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.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Shucheng “Charlie” Yang, 32, a Chinese national and attorney with the Alaska Department of Law, on July 10 in Anchorage, according to an ICE spokesperson.
ICE said Yang violated the terms of his admission and is a “deportable alien.”
He is currently being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, pending immigration proceedings.
Yang pled no contest to a speeding ticket he was cited for on May 22. There are no other charges against him listed in the Alaska court system.
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Yang is the most recent person in Alaska to be taken into ICE custody at the Tacoma processing center; a Mexican woman living in Soldotna was deported along with her three children in February.
His arrest also comes days after a Colombian man was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer earlier this week in Maine, fueling a new wave of protests against perceived ICE brutality.
State outlines hiring process
The Alaska Department of Administration responded to general questions about verifying employment eligibility for all full-time hires and said the state requires applicants to self-disclose their employment eligibility during the application process.
“The State of Alaska hires individuals who have the legal right to work in the United States,” Policy Advisor Kate Sheehan said. “This employment eligibility is confirmed through the federally mandated I-9 verification process.”
Yang is listed as Department of Law civil attorney on the State of Alaska employee directory.
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Agencies decline to comment on Yang
Both the Alaska Department of Law and the Office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy declined to address Yang’s employment status or arrest.
“As a practice, the Department of Law does not provide comments on personnel issues,” Information Officer Sam Curtis said.
“We do not comment on personnel issues,” Deputy Press Secretary Grant Robinson said.
Alaska’s News Source is reaching out to Yang through multiple channels while he remains detained in Tacoma.
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The National Science Foundation has selected the University of Alaska Fairbanks to be the site of a new critical minerals research program, making it one of 12 new technology innovation centers across the nation that received federal funding, according to Yereth Rosen with the Alaska Beacon.
The new Critical Minerals Accelerator Engine in Alaska will receive $15 million in funding for two years and up to $160 million over 10 years, the university said on Tuesday.
The organization will be located at and led by UAF’s Geophysical Institute and will work with more than 40 partners, said Steve Masterman, the university faculty member who helped lead the application for the award. Partners include private companies, Native corporations, nonprofits, other universities and other entities, said Masterman, who formerly served as Alaska’s state geologist.
UAF already conducts scientific research into minerals considered critical to the nation’s economy through its Critical Minerals Collaborative. That program is more scientific and academic-focused, said Masterman, who is its deputy director.
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In contrast, the Critical Minerals Accelerator Engine will be focused on putting research to use, determining ways to commercialize resources, addressing supply needs, workforce development and other issues important to the critical minerals industry.
Though the scientific research already conducted at UAF will be helpful, the accelerator idea is industry-focused, Masterman said.
“This is quite different because it’s an economic development project,” he said.
Alaska is rich in resources considered critical minerals. The state has 56 of the 60 minerals classified by the U.S. Geological Survey as critical to the nation’s economy, UAF said in its statement.
In addition to the Alaska award, the NSF on Tuesday announced its awards for other innovation engines in different parts of the nation. The sites have different primary purposes, such as disaster prevention and mitigation, robotics development and development of advanced information technologies.
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The Alaska innovation engine will be led by Lee Ann Munk, a faculty member at the Geophysical Institute and a geosciences professor at UAF’s College of Natural Science and Mathematics. Munk is currently director of the Critical Minerals Collaborative at UAF.
“Our NSF Engine is built on the simple but ambitious idea that Alaska can lead the nation not only with the abundance of its critical mineral resources, but also in how we innovate, develop and deploy the technologies needed to produce them responsibly,” Munk said in a statement released by the university.
“By bringing together researchers, Alaska Native organizations, industry, workforce partners, state and federal agencies, national laboratories and communities, we are creating an engine that accelerates discovery into action,” she said.
Editor’s note: This story was republished with permission from the Alaska Beacon.
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