Portable Southeast, a traveling art exhibit that will visit six different communities in 2025, is in its second year. It’s a collaboration between the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council and community centers throughout Southeast and the Gulf of Alaska. There are 29 art pieces that reflect coastal living by 23 artists from Southeast Alaska this year. There’s a mix of paintings, watercolors, photography and textile art. One of the artists includes Grace Wolf of Petersburg, who is a painter and jewelry maker. Others come from Juneau, Gustavus, Ketchikan, Tenakee Springs, Haines and Thorne Bay.
The exhibit kicked off in Wrangell this month and will head north. Jeanie Arnold, director of Wrangell’s Nolan Center, said it is in its first year hosting the exhibit. She said the exhibit connects our communities together through art since it’s made by artists who live in Southeast Alaska.
“As we were unpacking this guy, this is titled Coffee Crab by Robert “Bo” Anderson, it’s acrylic on plywood, and it’s this bright colored Dungeness crab, who’s sipping a cup of coffee,” she said. “The colors are brilliant. He really does a great job at the texture.”
Arnold said she also wants to highlight a Ravenstail weaving of a set of headphones and a woven iPad by Juneau-based Alaska Native artist Lily Hope. She has taught internationally and is both a Ravenstail and Chilkat weaver.
“It’s titled Pandemic Babysitter, attached to a little device here, which is something that I think a lot of us parents, if we went through the pandemic, will definitely attest that this little piece came in handy,” she said. “So just kind of a funny little piece, but also it’s beautiful and just kind of a representation of the times I think that that we lived through.”
“…an art exhibit that celebrates life on the coast.”
Some of the art is for sale, with prices ranging from $25 to $3,000.
“The idea of Portable Southeast, in terms of the theme, is that it is an art exhibit that celebrates life on the coast,” Rachelle Bonnett, gallery manager at the JAHC and project manager for the traveling exhibit, said.
She said they launched the exhibit in 2022.
Six coastal communities
This year, it will visit six communities, which are Wrangell, Sitka, Skagway, Juneau, Kodiak and Haines.
“Our hope is to expand this exhibit out beyond Southeast Alaska and try to make it more open to any artist that’s living in a coastal community, in any community that’s living in the coastal community,” Bonnett said. “That’s kind of the path that we’re headed down.”
Bennett said that the JAHC invites people from different Southeast Alaska communities to curate future exhibits. She said this year they had artists from Craig, Juneau and Cordova who helped select the artwork.
This is the last week the exhibit will be at the Nolan Center, which is open from 10am to 5pm Monday through Friday. Signs in the lobby direct visitors to the exhibit that’s in the smaller classroom.
Update: The exhibit has been taken down and packed up to be shipped to Sitka.
