September First Friday Art Anchorage

Living downtown has its advantages.  In Juneau we could walk to enough First Friday events to keep us filled with new ideas.  But we don't live in downtown Anchorage and there are more venues besides.

But we walked Friday to Modern Cave Dwellers at the mall at 36th and Old Seward where we met friends and Biana Tapia who had an interesting collection of charcoal and sepia drawings.  I don't pretend to be an art expert so these are just my own impressions.

A lot of art has a common look - a style, theme, a subject - that is often more decorative than interesting.  These pieces seemed to be Tapia's visions of the world without reference to other work or to being sold.  








We drove with our friends to Dos Manos - at the Valhalla Mall on Northern Lights - because it was on the way downtown.  I'd never been to this crowded shop before.

Since I've been posting close ups of flowers, I couldn't resist this )

close up picture called French Kiss done on a map of France.  (The photo is just a part of it.






You could buy the VW Van for $130.

The submarine fish picture (an excerpt) in the lower right by Lance Lekander - whose Raven was the logo for the Anchorage International Film Festival last December - can be had for $250. 

Next we parked on the parkstrip and walked downtown.  The newspaper mentioned a place on K Street with photos of insects and flowers, which regulars here know I wanted to see.





We passed the Voyager Hotel and stopped to see the Hope Studio exhibit. 

These pieces raise again the question of what makes art?  All of these pieces could easily find a place in someone's house, and for a very low price.  Particularly if I were looking for something for a kid's room, I'd check this out, but many of them would fit in the adult spaces as well.  

These two large paper mache pieces were very tempting.


The bug and flower exhibit was already closed when we got there, so we wandered down 4th to the Katie Sevigny Studio.

There were lots of large, colorful paintings and other interesting things.

The artist was serving wine in little paper cups. 




This is a closeup of a painting called Octopus which you can see in the background behind the guy's head in the first picture of this gallery. $1800.

Then, around the corner onto G Street, and upstairs.  This isn't a place you would find without looking.  The Upstairs Studio has about a half a  dozen little studios for resident artists.

And there were some guests exhibited as well. 

I think my favorite pieces of the evening were four encaustics on birch by Darla Myers.  What's encaustics?  I'd made a poster for an encaustics workshop in my computer art class and the post about it has some good links.

Anyway, here are two of Darla's great, small pieces.

The prices were below reasonable. (Around $110)  But we're in declutter mode, so we can only buy consumables.









So I bought some cards of hers.

















And then we dropped into Suzi's Woolies next door where there was Irish music. 

It was a fun evening.  There's lots going on in Anchorage.