Even the Weather Was Artful

It’s probably best that it is pouring rain this morning here in Girdwood. Daddy-O has the football game on (thankfully at a very low volume), I’m sipping hot tea and we’re not up for our

usual morning hike. Gus is drawing with his new super-duper mega-marker set he bid on and won in the kid’s silent auction. The GCVA “Fall for Art” was a huge success last night and we’re worn out from so much laughing, dancing, eating and revelry that can only happen when you throw a bunch of artists and joyous patrons together in Girdwood –not to mention a live band, the best beers on tap and wine sold by the bottle (with dinner of course)!

The setting couldn’t have been more spectacular and the beer couldn’t have been better (one of our favorites, Glacier Brewhouse Amber Ale: Made with the finest English floor malts in the world, malty, medium bodied, and balanced with hints of chocolate and caramel…) –sorry, did I mention beer again?! We were surprised and impressed to see that GCVA unveiled their plans, designed by Architects Alaska, which is a beautiful new Arts Center building! This ambitious goal certainly fueled higher than normal bidding.

Alyeska Resort and their employees hosted quite the spread of a full spaghetti

dinner, bar and all you can eat fresh Pie for dessert. Art patrons dined amid the alpenglow of beautiful Mt. Alyeska, the changing yellow birch trees and kids of all ages ran around on the freshly cut resort grounds. There were over 5 huge tables of silent auction items and 6 live auction items. I was honored that “Spenard Kinetic” was a live auction item and brought over $800 to GCVA, thanks to a generous supporter of the arts. Winners of the Pie Baking contest won highly coveted hand thrown pie dishes donated by Girdwood’s best potters, which always heats up the competition even more. The center pieces were hip and creative using shredded paper for nests atop recycled plastic jugs that contained glow-in-the dark liquid and battery operated tea lights. Newsprint painted leaves and origami cranes in various sized nested on table tops. The center pieces came to life as the Daylodge dining lights were dimmed when the auctions ended and the band fired up. Kids and adults hit the dance floor working off a bit of dinner and tons of fresh PIE we all had consumed! 

The Girdwood Center for Visual Art's Annual "Spaghetti Feed" has always been a family event making it fun for all ages, one that we’re glad to have involved our 3 kids. This year the event

got a new name, a new look and some much needed new energy. In addition to all of the adult type silent auction art items, this year there were 2 lowered silent auction tables just for kid bidding and even a Kids category for the Pie Baking Pie Contest. Gus was thrilled to 

have WON the Kids Pie Baking Contest with his Apple-Cranberry-Raisin Pie!!  It was inspiring to see the new vision of a 6,000 + sq. ft. arts building for GCVA and meet the new board and new volunteers. The old “GCVA Spaghetti Feed” used to be held at various artists homes who would spend the day cooking up batches and batches of spaghetti and sauce with the help of friends and family, a job that is now hosted by the Resort and professional staff. The “Spaghetti Feed”  has grown not only into a real fund raising event but a “not to miss” social event and highly competitive Pie Baking Contest.  While the new "larger vision" for GCVA  is inspiring, fortunately, the friends, the fun, support, and everyone’s LOVE OF ART is still the same. 

Fall For Art Drive

We delivered the donation sculptures to the Girdwood Center for Visual Arts in Girdwood this morning. On the drive south, we enjoyed seeing Nature working on a whole new color palette. The Fireweed has now lost all of it’s magenta-pink flowers. I was thinking it is hard to compare Alaska’s foliage with the Aspen’s of Colorado or the rolling hills of color on the East Coast. However, in just a 40 minute drive south on the Seward Highway, a Scenic Byway here in Alaska, we saw a Cow 

Moose and her baby, Trumpeter Swans (in the image above my quickie digital camera didn't capture their true glory)  in Potter’s Marsh and Beluga Whales breeching in the Cook Inlet. That’s not including the Ravens, Jays, Magpies, Eagles and other smaller creatures we also saw along the way. The colors of the Birch and Fireweed Foliage added a beautiful backdrop to the abundance of wildlife today and the real bonus was not seeing a single RV!

This month’s featured artist at the GCVA is Anna Young and her water color works featuring “The Lost Art of Alaska Fishing.” The GCVA Gallery was looking a bit too full of co-op member's work, making it 

hard to appreciate all of the talented artists individually. I think it’s hard to strike a balance of “white space” or breathing room with full-on commerce, especially in a co-op setting.

The 3 swimming salmon wall sculpture was completed this week for a client. My clients who commissioned the piece have a house in Idaho they wanted a wall sculpture for. The space for the sculpture was a bit tight and the 

work needed to fit just right. I drew a chalk line out on the shop floor to show how the sculpture would fit in the space and sent a quick digital image of the sculpture to the client for approval and fortunately they loved it. I’ll hook up with them next week here in Anchorage to deliver the piece.