Fighting under a supermoon

 

By Courtney Nelson | FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Roughhouse boxing at Marlintini’s Lounge Friday night occurred while the supermoon was rising, possibly influencing the large number of TKO’s.
Kole Skaflestad, 18, of Hoonah defeated Brett Van Alen, 25, in the MMA main event. After an even first round grappling on the mat, Skaflestad threw Van Alen to the mat in round two, injuring his shoulder and forcing his retirement.
In one of two MMA bouts, Hoonah’s Mitchel Zarazua, 21, 3-1-0, defeated first-time fighter Joshua White, 23, in a bout that was even after round one when the two traded power positions on the mat. In round two, Zarazua landed more blows and was dominating the third round when he delivered multiple face blows that forced White to retire.
In the only female fight of the night, student and first-time fighter Samantha Coronell, 19, defeated Shannon “Fighting Irish” Williams, 28, in a surprising bout. Coronell was trained by her uncle Al Valentine, saying, “Boxing is in our family.” Williams, a Marlintini’s bartender, 1-0-0, agreed at the last minute to give Coronell a bout and stopped pouring drinks to put on some boxing gloves.
Coronell proved to be too much for Williams who retired after taking a right hook to the temple that sent her to the mat in the second round.
First-time fighter Erick Scholl, 25, defeated fellow newbie Regal Hudson, 18, a fisherman hailing from Prince of Wales. An adrenaline-filled first round had them both sucking air early in the second. Scholl was knocked down by Hudson at the end of round two, but he came back to tag Hudson hard in the third.
Ray Coronell, 19, with a record of 0-1-0, defeated first-time fighter Michael “Papa Smurf” Williams, 27, to grab his first win by decision after a close match.
Charlie “Vicious” Gallant, 21, defeated Dominick Sedano, 24, by TKO in a match that stayed even through round two. Sedano poured it on in the third but Gallant answered with a series of headshots sending Sedano to the mat.
Royal “Crown Royal” Hudson, 20, a fisherman hailing from Prince of Wales with a record of 6-5-0, defeated IT programmer Ryan Wong, 34, 7-2-0, after Hudson tagged Wong in the temple, issuing him a standing eight count early in round one. They were pretty even in round two, but Hudson stunned Wong with another head shot. In round three, both boxers were gassed, but Hudson took Wong down with a right haymaker to the head.
The next Roughhouse Boxing will be April 15 and will feature Edna Abbott coming out of retirement to fight another mom who couldn’t find anyone to take her on in the main event.

His and her artists spaces

artists' spaces

By Courtney Nelson | FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

The Bentwood and Bead gallery, in the big yellow building on Third Street between Starr Hill and the Historic downtown district, is a dream artists’ space that’s been a long time coming.
Jim and Salty Hanes created this his-and-her artist’s paradise, where they have space to create art as well as a gallery to show and sell it in, and no commute to get there — they live upstairs.
When their gallery is open, they don’t carry mass-produced tourist gifts, but rather offer one-of-a-kind items for locals and tourists, featuring their own work as well as that of other artists.
The space
Visitors enter the Bentwood and Bead gallery on the ground floor gallery space, which features Jim’s engravings, Salty’s beadwork and two different guest artists every year. They like to carry diverse artists and mediums such as painters and potters to balance their engraving and beadwork. But after decades of running public shops, the most important criteria in considering guest artists is “ease of doing business with,” said Jim.
Also on the ground floor are two studios. One is Jim’s, with violins and engravings, and the other is Salty’s, with bead-working materials.
Over the last 28 years, Jim and Salty have had many different business arrangements and many different careers.
Salty had Taku Tailor in the Emporium Mall downtown and also Spirit Beads on Fifth Street, while Jim had his String Shop in a couple locations.
After being too big, too small, or too spread out, they now say they’ve got it right. The couple can work on projects separately but meet in the gallery to collaborate.
This ability to share ideas has led to inspired pieces. For example, Jim exhausted an engraving he was never quite happy with and he showed it to Salty, who beaded the image into an octopus purse.
Mr. Valentine
During the Gold Rush days, Emery Valentine, Juneau’s sixth mayor, owned the building where Bentwood and Bead is located.
Valentine became a little cash poor in 1901, so the then 43-year-old jeweler gave the building to his business manager as payment for a year’s work. Valentine went on to build the Valentine Building and the Seward Building in 1913, which border the downtown historic district.
In 1997, Salty and Jim were simplifying and consolidating their lives so they formed a plan and bought the house. It was run-down, so they stripped it to the studs for a custom renovation, completed in 1999.
Now they arrange their gallery schedule around their travel plans, doing what they love.
Jim
Jim, originally from Seattle, graduated with a degree in marine biology from Western Washington University and worked at the Navy’s arctic research lab in Barrow on contract. When he found he couldn’t move further up without getting another degree, he looked around or a career change. He liked working with wood and wanted to learn how to fiddle so he put them together.
“I found out violins were all carved and not bent into the shape they are in. That just seemed fascinating to me so I sent letters off all around the country to see if I could get an apprenticeship, and I got one, on the East Coast.”
The apprenticeship, based in Washington, D.C., spanned two years. When he wasn’t making and repairing violins, Jim worked for the Smithsonian identifying arctic artifacts, and sometimes commuted back up north for periods to work. He returned to Juneau and opened a string shop in 1983, the same year he met his partner, Salty.
Things didn’t go exactly as planned. Instead of making violins as he had intended, he ended up providing instrument rentals and repairs for 18 years. So he closed his string shop in 2005, and started making violins again. Now he only repairs instruments in January and February.
After Jim closed his string shop, he had time to try new things so he took a few classes at UAS with Alice Tersteeg, a renowned printmaker. Engraving and printmaking have now become a passion.
“(Tersteeg) has taught so many famous Southeast Alaska artists over the years in printmaking. She’s an unsung hero as far as her contribution to artists,” Jim said.
Jim was also inspired by woodblock print artist and engraver Dale DeArmond, who passed away in 2006. Jim uses her old press for his art. He creates his images on finely polished blocks of wood using little chisel tools. Each piece is very labor intensive; a polished block of wood can take 50 to 60 hours alone to make because it has to be perfectly smooth.
He also does relief and reduction prints, wood boxes with carved lids and wood sculptures.
Salty
Salty, named after an adored aunt, was born on the East Coast. She grew up in a large family in which everyone worked with their hands. She started beading at an early age, went to school in Colorado focusing on sculpture and moved to Juneau in 1976.
She’s worked in Juneau as a carpenter, house painter and ski-patroller, among other things, and was very handy repairing outdoors equipment, which prompted the opening of her business, Taku Tailors.
After meeting Jim in 1983, she started her beading store, Spirit Beads. Like Jim, she got so caught up in running a business, teaching and doing workshops, she was unable to work on her own things.
Salty said her interest in beads stems partly from her belief that they tie us together; she uses and carries many vintage and antique beads, and is interested in their history through the bead trade routes that passed through Alaska.
Salty has kept her finger on the pulse of the beading community in Juneau over the years, holding beading circles at Spirit Beads, working with youth and teaching in schools in Alaska, the Yukon and British Columbia. She has also had exhibits of her beadwork at the Juneau Douglas City Museum.
Future plans
Jim and Salty have found a balance of work and play that works for them. Their philosophy is to try to live simply and not plan too far ahead.
“You don’t know what the future holds so stop dinking around with 10-year plans and just take it day by day,” Jim said.
“It’s a really great life and we are grateful,” Salty said.
Bentwood and Bead is open in the winter by appointment, and will resume its regular hours in the spring.

Former Juneau jeweler returns for show

 

By Courtney Nelson | FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Jewelry artist and former Juneau resident Leah Sturgis lives in Alexandria, Va., but her ties to Alaska are still strong. She’ll be back in town this week to show her latest jewelry designs at Annie Kaills as their featured First Friday artist.
Sturgis, a jewelry artist, lived in Juneau for more than 10 years before moving east in 2003 to accompany her husband, musician Frank Solivan. Solivan had managed to do the almost unthinkable: earn a stable income with benefits for his family as a bluegrass musician. He did it by taking a position with the U.S. Navy’s official bluegrass and country band, Country Current, an honor for a musician and one which took the couple to Washington, D.C.
“He got the job and we moved to D.C., next thing you know I was a Navy wife,” she said.
While in Juneau, Sturgis had begun designing and selling her own line of jewelry through Rock, Paper, Scissors, a store she co-owned in Juneau with partners Lindsay Campbell and Amy Fletcher. At that time her jewelry business, though very popular, was more of a hobby than a profession. Once in D.C., however, Sturgis had more time to devote to perfecting and expanding her designs. She learned about wholesale jewelry and her business expanded from availability in five stores to 100 stores from Chicken, Alaska to New York City.
“I think what’s unusual about my jewelry is the design,” she said. “I don’t use unusual materials, I don’t use unusual techniques — I have an architectural, Asian aesthetic. And I love natural materials.”
Porcupine quills and caribou antlers are among the elements she uses, pieces that have long been popular, but that she includes in unsual ways.
“I want to combine it in a way that looks really fresh, clean and contemporary.”
Creative journey
Sturgis credits most of her creativity to the Waldorf School she attended her first three years of formal education. She said they taught her to clean and spin wool, make her own bread and soup, and explore other languages.
“I think it shaped my creativity really early,” she said. “I learned you can make anything from anything.”
She took her first basic jewelry-making class while working in a new age bookstore as a teen in Chicago, and that was virtually all the training she needed.
“I learned the basics and didn’t feel the need to master it,” she said. “I just ran with that because my techniques are pretty basic.”
Part of her design influence was Native American jewelry; as a kid she attended powwows in North Dakota with her family, and that is where she first saw animal quills used.
“My best selling piece of jewelry is the abacus with a Juneau porcupine quill in it. I get the quills from my mom.”
Sturgis’ mom, Mary, still lives in town.
Ties to Juneau
Sturgis moved to Juneau soon after high school because she had a beloved aunt, Grace Elliott, also known as the “Blues Goddess” on KTOO, who lived here.
When Elliott left Chicago for Juneau, she blazed the trail not only for Sturgis, but for six of her siblings to make the move eventually.
As an eight-year-old Sturgis said she was particularly crushed when her aunt moved.
“She lived with us when she was 18 and she was like another parent to me — she was like my fairy godmother — and she went to visit her friend in Juneau and was so captivated she never came back. It pretty much broke my heart.”
Sturgis was 10 when her mother Mary brought her to Juneau to visit Elliott. During her trip she experienced the Alaska Folk Festival and fell in love with Alaska.
“I was 19 and following my spirit of adventure, but I was also following my aunties who were replanting themselves in Juneau from Chicago.”
Many years later, she met her husband Frank at the Folk Festival when he was visiting from Anchorage. He eventually moved to Juneau to join her, but soon after the couple began discussing other options.
“Juneau is a really difficult place to be a professional musician,” Sturgis said, adding that this spurred his move into the Navy.
She said it was really hard to leave her Juneau friends and still maintains strong connections in Alaska. Despite her distance, she’s been showing her jewelry at the Eastern Market and says she always has someone from Alaska stop by.
“Every single weekend I see somebody from Alaska at the market.”
Generous philosophy
After six years of creativity and hard work, income from Sturgis’s jewelry sales now support the couple. Solivan recently left the Navy to pursue his career as a musician.
“For the last two years he has been with his own band, the Dirty Kitchen Band. They just got hired by the Anchorage Folk Festival,” Sturgis said. She’d like to show her jewelry at all his stops.
“We have been kind of been trying to combine our two creative worlds — which is hard — but easier in Alaska,” said Sturgis.
Sturgis credits her success with the generosity of successful people in her craft who were willing to openly share their experience.
“I feel like generosity of spirit is key,” she said.
For more on Sturgis, visit www.leahsturgis.com. For more on Solivan, visit www.dirtykitchenband.com.