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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

San Diego - a city with sol

Photos by Courtney Nelson

Article by Courtney Nelson
San Diego is my birthplace. With such beautiful weather, the city has adopted the motto “City of Sol.” It’s also home to over 3 million and is the eighth largest city in the United States.
San Diego proper and North County are all accessible from the main artery the Interstate 5 freeway and the beaches can be accessed from Highway 101. Some of my family still lives nearby in Cardiff, so I asked my cousin and her daughter to share favorite local hot spots for all ages.
Susie Nancarrow, 47, San
Diego picks in North County
• For families traveling with babies and toddlers, Susie recommends LEGOLAND in Carlsbad.
• Powerhouse Park in nearby Del Mar offers a full playground on the water and is within walking distance to a great indoor and outdoor dining and shopping area at the Del Mar Plaza.
• Susie thinks families, especially with elementary age kids and tweens, will enjoy low tide at Swamis Beach in North County, Encinitas. It’s also a huge surfing spot and Swamis is just west of Interstate 5.
• Hiking at Torrey Pines State Beach offers trails down to the shore.
• Walk around downtown Encinitas and visit two cool stores, Flashbacks and Home.
• Water parks are in Vista and San Diego.
• Families with teens might visit San Diego State University and California State University San Marcos if they are looking for colleges.
• VG’s Donuts at Cardiff by the Sea is worth a visit, and Good Morning is a funky store in the same shopping center.
• Active families with teens should visit Yoga Tropics, a hot yoga studio in Encinitas, or Haute Yoga in Solana Beach. There are also surfing schools in the area; Susie recommends Kahuna Bob’s in Encinitas.
• Families, teens and couples should enjoy La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas, an old theater built in the 1920s that features small movies and a funky environment.
• There’s a flea market in downtown Encinitas on Saturdays and Sundays and there are great restaurants all along Highway 101 in Encinitas.
• Susie shared a local secret, a gourmet “snack shack” called Bull Taco, located in the San Elijo Campground in Cardiff by the Sea offering great food, a casual environment, reasonable prices and proximity to the ocean.
• Couples on date night should visit The Belly Up, a great music venue on Cedros Avenue in Solana Beach. Cedros Avenue also has great boutiques on one long block. Other notable shopping areas are the Del Mar Plaza in Del Mar, Carlsbad Outlets and downtown Carlsbad.
Hannah Nancarrow, 22, local recommendations
• Hannah, a student at San Diego State, says she loves the Self Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens because they’re so beautiful and calm. “Koi ponds and flora for days,” and a wandering path leads to a breathtaking ocean overlook.
• Pacific Beach is a young, fun beach community with tons of bars and restaurants. Hannah thinks Crystal Pier and the small breakfast place right next to it, Kono’s, are the hottest spots. She says Kono’s is “inexpensive and has amazing omelets and oceanfront seating.”
• The Cardiff Kook is a statue in Cardiff, formally named “the magic carpet ride,” and it’s been the target of practical jokes and costumes almost daily becoming a local symbol of surf culture.
• “I love Mission Bay,” says Hannah. Bike, skate, roller blade or walk the path that traces the coast of the bay. It’s usually un-crowded and it goes for miles with views of sailboats and the ocean. The bay has no big waves so it’s “perfect for kids because it has a big park and play structures along the beach.”
• Hannah also recommends The Black, a famous smoke shop “that smells like hemp and patchouli from 200 yards away,” she says. The shop features “amazing tapestries, handmade greeting cards and candles by local artists, plus funky jewelry. It’s walking distance to the local pier and an assortment of bars.”
Courtney Nelson’s picks
I need to add the following more mainstream attractions:
• The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park are legendary and great for kids. You can also get lost in nearby Balboa Park for days, as well as the San Diego’s Museum of Natural History.
• Old Town, located in downtown San Diego, is great for feeling like you have stepped into Mexico. You can also drive an hour south on Interstate 5 and visit Tijuana, if you dare. Prepare for a long wait getting back across the border.
• The Hotel del Coronado on Coronado Island is another fancy spot across the bridge out of downtown San Diego. The room rates are really steep; consider getting an inexpensive room nearby and then strolling the hotel grounds with an umbrella drink and an attitude.
• La Jolla is another must-see in my opinion, but this is where I was born so I am a little biased. I spent most of childhood summers swimming and snorkeling in the La Jolla cove, a small sand beach protected by a low crescent-shaped cliff. If you are a strong ocean swimmer you can swim out to the buoys that are placed at a quarter mile and half-mile distances. Kelp beds will get thick there and brushing kelp leaves might spook swimmers afraid of sharks. The last great white shark attack off the San Diego coast happened in April 2008.
• My advice is to find a place to stay that’s within walking distance to the beach so you don’t have to drive as much. When you do drive, allow time to find parking and fight traffic along the coast. Most importantly, enjoy the sun.
• Courtney Nelson is a frequent traveler with small children and can be reached at nelsonfamily@acsalaska.net.

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.