JUNEAU — With retirement and thoughts of moving south, artist Dianne Anderson has been exploring ideas and images in oil of what makes Juneau home and what she wants to remember most. Houses came to mind: shelters from the rain and warm fires within for winter. These formed her compositions.
She painted her own home of 27 years — a North Douglas cabin and historic houses of Juneau: Governor’s Mansion House, House of Wickersham, Jensen Arboretum House, Gruening Cabin and “Houses of God” Shrine of St Therese and the Russian Orthodox Church. She has also included the Davis Log Cabin, in hand tinted etching media; it was charming log cabin visitor’s center now gone. Arriving to Juneau by downtown ferry, she enquired within for campground sites. The campground was her first home, but she really wanted to live in that log cabin or a tree house. Needing a home out of the rain echoes in this body of work.
Governor’s Mansion House: It goes by both titles and looks like a Southern Scartlett O’Hara mansion — so out of place. Anderson enjoys the Christmas pointillism lights and Halloween trick-or-treat growing-up history with her children. She remembers Gov. Tony Knowles greeting them at the door, shaking hands and encouraging her sons to register to vote.
Shrine of St. Therese and Russian Orthodox Church paintings were inspired by studying cathedrals in a recent Paris painting class. Anderson holds a minor in art history, along with degrees in painting and art education, so seeing the real sights of Paris and the paintings in the museums was a life-long dream. It changed her art forever.
Jensen Arboretum House, oil, was studio painted from on-site drawing on a sunny spring day. It highlights the warm manmade structure and plantings against the cool forest setting.
The House of Wickersham painting benefitted from the study of Paris light and perspective. Glorious morning light of Juneau glistened off the windows of the Judge’s old house, now a museum. Judge Wickersham was a huge part of Statehood advocacy and state colors of blue and gold are used.
Also important for Statehood history is the Gruening Cabin, home to Ernest Gruening and artist wife Dorothy. There he wrote the “History of Alaska” and maintained his own residence when serving as governor and senator. Anderson was artist-in-residence there summer of 2015 in a new program. The cabin painting was done on-site and a similar one was donated to the state. The Juneau-Douglas City Museum will host a show February 2017 of all donated art for that program and includes Anderson’s art.
House of Wickersham by Dianne Anderson.
Mark Vinsel and Dianne Anderson pose by their artwork at Gruening’s Cabin.
Shrine of St. Therese by Dianne Anderson.
