleaning up liquor bottles, cans, trash, cigarette butts, feces, urine, vomit, and the occasional needle. Of fear when having to confront the daily situations, which they feel have developed an edge. They’ve had drunk people sleep on their couches, patios and even in their cars. Some inebriates have tried to steal the keys to the place when their back was turned, screamed profanities and even taken a swing at them. All report local and tourist customers avoid their businesses when there are drunk people congregating and panhandling in front.
Most business owners feel sad about the plight of the inebriates, but for many compassion has run out. One said just the sound of a paper bag crinkling on a liquor bottle triggers him when he’s trying to work.
One coffee shop manager has been serving “no trespassing” papers that she downloads from the City and Borough of Juneau website.
Especially this time of year, people who live on the street seek a warm place to spend time.
The downtown branch of the library is one such warm place. “As long as people follow our conduct rules and don’t cause problems, they are welcome to be here. There’s no specific rule that says they can’t have had anything to drink before you get in here, it’s just how can you conduct yourself,” said Library Director Barbara Berg.
Common library misuses include doing laundry or bathing in the bathroom, eating, sleeping and talking too loudly.
Despite this, the staff is more concerned about the well-being of their patrons than conduct violations. Untrained in drug and alcohol issues, they agree that Juneau needs a facility to address the needs of the people who take shelter in the library. ”But it’s not here, or at the Glory Hole, or in the front of local businesses,” said Circulation Supervisor Mark Whitman.
Berg added any facility needs to have Internet access.
“It’s not just a luxury anymore, they need to communicate with family in distant places, get benefits for disabilities,” she said.
Both librarians said they feel that a police presence is helpful.

Cartoonist TOE releases Palin book

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

A collection of Sarah Palin cartoons by Tony Newman, who draws under the pen name “TOE,” is being released in book format at the upcoming Alaska-Juneau Public Market.
The book, titled “When Sarah Palin Came to Town,” is a chronological look at Palin’s political career, focusing on the effect she had on Juneau and its residents.
“If there are two characters in this book they are Sarah Palin and Juneau,” Newman said. “The relationship between Palin and Juneau — the impact of her celebrity and leadership was something I hadn’t seen explored fully in the books that have been about her and by her.”
Newman pairs his personal reflections of political events surrounding Palin with his published cartoons, adding a couple dozen previously unpublished drawings. He said the book seemed like an impossible dream until a tragic event helped push him forward.
“If anything gave me the motivation to do this it was the loss of my friend John Caouette a year ago,” he said.
While processing and reflecting on Caouette’s unexpected death with his friends, Newman said they realized they needed to go after the things they want — relax about work, travel more and do the things they love.
“I realized that I already do what I love to do in these cartoons,” Newman said.
Caouette had always encouraged Newman to take his cartoons further, but Newman had struggled to find a unifying theme for his collection. Then Palin came to town.
“I thought Frank Murkowski was an incredibly colorful governor and when he lost I thought we were going to enter a quiet boring time, no matter who it was, and obviously Sarah Palin was anything but,” he said.
Newman had a 10-year cartoon retrospective at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum in 2007, as Palin was just starting her first term as governor, and he was asked about her as a new subject. He was quoted as saying, “She’s a striking-looking person, so she’ll be fun to draw. She also seems like she’ll be a dynamic sort of personality that may get into hot water or at least be visible.”
He couldn’t have known then how right he was. With a colorful subject to work with, Newman’s Palin cartoons were inspired and people responded locally and nationally.
Newman has received a lot of positive feedback over the years with Alaska Press Club awards and a solid fan following, One particular letter to the editor in 2008, a little more than a year after Palin became governor, said Newman had found his muse in Palin and called one of his drawings a masterpiece; the letter confirmed his idea that Palin would be a solid unifying concept for the book.
“The arc of Sarah Palin’s career from governor to not governor has been a single story line. I realized I do have a theme here,” Newman said.
Juneau also plays a major role.
“Prior to Sarah Palin we were all about — to outsiders — snow and tundra, polar bears and fishing, and now, post-Palin, tell me that’s not the first question you get when you talk to friends that find out where you are from.”
Newman sees the book as a sort of Palin therapy, and he hopes that both Palin critics and Palin fans will identify their own reactions to her in the book.
“This book is both for us, Juneau residents to relive this interesting time in our history, but it’s also for people who are interested in Sarah Palin, and either love her and don’t understand why there has been sort of a general reaction against her from Alaskans, (or) for people who don’t understand what her appeal ever was and how Alaska could put her out as sort of our best citizen.”
His tone is playful rather than biting, and he says most of his subjects, including legislators he’s poked fun at over the years, have asked for the cartoons.
When he initially pitched his Palin collection idea in front of the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, they were encouraging even though the idea wasn’t fully formed.
“I didn’t even have a clear idea of what I wanted, I just knew I wanted to enhance and develop my collection of Sarah Palin work as it relates to Juneau specifically. I didn’t know if that was an exhibit or a book or a pamphlet or a movie,” Newman said.
The arts council gave him an individual artist grant and a deadline, which Newman says was critical to the project.
“Without a deadline I could never have dragged myself through it,” said Newman, who is also a father, husband, and full-time state worker with many community commitments.
Newman, who has contributed cartoons to the editorial page of the Juneau Empire for more than 10 years, doesn’t always focus on politics in his drawings — he covers a wide range of topics of community interest, like the weather and personal tributes.
“One thing I can say about my work is that it’s erratic,” he said. “I don’t claim to be a great artist, I’m not trained as an artist, I’m trained as a journalist. I think my strength lies in my ideas.”
His family gives him the space to create when he needs to.
“When it’s cartoon night I plant myself in the middle of the kitchen where all the action is and draw,” Newman said. He is comfortable with chaos, having grown up with nine brothers and sisters Pittsburgh, Penn.
“When I was a toddler my mom set up a chalkboard in the kitchen so she could keep an eye on me, and I remember she would step around me as she worked in the kitchen as I sat there and drew.”
Newman drew lots of cartoons for friends over the years but it wasn’t until he moved to Anchorage in 1993 and noticed a call for cartoon submissions at the Anchorage Daily News that he became published. After moving to Juneau, he went on to draw for The Paper, begun by former Empire editor Larry Persily, and the Capital City Weekly before becoming a regular contributor to the Empire in 2000.
Newman’s book will be available at the Alaska Juneau Public Market, running Friday through Sunday at Centennial Hall. He hopes it will inspire conversations.
“There’s something about the combination of the right brain and the left brain — there’s the artwork but there’s also an intellectual stimulation that tweaks people in a way.”

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Open Artists Studios in October

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

The first open studio event of its kind begins this week on First Friday, and continues throughout the month of October.
Participating artists will have an art piece hanging at the Franklin Street Gallery at the Baranof Hotel, and most will have their art studios open for public viewing at different times during October.
This is a rare opportunity for people to visit artists’ private zones. You can see where artistic ideas are given life, in some cases, even in the absence of running water and heat.
Most participating artists have never opened their studios to the public. Many confessed they are using the pressure to get themselves organized. I caught up with a few of the artists in their spaces to chat about what they’re working on.

DOWNTOWN ARTISTS
Pua Maunau
Event organizer and artist Pua Maunau was inspired to coordinate the event during a trip to San Francisco several years ago where she attended a similar event while visiting her first painting teacher.
Maunau got her start painting in San Francisco in 1979. After seeing some paintings she loved at an art gallery in the Mission district, she inquired about the artist. He happened to be working in his fourth floor studio.
She complimented him in person and he offered to teach her how to paint. She went twice a week for four years and loved it.
Maunau painted in studios until she moved to Juneau in 1999 where she began painting outdoors. She and Barbara Craver formed Plein Rein, a group that meets weekly to paint outside.
“In Juneau you can’t help but paint outdoors,” said Maunau.

Barbara Craver
In July of this year Barbara Craver, a self-proclaimed recovering lawyer, moved her artist space from her small home basement to the Articorp building downtown, next to friend and fellow artist Constance Baltuck.
Having all her painting supplies together in one place has been helpful to Craver, as well as the separate space.
“Not having the distractions of being at home was wonderful, you know the laundry, the phone, a nice chair with a book,” said Craver with a laugh, “I decided to give it a try.”
Craver used Baltuck’s space to paint while Baltuck was artist-in-residence at Kobuk Valley National Park painting in the great sand dunes with bear scientists. Craver loved working in the studio and soon got a space of her own.
The two artists check in with each other in the morning, paint together outside and help each other with paintings. They use baby strollers to push their gear up mountains.

Constance Baltuck
Constance moved her studio from her home in January of this year and has a corner office in the Articorp building with spectacular views. The painting she picked for First Friday is of her friend’s daughter playing with ravens in her yard.
Baltuck has a show opening at the Alaska State Museum in November.

David Woodie
David Woodie has an artist’s space in the Emporium Mall downtown, upstairs from the Nickelodeon Gold Town Theatre. He promises to organize his studio for visitors.
“I’m going to get things cleared away, kick the wine bottles in the corner and put a table here,” said Woodie, who started his career drawing ships when he was 6 years old. He’s had his studio for about 12 years and also teaches at the University of Alaska Southeast.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

A family of artists: Rohrbachers are rich in talent

Courtney Nelson / Juneau Empire

Charles Rohrbacher's studio in Douglas

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Deacon Charles Rohrbacher and his daughter Phoebe Rohrbacher both have artist’s spaces in Juneau and shows opening this November.
Charles is an iconographer with a studio in a converted garage at his home on Douglas, while Phoebe, primarily an oil painter, has a space on Seward Street.

Charles
About 10 years ago, Charles, with the help of his father and other friends, stripped his garage down to the beams and built a heated room with lots of lights to serve as his studio. There are flat files, books and drawers that help the Deacon stay organized. It’s here that he makes his own egg tempera paint from a powder.
“The advantage of tempera paint is you can paint rather transparently,” Charles said.
Charles came to Juneau in 1982 from San Francisco and married his wife, Paula, a Jesuit volunteer.
He had always done art, including woodcuts, relief prints and drawings, but he became interested in iconography when he realized he could bring his faith and his art together.
In icon paintings, the artist is not supposed to be represented. Icons are meant to be a locus for prayer and, as such, belong to the church.
They have certain general characteristics that distinguish them from religious paintings: their lines are deliberately frontal, and they often have halos and inscriptions. Icons are designed to get past linguistics and draw the viewer in, becoming a still point in a tumultuous world.
Charles had the opportunity to study abroad on three separate occasions with the great iconic artist Egon Sendler, a Byzantine Catholic priest. He also studied with about 25 other iconographers in Évian-les-Bains, on the south shore of Lake Geneva.
“I showered in Evian water,” he joked.
In addition to technical direction, he says the experience introduced him to other iconographers, which was very confirming, and a testament to the iconographer explosion that has occurred in the last 20 years.
He’s painted hundreds of pieces for Catholic, Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches, including many private commissions.
Charles just became a member of the Juneau Artists Gallery cooperative and has a show scheduled in November at the Canvas featuring the original artwork from his soon to be released book “The Illuminated Easter Proclamation.” It is being released by Liturgical Press and has been 10 years in the making.

Phoebe
Phoebe, who was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from Juneau Douglas High School, received a Rasmuson Foundation Emerging Artist Award in 2010 and secured a downtown studio space with part of her award money.
Phoebe currently has two pieces hanging at Alana Ballam-Schwan and Chad Medel’s new Figment art gallery in the Senate Building, and will have a solo show opening there in November.
Phoebe also has a job working at a REACH group home.
Phoebe has painted from old family photographs in the past but takes creative license.
“I’m interested in conveying the emotion of the image as opposed to being completely visually accurate.”
“I looked at photos of my mother’s family and I picked images I found to be visually compelling with a lot of emotion in them,” Phoebe said in reference to her last show at the city museum.
Phoebe went to college in Seattle and says that one of the most valuable things she learned in art school was to loosen up a little. Paintings were frequently seen as exercises in technique, so there wasn’t pressure for each painting to be a masterpiece.
This skill came in handy right away.
While Phoebe was preparing for her last show, four of her paintings were stolen two months before her opening. She quickly had to double her output.
“They took most of the work I had done and left me with 2 ½ paintings, my goal was 10.”
The robbery was shocking and confusing to Phoebe.
“It’s not like there’s a black market for paintings by pretty unknown artists.”
A small part of her thinks she might find them at the Salvation Army at some point in the future.
For emerging artists, Phoebe advises finding a space dedicated to artwork, a place that is comfortable and where the artist wants to spend time.
She said she wants to continue improving technically and conceptually as an artist, and become more disciplined. She is considering graduate school because she finds value in being immersed with other artists, getting support from teachers and receiving thorough critiques.
Phoebe’s solo show at Figment, located in the Senate Building, opens Nov. 4.

Paula
Paula Rohrbacher, Charles’ wife and Phoebe’s mother, has also jumped in the creative flow, making portable prayer shrines in re-covered Altoid tins using Charles’ icon prints. Light and portable, these tins hold a tea light candle, colored icon and a prayer for women fighting breast cancer – an inspired idea.
“We had a reception at the cathedral at Parish Hall, to view an icon, and Paula had this great idea and paired up with Team Survivor, a support group for women fighting breast cancer, to help them get active and back into good health. Some women take the shrines with them for their treatments,” Charles said.
“It was the kind of thing that would never occur to me, but this just came to her and it has been a blessing,” he said, adding that Paula is much better at marketing then he is.
“To give you an example of why I shouldn’t be allowed to market anything, we printed up biblical cards of Jesus and Mary, and for some reason, I had 200 crucifixion cards made up. When we got them Paula said, ‘For what occasion are people going to be sending these cards?’” Charles recalled with a laugh. “So we have about 195 crucifixion cards left.”
“People don’t send ‘Happy Good Friday’ cards, they just don’t,” said Paula.
• Contact freelance writer Courtney Nelson at roughhouseboxing@gmail.com.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Evolution of an artist

Juneau resident Harrison has tried just about everything

Michael Penn / Juneau Empire

Gordon Harrison works in his home shop on Tuesday.

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Gordon Harrison is an extremely busy retired person.
When he and his wife, retired Juneau family practitioner Sarah Isto, built their Juneau home 27 years ago they built a garage so Harrison would have a space and tools to create art. Since then, the garage has never housed a car.
His garage studio, located on top of the hill above Juneau-Douglas High School, has sweeping views of the channel and Douglas Island.
These days it serves primarily as a shop for his latest passion: ceramics.
“I started taking courses out here at the University in clay with Todd Turek, I took at least four semesters with him and learned how to work with clay,” Harrison said.
He combines his woodturning skills with ceramics to make pottery that rises up out of a mold. He makes intricate woodworked pieces like beaks and feet, which he adds as finishing touches to his ceramic pieces.
As it turns out there aren’t a lot of people using this technique.
“I kept looking in all the clay magazines and books about surface treatments and surface textures and things and nobody was describing this technique I was doing — and I thought that was strange because I didn’t invent it — but nobody was writing about it,” he said.
Harrison sent off a query to one of the main clay magazines and ended up writing an article on the subject.
“I sent them pictures of what I was doing and she was really excited about it and jumped on it — so (an) article was the result.”
Making ceramic pieces gives Harrison a thrill.
“It may sound corny but it is a joy to make some of those pieces,” he said. “I see those figures come up, those birds and fish come up out of the clay, it’s just absolutely thrilling when I do it ... and I do it just for the pleasure of seeing it.”
He doesn’t earn much money from his work, but to Harrison it doesn’t matter.
“If you don’t sell them, you can’t just keep making them. I mean all my friends have all the fish plates they are ever going to want so what do you do? By selling them it keeps me active and it keeps me working on new designs,” he said.
Currently, Harrison has his pieces on display at the Juneau Artists Gallery where he is also a board member.

Room to go
His latest art endeavor has been the culmination of years of trying out different art forms since childhood.
“(Art) is just something that’s been compelling in me — and again, I don’t feel like I have any great talent, I have a nice sense of design and so on — but it’s just been a compelling need to physically make things with my hands, and if you have that you just have to give it room to go,” Harrison said.
One of his first artistic passions was blacksmithing, which he picked up while he was a professor of political science in Fairbanks. He also took glass workshops, and eventually started making jewelry.
“I got on a jewelry jag, I was making belt buckles for a while and I came up with a really nice design for belt buckles. So, I thought about making those but there was just too much work in it,” he said.
Harrison then turned to woodturning, which also ran its course because it was too repetitive and restrictive.
“Wood turning these big bowls — you have a tremendous amount of time invested in it and most of that time is just sanding — but it’s just really hard to get the money out of it. It’s just not worth it to spend that much time and you can’t charge that much for it,” Harrison said.
He also worked with wood doing carpentry and building furniture for their remote family cabins in Denali and on Admiralty Island.

Finding Alaska
Harrison was born in Stockton, Calif. In June of 1969, he simultaneously completed his Ph.D in political science from Claremont Graduate School and his master’s in journalism from the University of California Berkley. In October of 1969, he took a job teaching at the Institute of Social and Economic Research in Fairbanks, but Alaska had been on his radar for a while.
“I always had a childhood fantasy about Alaska, and between my freshman and sophomore year of college I spent a summer, this was in 1962 or so, in Kodiak logging and at the end of that I went out on a commercial fishing boat. The next summer, I came up to Kodiak and worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as a stream guard. It was the best job of my life,” Harrison said.
“They took us way out in the boondocks and left us with a boat and flew in every two weeks and brought us food and mail and left us alone again, and oh god it was wonderful … I think I’ve been always trying to reconstruct that summer. That was my introduction to Alaska and I just absolutely loved it.”
Fairbanks was where he met his wife, but the weather turned out to be too brutal for him, and he was drawn to Juneau.
“I’d begun to do a lot of traveling with a project I was working on in Fairbanks, and it brought me into Juneau in winter I saw Juneau and said ‘this is where I want to live.’ It was just magical to me.”
They moved to Washington for about seven years so his wife could continue her education as a doctor and Harrison did consultant work with Dames and Moore in Seattle.
He ended up living in Juneau for a legislative session while working for Fran Ulmer in 1978 and was hooked. When his wife completed her medical education in Washington it was his turn to pick where they lived and he picked Juneau. Here he spent years as the director of the Legislative research agency from which he retired.

Continuing evolution
In addition to his different art ventures, Harrison has been doing photography, studying calligraphy and has now gotten fired-up about papermaking thanks to David Riccio of Lemon Creek Digital.
His wife said she has enjoyed seeing her husband’s constant evolution.
“I don’t care about traveling to exotic places, I just cherish the time I have to fool around with art,” Harrison said.
He also admitted it was a luxury.
“I’ve had the luxury to just indulge myself and a lot of people don’t have that — they are just trying to get by,” he said. “I think there are a lot of people that have talent that are never going to be able to do anything with it, because art you know doesn’t pay. I mean a few people can make a living as artists but they have to be good and have somehow figured it out and found a niche.”
“That bothers me about society, you know, because society doesn’t reward art,” he said. “People are not willing to spend much on it, they’ll spend $400 on getting their car repaired and think nothing of it, but spending $400 on a painting — I mean, they just won’t do it.”
With all Harrison’s education and numerous careers, one may wonder how he has accomplished all he has.
“You can get a lot done if you don’t watch television,” Harrison said with a laugh.
See more of Harrison’s work at the Juneau Artists Gallery.