Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News
"Urbanite Subsistence: In-between" by artist Perry Eaton
What’s subsistence, or living off the land, mean in modern Alaska?
A group of Alaska Native artists are tackling that question from all angles at an art show that opened at the MTS Gallery in Mountain View Friday, and is timed to coincide this week with the state's largest gathering of indigenous people.
I stopped by the gallery today, where curator Gretchen Sagan described the theme:
Listen to the interview
...
Artist Priscilla Hensley Holthouse wore a dress made from plastic shopping bags rather than animal hide to show's opening Friday. It's now on display at the gallery:
Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News
Listen to Sagan describe the work
Grocery-bag bustle. Shot this with my phone. Priscilla Hensley Holthouse's father, Willie Hensley, and her sister Elizabeth Hensley, are keynote speakers at the AFN convention.
With nearly 40 artists, there's no single note or message to the work. The show ranges from a poem about wasted caribou to photos of a woman in full regalia sipping a Starbucks coffee and reading "Robert's Rules of Order" at Fred Meyer.
Sagan, one of the three curators, is also an artist. This is her contribution to the show:
Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News
Listen to Sagan describe the work
Check out the show, Virtual Subsistence, noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays at the MTS Gallery at 3142 Mountain View Drive. It runs through Nov. 14.
There's plenty more about the show at www.virtualsubsistence.com. For example, read some of the work by the literary artists here.
The curators are Sagan, Joan Kane and Allison Warden, who is organizing the First Friday performance Nov. 6. (Look for a special performance that night, Sagan said.)
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