August 19, 2014 Community Happenings

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Category: News

Created on Tuesday, 19 August 2014 12:21

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Zumba Offered
    This week at the Hames Center, Former Sitkan Jan Turner will teach three zumba classes – noon Thursday, 5:30 p.m. Friday and 5:30 p.m. Monday.
    Turner is a licensed massage therapist and zumba instructor.
    ‘‘Come learn from the master before she heads back to Todos Santos, Mexico,’’ the Hames Center said.
    Space is limited; reserve a spot at 747-5080 or hamescenter.com.

    Aerial Silks
    Series on Tap
    An aerial silks class starts Aug. 25 at the Hames Center. Students will build strength and flexibility while moving athletically on fabrics.
    Classes will be held noon-1:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday at the Hames Center. Call Franni for details at 738-0721 or go to hamescenter.com.

    Hames Open
    On Labor Day
    The Hames Center will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Labor Day, Sept. 1.
    For more information contact hamescenter.com or 747-5080.


    Rachel Baxter. (Photo provided)

Fellows Program Artist
To Lead at Workshop
   
    Rachel Baxter grew up looking through boxes of photos taken in Sitka. Her aunt and uncle lived here as she was growing up, and Baxter has been told “you have to get to Sitka” as far back as she can remember.
    Finally here as part of a seven-week Sitka Fellows Program, Baxter is developing her craft as a mixed media artist and experimental printmaker. On Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., she will lead a hands-on workshop about experimental drawing in Room 105 of the Yaw Arts Center on the SJ Campus.
    The workshop, which requires no previous experience, will focus in particular on fumage, a surrealist technique that makes use of soot from a flame while forcing a surrender of precise control from the makers.
    In her time so far in Sitka, Baxter has attempted to, in her words, “break through the walls of the studio and get out into the landscape where a lot of my motivations to make art actually come from, and to allow the motivations and inspirations and acts of making to be one continuous connected action.”
    In one case, Baxter walked down to the water, and spent some time watching the tide roll in.
    “I had some charcoal and I started tracing the incoming tide lines on the rock, and watched as the tide came up and started to erase what I had drawn,’’ she said. ‘‘It felt like a collaboration with that place and with the time spent there. Being in a place where I need to start something that I know I can’t hold on to is liberating.”
    After spending a few years in art programs where the gallery is seen as the ultimate destination for created work, the shift in that has been freeing for Baxter, who draws inspiration for her creations from “moments of transformation, often perplexing in their ambiguity but beautiful in their mysterious potential.’’
     She hopes that, by collaborating with nature in the creation of her prints, she will be able to help people understand their place in the world and their connection to nature differently.
    “Living in a more urban environment, where there isn’t a lot of nature and there aren’t a lot of people feeling connected to it, there’s an out of sight, out of mind mentality,’’ Baxter said. ‘‘I find that how I react to that sort of mentality, seeing people avoid thinking about some of the larger issues going on environmentally, I tend to try to work in this way that I feel more connected to these issues, to these places, and maybe in a way if people also view them they can also be reminded of their surroundings, of the beautiful things going on around them all the time, to stop and appreciate them in a way.”
    Since coming to Sitka, Baxter has had to go outside of her comfort zone to reinvent her artistic practice without the tools that she normally has access to.
    “I’ve learned a lot about myself as an artist, how and why I make things,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ve really let this place change my work in a way that only this place could. I’m trying to be really honest in my approach to what I’m making here, and not force it too much.”
    Baxter’s challenge once she leaves Sitka in two weeks will be to return to her studio in Albany, N.Y., and examine the fresh material and new inspirations from her time in Sitka.
    “It’s only the beginning,” she said, adding that her time in Sitka “has shaken up the way that I work in very large ways.”
    Baxter’s work, which can be seen online at www.rachelbaxter.com, has appeared in exhibitions around the United States and internationally.
    Now in its third year, the Sitka Fellows Program is a program of the Island Institute made possible through partnership with the Sitka Fine Arts Camp along with generous donations from the Hames Corporation and many individual contributors. The Sitka Fellows Program Open Studios event, which will feature showcases of work by each of the Fellows, will be Aug. 28. For more information, visit www.sitkafellows.org.


   
    Home Health
    Passes Survey
    An unannounced standard survey was conducted on July 21 of Sitka Community Hospital’s Home Health Department by the State of Alaska Department of Health and Social Services to determine compliance with federal and state licensure requirements.
    The hospital said the survey is a rigorous three-day process to review items such as patient care, billing and program compliance.
    Based on the results of the survey, no deficiencies were found.
    ‘‘The Sitka Community Hospital board, administration, staff and patients would like to congratulate the following people in the Home Health Department for an outstanding job and thank them for their hard work and dedication,’’ the hospital said.
    Staff members include Manager Elizabeth Faulkner, R.N., staff nurse Julie Doggett, R.N., staff nurse Sue Fithen, R.N., and Division Director Kay Turner, DPT.
    Home health provides skilled services for home-bound patients under a doctor’s care. Sitka Community Hospital said it is committed to providing quality care to the community. For more information call 747-1750.
 

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