Six pots full of natural dye bubbled on the back patio at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau — deep red beet, yellow wolf lichen, grassy horsetail, golden turmeric, brown coffee, and blue-violet cabbage. About two dozen kids from the community labeled small skeins of merino wool with their names and used sticks to dip them in the steaming dye baths.
Lily Hope, a Tlingit weaver and fiber artist, led Saturday’s workshop. She moved quickly through the students and dye stations, adjusting a burner here, complimenting a technique there. The workshop is one of the community learning events the Alaska State [Museum] hosts to serve the state’s cultural and natural heritage.
“I think that art is the core of who we are as human beings. Teaching children to have fun with art, keeping that enthusiasm and wonder, keeping that wonder going is key for me,” she said.
The Anchorage Museum is holding its monthly Sensory Friendly and Access Morning this Sunday. It’s an opportunity for people on the autism spectrum and people with developmental and physical disabilities to visit the museum while it’s quiet.
“It’s a really wonderful time for people to come and experience the museum just in terms of it being less crowded,” said Madelyn Troiano, an educator at the museum in charge of the program.
Among the many harvestable wild foods on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, fiddlehead ferns are revered for their nutritional value and taste. Before fern fronds have unfurled, they peek out from the previous fall’s decay in tight coils to greet the coming of spring. This short period is when the harvest takes place, and 20 or so participants in the June 1 Finding Fiddleheads Ethnobotany Walk in Bethel showed up just in time to catch them...
“[I] didn’t know anything about ‘em until they posted on Facebook. No one’s ever brought it up; I’ve never seen it posted anywhere,” Keller said. “People sell the berries online, people put the fish online, things like that. Whale, seal, furs, never seen fiddleheads online.”
Two Kodiak museums will be collaborating to catalog over a thousand artifacts never before seen by the public. The Kodiak History Museum and the Alutiiq Museum announced the joint project to work the biggest unprocessed collection the history museum has.
All 1,100 pieces being processed were found around the archipelago between 1957 and 1962 by archaeologist Dr. Donald Clark. Altogether, the stone and bone objects and tools fill 13 file boxes.
Margaret Greutert is the chief curator for the Kodiak History Museum. She says they’re partnering with the Alutiiq Museum because they’ll need extra hands to process such a huge collection.
This week on State of Art we’re take a trip downtown to the Anchorage Museum to learn about their new exhibit “All Aboard: The Alaska Railroad Centennial.” It covers the history, impact and people that made the railroad what it is today. We’re joined by The Anchorage Museum’s Aaron Leggett, senior curator and of Alaska history and indigenous cultures, who gives us a tour of some of the exhibits highlights. We hear about contributions of indigenous workers, Leggett’s personal connections to the railroad and more.
Joe Senungetuk said he really didn’t care if his art sold, but if it stirred a reaction, it was worth it. He hoped his pieces would become time capsules for future generations of Alaska Natives — to help them understand their history and appreciate their culture.
But the Inupiaq artist, who died on May 31, leaves behind many contemporary art fans who loved his carvings, sculptures and paintings.
Senungetuk lived to be 83, through years of sweeping change for Alaska Natives. He born in a time when people of the Northwest Arctic lived mostly on what the land and water provided. As a child in Wales, he chafed at teachers who punished him for speaking his language and annoyed them by drawing in the margins of his school papers, instead of sticking to the lines.
Rhonda McBride, June 13, 2023. Alaska Public Media.
Residents of several North Slope and Northwest Alaska communities have been experiencing internet and cell service interruptions this week caused by a cut to the subsea fiber optic network. The cut might take up to two months to repair, and telecommunications service providers are looking for short-term solutions to bring service back online.
Quintillion, which provides broadband connectivity in Arctic Alaska, on Sunday experienced a subsea fiber cut about 34 miles north of Oliktok Point, offshore from Utqiagvik, Quintillion President Mac McHale said. The cut caused a systemwide outage, affecting Utqiagvik, Wainwright, Point Hope, Kotzebue, Nome and Atqasuk, McHale said.
“All of our broadband services are impacted by this,” McHale said. “And they’re not compromised — they’re completely out.”
Alena Naiden, June 13, 2023. ADN.
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