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

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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.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

DJ Manu - Making a scene

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Manuel Hernandez loves to DJ almost as much as he loves to dance. Hernandez, who goes by DJ Manu, has become an integral part of the local DJ scene, an activity he juggles with running a downtown shop, Choco Boutique, with his wife Dana.
Hernandez says the late night DJ lifestyle is difficult to maintain while running a business.
“That’s why I look like a vampire — because I’m working at night,” he said.
Hernandez took a two-year break from DJing to get the store going in 2006; when he returned to the music scene, he had to catch up with the transition from analog to digital equipment.
“I was the obsolete DJ,” joked Hernandez.
He eventually acquired some new DJ software and a new computer and now plays private parties, big bashes, bonfire raves, and restaurants and clubs. He says he can cater his music to any age group or genre, he just needs about a week to prepare a song collection.
“I feel proud about this — I can play anything you guys want. I can entertain a crowd of 50 and up with nice ’50s and ’60s rock, swing, 70s, 80s, 90s. I can do Mexican parties or Latin parties,” he said, noting that there’s a big distinction between the two.
“Mexican parties like banda, corrido, norteno, cumbia, and a little bit of Mexican. Latin parties like cumbia, salsa, merengue, bachata, and reggaeton,” he explained.
In 2010 Hernandez got in touch with REACH and the people at the Canvas and started to play their events, including the monthly poetry slam organized by Christy NaMee Eriksen. He doesn’t mind volunteering his time for a good cause.
“I love to do that because it gets me in touch with the people and keeps me playing,” he said. “If I get money out of it, well, that’s wonderful, but it isn’t my livelihood.”
MEXICO and ALASKA
Hernandez grew up in Monterrey, Mexico, which is just south of the Texas border. His grandfather on his father’s side moved from Mexico to Alaska around 1968 with his two brothers in search of opportunity, adventure and to conquer the last frontier. The brothers started the Alaska Fur Gallery and Fur Factory and Hernandez’s grandfather returned to Mexico. He eventually returned to Juneau and started the House of Eskimo Dolls & Gifts on Seward Street, which is now run by his aunt.
“I went to Juneau in the summer of 1993 at 13 years old and fell in love with the place,” Hernandez said. “It was a dream come true to come to Alaska, so I tried to return every summer.”
By 19 he was living half-time in Monterrey and half-time in Alaska, and in 2003 he and Dana moved to Southeast and called Juneau home after their first winter.
“I consider myself a local now — we are here year-round, rain or shine or snow.”
DANCER TO DJ
The transition from dancing to DJing came naturally, from the same source.
“DJ ‘Miss Kittin’ said if you can’t shake your booty than you won’t be a good DJ,” said Hernandez.
Hernandez got an early dance start, sheepishly admitting he hit the club dance scene in Mexico at the age of 15.
“I would call myself a first generation ‘raver’.”
Hernandez addressed the stereotype of ravers as drug users saying, “not all people that have the energy and want to dance are on drugs ¬— people on drugs usually aren’t dancing — they are in a corner freaking out.”
Hernandez has some advice for party-goers. “Whenever you go to parties, don’t make trouble, don’t ruin it for the rest of the people. Just do what you like, but do it right.”
While dancing, Hernandez became aware of the people playing the music and became a big time DJ groupie in Mexico.
“I would carry their bags and stuff. I liked their music but I wasn’t interested much in playing it, rather I was doing the dancing.” This changed after a while.
“I ended up doing turntables which I bought off the world-renowned DJ Astronomar,” said Hernandez.
Hernandez said he’s not alone in the local scene – others have included DJ Fess, DJ Snoop, Chris Calandra, DJ Crumbs, Adam Ward, the File Jerks, DJ Gift, DJ Judo and Stewie — and that he’s had lots of help from other locals along the way, such as Keith Giles, of Rozwick Giles music. He’s had other influences as well.
“I liked DJ Krush and his early work because he started that acid jazz hip hop scene, DJ craze. I also liked hip-hop drummer based live act turntablest, Trent Moller who has a great minimal feeling. A little bit of this a little bit of that, throw in a little ’80s and make it happen.”
While in Mexico, Hernandez went to college and studied television, communications and marketing. He learned how to run all kinds of electrical wires at a television studio and has been known to save parties by fixing blown speakers and bad connections — like last year at a huge party at Centennial Hall called “Let’s Glow” where a few things went awry.
“We were expecting 200 people and got 600, the fire alarm was pulled twice and the speakers blew.” He repaired the speakers in about 20 minutes.
CHOCO BOUTIQUE
Hernandez and his wife, both 31, opened the clothing and accessory store Choco Boutique in 2006. They’d been thinking about it since Dana did her final thesis on the business idea in college; she envisioned it as a clothing and music store with a bar lounge named Zoporo, but it ended up being Choco, named in part for chocolate, a food that can be traced to the Aztecs in Mexico.
“We thought it was a sweet name,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez merges his store and his music by working on creating collections for upcoming parties and familiarizing himself with music in the store while shoppers dance around.
“We play the music loud and it draws the customers in.”
JUST MAKE ‘EM HAPPY
Making crowds happy means playing music they like. At one of the Canvas street fairs he started a set with a classical piece and said people were looking at him funny.
“Well it’s 10 in the morning, I’m not going to start with Guns and Roses and blare it out,” laughed Hernandez.
With all the technology out there, pleasing people has become easier.
“When it’s a bar and there are 20 people hanging out and somebody wants to listen to CW McCall, well if you have it on your iPod or iPhone I can play it for you.” He usually has a back up computer so Dana can download new music on the spot.
“I’m really flexible,” said Hernandez. “The aim is to have a happy crowd anywhere. Just make ‘em happy.”
Hernandez says bars are the toughest venues because bar owners want customers happy and dancing, but they also want them sitting and drinking.
Hernandez says there are about 12 active DJ’s in the Juneau scene.
“We are really nice people — you know amongst ourselves, we are really chill and really mellow I don’t see any pompousness or glorified people saying ‘I’m the DJ, raise your hands and clap for me.’ I don’t think of myself as a big DJ, I just consider myself to be a guy that plays music.”
At times, this can be a tough job.
“At the end of the night it’s like, ‘thank you great job,’ and you still have to pack your stuff and drive home and it’s 4 in the morning. It sucks to be the DJ when you have to go to work the next day.”
FUTURE PLANS
Hernandez would like to open some more boutiques, build a bigger DJ scene and then do events for all ages — no drugs or bars — eventually incorporating all of Southeast Alaska.
“I would like to have a party — say in Sitka — where I get together a production team of go-go dancers and a couple DJs and we’d bring the party to your town. Hopefully it would do well as a business but hopefully it would unite Southeast.”
In the meantime, Hernandez is not slowing down.
“I love music and I don’t want to stop,” he said. “I don’t care if I’m old with gray hair and hanging out with crazy teens making music, that’s me.”

Monday, June 6, 2011

The art of brewing beer

Michael Penn / Juneau Empire

Brewer Tyler Lindquist, left, and Quality Assurance Analyst Darin Jensen pose in an older brewing tank that is being decommissioned at the Alaskan Brewing Company.

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

This weekend, brewers and beer lovers from all over Alaska will converge at the annual Great Alaska Craft Beer and Home-Brew Festival held in Dalton City at the Southeast Alaska State Fairgrounds in Haines. Brew Fest, as it’s informally called, celebrates the art of making — and drinking — beer, and recognizes the work of those who’ve dedicated themselves to perfecting the craft.
In Juneau many of those craftsmen can be found at the Alaskan Brewing Co. Though the company now ships its beer to 10 states, it continues to celebrate the art of small-batch beer and the creative innovation of its employees, especially through its Rough Draft program. In this the business stays true to its roots: Alaskan Amber, the company’s flagship beer, started out as an experimental home-brew based on a Gold Rush-era beer brewed by the Douglas City Brewing Company, open from 1902 to 1907. While doing research on breweries in 1986, Alaskan Brewing co-owner Marcy Larson came across some old shipping records from the Douglas brewery that included beer ingredients, and an article describing brewing techniques. Her husband Geoff, a home-brewer, brewed up a batch and was so impressed he made several more, tweaking the balance until he came up with something he thought was similar to what the miners were drinking.
“Gold Rush miners in Juneau were a hard working bunch who seemed to appreciate full flavored beers,” Geoff Larson said. “The rich, yet smooth, attributes of this particular brew is what caught me, and it appears the mining crews drank quite a lot of it in those days.”
Since that first batch of home-brew 25 years ago, Alaskan Brewing Co. has been growing and thriving, attracting a staff that includes beer lovers and home-brewers alike. Some have stuck around to become experts in the field — such as employees Darin Jensen and Tyler Lindquist, who together have invested a combined 33 years with the company.
Road to brewing
Darin Jensen has worked his way up through the ranks for the past 18 years to hold a position coveted by many as Quality Assurance Analyst. He gets paid to drink beer.
Darin moved to Juneau in 1993 from Minnesota and really wanted to work at the brewery. He got his first chance on “volunteer day,” an annual event where the brewery would shut down all brewing operations and take outside volunteers to bottle the beer.
“You’d get paid with rejects and a free lunch,” Jensen said. He then started refurbishing kegs for them and as the company expanded he landed a part-time position.
“I became fascinated by the process of making beer, I was ambitious and I was able to work my way up,” Jensen said. He moved from keg cleaning to tank cleaning to warehouse work, then managed a crew on the weekends and eventually moved into a brewing position just as they scaled up from the 10-barrel system to the 100-barrel.
It was this transition to creating something tangible like Alaskan Amber that gave Jensen the most work pride.
“It was a six-month learning curve to learn the process, but it was the start of a lifetime journey of creating beers and learning the art of brewing,” Jensen said.
He said the brewery’s Rough Draft program, in which small batches of brewers’ specialty beers are released on draft within the state, has allowed him to spread his wings.
“You might be inspired by a different style that’s out there, or you want to clone a beer that you’ve had,” said Jensen, who created a Rough Draft with a particular hop called Simcoe.
Fellow employee, former home-brewer and beer craftsman Tyler Lindquist says he arrived at the Alaskan Brewing Co. fresh from Eugene Ore., where he’d lived with a hop grower and become a home brewer in the middle of a micro brewery explosion in the early 1990s.
“I took a tour of the brewery about five times in a row, then they asked me if I wanted to fill out an application and about two or three weeks after that I got a call to interview, I got the job and it’s been 15 years,” Lindquist said. The first beer he had scaled up was the Alaskan Heritage Coffee beer he made after being approached by Heritage Coffee employees.
“We home-brewed at my house, they really liked the recipe I somewhat developed and we scaled it up at the brewery and from there it took off,” he said.
He added that the brewery’s ESB was the brewer’s beer of choice and noted his displeasure when it was discontinued.
Brewing is a complex process. Beer has so many different factors there is virtually an endless amount of combinations. Beer elements include appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, gravity and alcohol concentration, yeast, grains, hops, fruits, spices, water. Within these categories are even more complexities. Different hops for example have floral, fruit, earth, herb, pine and spicy characteristics.
Beer is also affected by production methods - like aging beer in bourbon barrels, and recipe, history, origin, and seasonal considerations can all influence the overall beer experience.
Music: beer’s unseen force
Along his journey Jensen’s come to believe that music and beer are a circular dynamic — continually inspiring and propelling each other forward.
Lindquist agrees, saying many brewers loosen up by listening to music, which prompts inspired beer discussions and new recipes. Music is also played in all phases of production and throughout the whole brewery.
“It’s neat to walk around the brewery and hear all the different kinds of music being played in the different areas,” said Marcy Larson.
In some cases, it’s live music. Once in a while someone will grab an instrument and rock out in a decommissioned lauter tank because of the good acoustics.
It was a shared love of music and beer that brought together the band Brown Haven, a band that includes both Jensen and Lindquist. The name of the band has a double meaning: it’s the leftover yeast scum on the top of a tank, and refers to the early band’s early jam sessions in their “haven,” a brown storage unit in the Mendenhall Valley.
Brown Haven blended the musical styles of Jensen, a self-proclaimed “metal head” from Minnesota; Lindquist, a surf punk from California; and Damian Horvath, a reggae musician from St. Croix, who also worked at the brewery. The band has broken up but will reunite for a private party this summer.
Jensen has just released an original song he wrote called “Soul Surfer,” which is being played on KRNN on Wednesdays.
Jensen and Lindquist are just two of the many brewers who have passed through or grown roots at the brewery, empowered and encouraged by the Larson’s artist space.
Courtney Nelson can be reached at roughhouseboxing@gmail.com.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Lucky We: Newlyweds thrive in reclusive artists retreat

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Juneau’s Kent Crabtree is a Renaissance man. The second time I met him, he brought me in his skiff out to an artist retreat he built himself, pulled a live crab from a pot on the way and then served it to me for lunch on one of the best salads I’ve ever had.
After spending the afternoon with Kent and his wife Julie Crabtree, I came to understand why they named the waterfront home Lucky We.
Before meeting Julie, Kent bought a piece of land on Douglas Island, south of the area known as Lucky Me, a roadless community accessible by a long walk or a short boat ride. He built a small waterfront cabin on his property and, eventually, a main house with the help of his friends.
With Lucky We, Kent got what he wanted: to live remotely and have a career. Now, with a house in town and one off the grid, he and his wife Julie have the best of both worlds.
Kent designed the timber-frame home himself, although his occupation as a fisheries biologist didn’t train him for architecture design. He said he taught himself the necessary skills by reading books in the library.
“I basically winged it,” he said.
The main house, built in two summers, has large skylights and strategically placed windows that open to allow rising heat from the main floor to warm the loft bedroom. The house is filled with paintings and art supplies, and there are inspiring nature scenes out every window. Kent even made his own stained glass light fixtures out of beach glass he collected.
Kent and Julie use the house as an artists’ retreat when they aren’t living in their downtown house. They paint out on the beach for hours or take up other bright nooks in the house. They say the remoteness of the space helps them create.
“Just the fact that we are off the grid with no distractions — we never know what time it is — that helps the art,” Kent said.
Kent and Julie, who initially met through mutual friends at the Alaska’s Folk Festival, were acquaintances for many years, unaware that the other was an artist until they stumbled upon each other’s exhibits. They eventually began dating.
They got married in January of this year in a surprise wedding ceremony at their Lucky We home. They currently have a joint art show hanging through the end of May at the Heritage Second Street Café downtown.
Kent
Kent, originally from Eugene, Ore., began painting after doing research on how to make stained glass windows for his house. He’d always liked Henry Matisse, and thought Matisse’s colorful cut-outs would lend themselves well to stained glass. He began thumbing through art books and, after immersing himself on the floor of the University of Alaska Southeast Egan Library for hours, he became inspired.
“I got so excited, I thought, ‘Screw windows, I want to paint,’” Kent said with a laugh. He immediately went out and got some discount, off-color paints at the paint store and a piece of plywood, then went back to his cabin and started to paint. He eventually took some art classes with John Fehringer at UAS.
In addition to being a biologist, a painter and a carpenter, Kent is a rhythm guitar player for the Chillkats and is the only founding member left in town. He has also dabbled in jewelry-making and even designed the couple’s wedding rings.
Julie
Julie realized she had a talent for drawing in high school after taking a couple of art classes, and she majored in art for a year at Ball State University in Indiana. Her favorite painter is Georgia O’Keefe.
“I guess I had a natural knack for drawing, it was my first awareness. I didn’t actually know I could draw up to that point,” Julie said, adding that she eventually changed her major.
Julie arrived in Kodiak in 1993 as a Coast Guard firefighter and eventually found her way to Juneau in 2000. While she was in Kodiak she used her drawing talents to paint names on boats, restaurant signs and even took jobs painting houses.
In addition to painting, she also loves photography, beading and necklace-making, juggling those artistic pursuits with her job as a bodywork specialist and her role as a mother of two children.
Julie has done bodywork for 13 years, and for the last six she has specialized in structural integration at her company Deep River Body Work in the Valentine Building.
“We basically reorganize the basic tissue in the human body, make people feel better, stand up straighter, walk better,” Julie said.
After having her first child nine years ago, she decided she wanted to do art again, and set a goal to have a show. She began doing art alone in the middle of the night. But this all changed when she started creating art with Kent and collaborating with him.
Union
“I’d never done art with anyone before, that sounded really weird,” said Julie, who has since changed her mind.
“I had these preconceived ideas that I only do art alone, in the middle of the night, hunched over the table — I had these ideas that that was the only way I could produce art.”
Kent thought she looked uncomfortable.
“She had a wonderful art show and all of the pieces had at least 20-50 hours put into them, but she’d be sitting in a chair all balled up in the fetal position and she’d talk about how exhausting that work was and how her body was so sore,” Kent said. “it was a foreign idea to her — painting together. She wouldn’t talk about anything, she was used to being completely alone in her own world.”
He built her a fully adjustable beach easel.
“It got her standing up and stretching out and painting like a human being, in the middle of the day,” said Kent laughing.
Julie went from drawing realistic, identifiable things to more abstract paintings.
“By painting together, it (the art) started to develop a life of it’s own,” she said. “We paint together and listen to music and laugh and sing or are quiet for a long time. I started loosening up — now I dance when I paint and do heel clicks and we talk.”
To sell or not to sell
The couple has differing ideas about the fate of their paintings; Kent wants to keep them, Julie wants to let them go.
Kent has had two art shows but this is the first show in which he’s been willing to sell any of his work. Consequently he has hundreds of paintings in storage. His art is personal to him. He only sold one piece of art in the fourth grade and sees mixing money and art as somehow taking away the purity of the art. He has started to change his mind about this however.
“Why not sell them if someone wants to buy it and put it on their wall?” Julie said.
Advice for beginning artists
Both Julie and Kent think art should be accessible to everyone. They make their own canvases using plywood and Kilz paint. They use brushes but also use sticks and twigs and other organic materials to paint. They use materials found on the beach.
“I’m totally into cheap materials,” said Kent, “I’m all about that.”
Their art can be seen at the Heritage Second Street Cafe downtown through the end of May.
• Courtney Nelson can be reached at nelsonfamily@acsalaska.net