This week\u2019s issue of the Capital City Weekly is devoted to an art form that has become strongly associated with Southeast Alaska: wearable art. With its exuberance, open-to-all format and anything-goes runway show, wearable art highlights qualities our region is known for, such as individuality, ingenuity and creativity.<\/p>\n
The concept of wearing \u201cart\u201d is of course an ancient one, and in our region is exemplified by the woven robes and carved masks created by Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian artists. That strong artistic foundation continues to inspire some of today\u2019s wearable artists; for example, in this year\u2019s Juneau show, held this past weekend, young artist-models Lyric Ashenfelter and Helen John created beautifully detailed button robes out of duct tape in a piece called \u201cHaa Shagoon,\u201d and longtime wearable artist Kathryn Grant Griffin wove a ravenstail ensemble in what has become her signature medium.<\/p>\n
But though traditional art forms are sometimes represented at wearable art, the runway show — with its emphasis on using unusual (often free and abundant) materials — has evolved into something more spontaneous and eccentric, a freeform collection of distinctive creations that have little in common other than their originality. This year\u2019s Juneau show, \u201cReflections,\u201d directed by Flordelino Lagundino and hosted, as always, by the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council, included many pieces that expressed personal journeys, such as motherhood (Jessica Sullivan\u2019s \u201cWiped Out,\u201d made from baby wipes ombre-dyed in red wine), depression and recovery (Lacey Davis\u2019 butterfly-inspired \u201cShattered Pieces of a Chyrsalis\u201d), getting ready for college (Helen Thurston and Katie Buchanan\u2019s \u201cI Didn\u2019t Read Any of These,\u201d made from 60 pounds of college-related mail), and making healthy choices (Beth Bolander\u2019s three part piece, \u201cReflection of Choice,\u201d representing religion, drugs and money), as well as the celebratory crowd favorite \u201cPhoenix,\u201d co-created and modeled by Canvas artist Joanne Sam.<\/p>\n
In this week’s Arts, you\u2019ll find an article about two Wearable Art pioneers, Halli Kenoyer and Diane Palmer of Ketchikan, home of the first wearable art runway show in Southeast. Read that story here http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/art\/2016-02-17<\/a>. We also have Q&A\u2019s with two Juneau artists, Lauralye Miko, who created her piece, \u201cSoutheast Seawolf\u201d from nautical charts (read that article here: http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/art\/2016-02-17\/wearable-arts-qa-lauralye-mikos-southeast-seawolf)<\/a> and Rosie Ainza, whose piece \u201cTweet\u201d makes an arresting statement about social media (read that story here http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/art\/2016-02-17\/wearable-art-qa-artist-rosalinda-ainza<\/a>). To view more of Michael Penn’s photos of the Juneau show, visit http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/art\/2016-02-17\/photos-wearable-art-2016-reflections<\/a>, or the Juneau Empire’s slideshow at http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/slideshow\/2016-02-15\/slideshow-2016-wearable-art<\/a><\/p>\n Still to come is Sitka\u2019s show, planned for March 26.<\/p>\n This week\u2019s issue is also my last as managing editor of the CCW and arts editor of the Juneau Empire, a dual role I\u2019ve held since January 2015 (my time as arts editor goes back to 2009). I can\u2019t imagine a more rewarding job for a writer than sharing others\u2019 stories about what moves them to create. Thank you to all those who gifted me with the chance to hear those stories. Thanks, also, to the writers who trusted me to edit their writing, and who came up with great ideas for stories and columns, particularly staff writer Mary Catharine Martin, a gem in every sense. And to the photographers who have taken part — many of them weekly — in the Art in Unusual Places reader-submitted photo feature, launched as an experiment in May 2012. I loved opening up those emails every week to see what they\u2019d captured.<\/p>\n Over the years I have often been reminded of the fact that each issue is created not by the newsroom, but by the combined input of many — all those who\u2019ve been interviewed, written an article or a column, taken a photo, or contributed a poem. An awareness of that generosity is the strongest feeling I\u2019ll take away from my time in the editor\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week\u2019s issue of the Capital City Weekly is devoted to an art form that has become strongly associated with Southeast Alaska: wearable art. With its exuberance, open-to-all format and anything-goes runway show, wearable art highlights qualities our region is known for, such as individuality, ingenuity and creativity. The concept of wearing \u201cart\u201d is of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33343"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}