âThe Cascade Effectâ starts off basically as a statement to the changes that are affecting Alaska and the landscape,â Susan Andrews said about her MFA thesis, presently showing at the University Art Gallery. âLittle visual changes that we donât normally notice because theyâre so small are usually the first indicators.â
âThe Cascade Effectâ is a multimedia exhibit centered around âScale of the Fall,â a ceiling to floor piece depicting salmon gathered at a waterfall. Salmon lithographs are carefully placed along the base of a waterfall constructed of Japanese paper. Half fish and half leaf, the lithographs show how nutrients contained in the bodies of the fish are absorbed into the forest itself. âI wanted to do something that highlighted the slow decay and yet the landscapes within this fish,â she said. The salmon, Andrews stressed, are not just part of the landscape, but vital to its continued existence. If salmon runs continue declining as they have in recent years, this âis going to affect the flora, fauna and wildlife.â
Salmon and landscape provide the basis for an installation that includes watercolor paintings and two additional large multimedia pieces. In âBeauty of Decay: a Catalyst for Growth,â fish lithographs hang from a stick as if drying. âCleared, Cut, & Woven,â offers birch trees made from prints and hung from the ceiling. âThe show is not so much about just the salmon,â she said. âItâs about everything thatâs going on, and the cascade of information, how that affected me personally.â
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Andrewsâ journey into the UAF art department began in the Deep South, where she was born. She spent her childhood in Alabama and Mississippi, encouraged by her painter mom to explore art, while her interest in the outdoors is rooted in her fatherâs career as a plant pathologist. She was drawn to the woods, which she described as âmy sanctuary,â and was especially enthralled by waterfalls.
Andrews married soon after high school and moved with her then-husband to Colorado Springs, where he worked as a police officer. She found employment airbrushing t-shirts while teaching herself screen printing and other skills. âI landed a job with no experience, no formal education, working as a graphic designer, doing everything by hand like they used to,â she said.
As her kids grew up she gravitated into the mortgage field where, one day in 2015, she had an epiphany. âI was like, what am I doing? I hate my job. Somethingâs missing in my life,â she recalled. With her kids long since launched, she began taking community college classes.
âI had been missing art,â she said. âI had been missing community and artist community. And I fell in love with the academics.â She worked on an associateâs degree, then headed to Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado, for her BFA. Even before graduating, she decided, âIâm not stopping at the bachelorâs, Iâm going to the terminal degree. Get the MFA.â This brought her to Fairbanks and UAF, where she arrived in August of 2020, at the peak of the pandemic.
Andrews said that as she flew into Fairbanks that late summer evening with the sun still up, she found the landscape out her window âabsolutely stunning.â While the pandemic raged and limited what she could do in her newly adopted town, she started exploring the world around her and began attending the truncated classes brought by coronavirus restrictions. Class sizes were small, she said, and people were hesitant to spend too much time together getting to know each other. âI donât think anybody realized how that affected us, but it really did.â
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Andrews said students were still recovering from the confusion of the pandemic and struggling to regain focus when Sasha Bitzer, an assistant professor of printmaking and painting, joined the faculty. Bitzer âreally started challenging all of us,â Andrews said, âand it was exactly what we all needed.â
Andrews said Bitzerâs guidance helped her focus on the public expression of what is a personal artistic journey for her. âI tend to disconnect myself and not really think about the real reason why I do what I do and why Iâve done this. And it was her relentless questioning that made me think of why.â Bitzerâs inquiries and critiques âmade me think deeper and made me realize the showâs cascading effect is about my experience,â Andrews said. âLearning about the things. Learning about Alaska.â
Andrewsâ MFA work found her moving from the realist watercolor paintings she had previously devoted her time to, and into abstraction. âI started asking questions the best that I could, investigating patterns and textures and things that I saw. I started going into all the colors and patterns that I saw, all the textures. And working with an alternative process of photography, I began to discover a way of extracting those things that I was seeing and looking closely at nature. Everything was so abstract and so beautiful and intricate. So I began to paint that.â
Both realism and abstraction are found in âScale of the Fall,â and there is also a significant amount of research behind all of the pieces. She studied local microclimates and the ways Alaskans interact with their world, finding that, âthe salmon are so crucial. Theyâre like a key to the Alaskan lifestyle.â She credited experts including Thomas Paragi, a wildlife biologist with the Department of Fish and Game, and Peter Westley, an associate professor of fisheries, for providing knowledge critical to the finished works. âI began to abstract what I was seeing and allow the shapes and forms and patterns to dictate where I put the color. It became a cascade of information.â
Andrews said sheâs found her place and plans on remaining in Alaska after graduating, hoping to teach and pursue other opportunities. âI finally said, okay, this is good, because youâre getting ready to graduate, and it needs to be home. If youâre going to do work, if youâre going to do work about Alaska, this better be your freaking home.â
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âThe Cascade Effectâ by Susan Andrews will remain on Display through March 22 at the University Art Gallery, Room 313 in the Fine Arts Complex. She will give her MFA thesis presentation as a public talk at 1 p.m March 22 in the BP Design Theater, Room 401 in the Engineering Building. She can be found online at www.brighteyesartstudios.com/#featured-work.
David James is a freelance writer who lives in Fairbanks. He can be emailed at nobugsinak@gmail.com.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – An Alaska drug task force seized roughly $162,000 worth of controlled substances during an operation in Juneau Thursday, according to the Juneau Police Department.
Around 3 p.m. Thursday, investigators with the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) approached 50-year-old Juneau resident Jermiah Pond in the Nugget Mall parking lot while he was sitting in his car, according to JPD.
A probation search of the car revealed a container holding about 7.3 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine, as well as about 1.21 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for fentanyl.
As part of the investigation, investigators executed a search warrant at Pond’s residence, during which they found about 46.63 gross grams of ketamine, 293.56 gross grams of fentanyl, 25.84 gross grams of methamphetamine and 25.5 gross grams of MDMA.
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In all, it amounted to just less than a pound of drugs worth $162,500.
Investigators also seized $102,640 in cash and multiple recreational vehicles believed to be associated with the investigation.
Pond was lodged on charges of second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, two counts of third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, five counts of fourth-degree misconduct involving a substance and an outstanding felony probation warrant.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
SAND POINT, Alaska (KTUU) – A teenage boy who was last seen Monday when the canoe he was in tipped over has been found by a dive team in a lake near Sand Point, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Alaska’s News Source confirmed with the person, who is close to the search efforts, that the dive team found 15-year-old Kaipo Kaminanga deceased Thursday in Red Cove Lake, located a short drive from the town of Sand Point on the Aleutian Island chain.
Kaminanga was last seen canoeing with three other friends on Monday when the boat tipped over.
A search and rescue operation ensued shortly after.
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Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted on Facebook Thursday night that they were able to “locate and recover” Kaminanga at around 5 p.m. Thursday.
“We are glad we could bring closure to his family, friends and community,” the post said.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated when more details become available.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
This is a tax tutorial for gubernatorial candidates, for legislators who will report to work next year and for the Alaska public.
Think of it as homework, with more than eight months to complete the assignment that is not due until the November election. The homework is intended to inform, not settle the debate over a state sales tax or state income tax — or neither, which is the preferred option for many Alaskans.
But for those Alaskans willing to consider a tax as a personal responsibility to help fund schools, roads, public safety, child care, state troopers, prisons, foster care and everything else necessary for healthy and productive lives, someday they will need to decide on a state income tax or a state sales tax after they accept the checkbook reality that oil and Permanent Fund earnings are not enough.
This homework assignment is intended to get people thinking with facts, not emotions. Electing the right candidates will be the first test.
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Alaskans have until the next election because nothing will change this year. It will take a new political alignment led by a reality-based governor to organize support in the Legislature and among the public.
But next year, maybe, with the right elected leadership, Alaskans can debate a state sales tax or personal income tax. Plus, of course, corporate taxes and oil production taxes, but those are for another school day.
One of the biggest arguments in favor of a state sales tax is that visitors would pay it. Yes, they would, but not as much as many Alaskans think.
Air travel is exempt from sales taxes. So are cruise ship tickets. That’s federal law, which means much of what tourists spend on their Alaska vacation is beyond the reach of a state sales tax.
Cutting further into potential revenues, state and federal law exempts flightseeing tours from sales tax, which is a particularly costly exemption when you think about how much visitors spend on airplane and helicopter tours.
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That leaves sales tax supporters collecting from tourists on T-shirts, gifts for grandchildren, artwork, postcards, hotels, Airbnb, car rentals and restaurant meals. Still a substantial take for taxes, but far short of total tourism spending.
An argument against a state sales tax is that more than 100 cities and boroughs already depend on local sales taxes to pay for schools and other public services. Try to imagine what a state tax piled on top of a local tax would do to kill shopping in Homer, already at 7.85%, or Kodiak, Wrangell and Cordova, all at 7%, and all the other municipalities.
Supporters of an income tax say it would share the responsibility burden with nonresidents who earn income in Alaska and then return home to spend their money.
Almost one in four workers in Alaska in 2024 were nonresidents, as reported by the state Department of Labor in January. That doesn’t include federal employees, active-duty military or self-employed people.
Nonresidents earned roughly $3.8 billion, or about 17% of every dollar covered in the report.
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However, many of those nonresident workers are lower-wage and seasonal, employed in the seafood processing and tourism industries, unlikely to pay much in income taxes. But a tax could be structured so that they pay something, which is fair.
Meanwhile, higher-wage workers in oil and gas, mining, construction and airlines (freight and passenger service) would pay taxes on their income earned in Alaska, which also is fair.
It comes down to what would direct more of the tax burden to nonresidents: a tax on income or on visitor spending. Wages or wasabi-crusted salmon dinners.
Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.
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