By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
One of the first visitors to this year’s Art Walk attended the event in pajamas on her couch.
While she missed the social aspect of the event in a non-pandemic year, she appreciated that she could shop from her couch while checking out local art and listening to recorded local music.
“It’s usually a very social thing - I always see everyone in town,” said the shopper, who preferred to remain anonymous.
The Sitka Virtual Art Walk went up last month on the Greater Sitka Arts Council’s webpage, sitkaartscouncil.org. The group usually sponsors the Art Walk twice a year, with arts enthusiasts walking from place to place checking out displays, enjoying snacks and listening to Sitka bands.
Rain Van Den Berg, GSAC board secretary, said this year’s walk provides exposure for the artists as well as the businesses. She was the one who created the walk website, that allows shoppers to visit stores via internet through links from the webpage map and list.
“We wanted to do something for the artists,” she said. “We missed the spring Art Walk because of COVID. This supports the artists and businesses, for holiday shopping.”
Those filling out the passport – visiting all the sites – will be eligible for prizes donated by artists and sponsoring businesses. The idea was to give Sitkans an experience as similar as possible to an Art Walk in a normal year.
“What we were trying to do was create a virtual parallel experience, including listening to music while you are browsing in the shops and enjoying local performers along the way,” Van Den Berg said.
Artist Amy Sweeney works the counter at the Island Artists Gallery where the cooperative will be featuring the works of the 22 member artists on a rotating basis during the Virtual Art Walk event. Sweeney’s husband, Jay, is featured today. Twelve businesses are participating in this year’s Art Walk. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
The arts council had no trouble finding businesses and artists to participate, with 11 signing up to host artists and post information about their business, including options for shopping from home.
The artists’ work is on display in a number of the businesses as well.
After you go to the sitkaartscouncil.org website, you can click on, for example, The Cellar – number 11 on the map – to see the store’s shopping options and the work of silver carver Mary Goddard.
Goddard is originally from Yakutat and grew up learning art from her mom, skin sewer and spruce root weaver Jennie Wheeler.
“I grew up doing beadwork and craft things with my family,” said Goddard, who has been a silver carver for seven years and has garnered national attention for her work.
She is an Eagle-Brown Bear, and Tlingit, and enjoys putting traditional materials into her jewelry, including spruce roots, trading beads and baleen. Her work on her website includes earrings, cuffs, necklaces and clothing.
“I’m inspired by formline Tlingit artwork and by nature,” Goddard said. She described her work as a blend of contemporary design with traditional formline. She pointed, as an example, to a bracelet she designed, a hummingbird with formline design inside the bird. The “split design” shows two separate images that fit together, as the bracelet is rotated.
While she’s getting a lot of requests for custom work over the holidays, she encouraged shoppers – and art enthusiasts – to check The Cellar for her work. She was also pleased to see her mother-in-law, Kathi Goddard, participating in the virtual walk with her Out on a Whim Pop Up shop at Abby’s Reflection (stop 7).
Find your way back to the GSAC website and click on, say, number 10 - The Raven’s Hook - to learn about the ancient art of bookbinding. The featured artist is Christina Van Den Hoogen, whose work is for sale in the shop.
Van Den Hoogen, who works at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, said she learned about bookbinding from her photography teacher at Santa Clara University, Renee Billingslea.
“It’s a really old craft,” she said. “When you study book binding, you get to study different cultures – Japanese bookbinding has different binding techniques, French culture has a different technique, monastery styles. ... It’s a rich and ancient artform. A lot of books are still around today because they were done so well.”
Van Den Hoogen also likes learning not only from what’s inside the book, but the book itself: “The spine, the covers, the paper, how all these materials are sourced, and treated and put together.”
Many of the techniques developed in the craft in the late 1800s and early 1900s are still used today, she said.
When the pandemic hit and she was furloughed for four months – and so had evenings and weekends free – Van Den Hoogen stepped up her production and started selling her books. She also re-binds books, and does work on commission.
“I’ve probably made 100 in all shapes and sizes,” she said. “It’s been great. I hope people see I choose really, really nice materials.”
She also hopes that the books don’t just sit on the shelves.
“I hope people are using them – writing their deepest thoughts, their thoughts that are scary and confusing,” she said. “I don’t want people to have them on the coffee table and look at them for five years.”
A few of the sites are featuring musicians, including BEAK restaurant, at stop 1, where Mark Sixbey has posted his song “Ahh,” accompanied by nephew Billy Baines, now of Seattle.
Sixbey (Tsimshian, from the Wolf Clan) is originally from Metlakatla, but has lived here since 2014. His blues-y “Ahh” is not his usual fare, but he likes that he selected an upbeat number, considering he is in the top spot in the Virtual Art Walk.
“Sometimes you just need something to get the party going,” he said. The number was written in 2010 as a top-of-the-show tune, for a live venue, “when people are being loud and you need to grab them right away,” he said.
His usual style is “slightly off-kilter, jazzy,” and he said and he’s influenced by the music of the 1990s.
Sixbey has appeared at several Sitka Monthly Grind events, and performed GSAC concerts at The Loft. The recording on the BEAK link was made in 2012 in Metlakatla.
Van Den Berg wanted to thank the Fine Arts Camp’s Elle Campbell for helping with some of the videos, including for the Island Artists and Galanin + Klein. The site includes short statements or descriptions of the artists, along with information about COVID and the stores.
The stops are as follows:
1 - The BEAK Restaurant, music by Mark Sixbey and Billy Baines.
2 - Harry Race Pharmacy, Lego sculpture by Tyler Eddy, with help from Greg George and Aiden Kennedy. The page features the tune “Educated Fool,” with the Sitka Blues Band.
3 - Old Harbor Books, oil on canvas paintings by James Poulson.
4 - Galanin + Klein, a global goods style boutique.
5 - Island Artists Gallery, featuring the work of 22 Sitka artists. A few appear describing with their work in a video on the gallery’s link. J Bradley’s recording of “Windblown” is also on the site.
6 - Sitka Lighthouse store, featuring several artists, and the song “Luvin’ You,” by Hank Moore.
7 - Abby’s Reflection, Out on a Whim Pop-Up Shop, by Kathi Goddard.
8 - Artist Cove Gallery, featuring metals carver Lee Burkhart. A video of the store is included.
9 - Visit Sitka, featuring a video promoting Sitka.
10 - The Raven’s Hook, featuring bookbinding artist Christina Van Den Hoogen.
11 - The Cellar, featuring Mary Goddard, contemporary Alaska Native jewelry.
Other virtual stops are available on the map for Sitka Studio of Dance and Sitka Cirque, with videos of both groups. To reach the performances, click on the graphic of the dancer and the silks performer.
