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FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — For 50 years, the Native Art Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has been uniting artists from across the state with one simple goal: to expand and preserve the genre of traditional Native art.
The name, however, is a bit of a misnomer. It's not a "center" in the traditional definition of the word in that it's a freestanding building where artists display their works. It's more of a tiered multidisciplinary program comprised of several enterprises that all fall under the title of the Native Art Center.
Under the heading "Native Art Center," established Native artists share their knowledge with student artists; student artists take their knowledge of the arts to rural communities and villages; students pursue degrees in either a Bachelor of Fine Arts or a Master of Fine Arts in Native arts; and visiting artists host classes and workshops often resulting in exhibits at galleries on campus, in Fairbanks or throughout the state.
Regardless of how you define it and the many functions it performs, the program is one with which its founder, renowned artist Ronald Senungetuk, could not be more pleased, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (http://bit.ly/1BWj9an) reported.
Creating an institute
Senungetuk, an Iñupiaq artist born in Wales in 1933, founded the center in 1965 and directed it until he retired in 1986. During that time, he also served as head of the art department from 1977 until his retirement. At the time he created the Native Art Center in 1965, he was the only Alaska Native faculty member at UAF. Senungetuk also studied in Oslo in the early 1960s as a Fulbright Scholar and won the State of Alaska Governor's Award for the Arts in 1979. In 1986, he was named professor emeritus of art at UAF.
Now, 50 years after the Native Art Center's inception, he's politely humble about all he has accomplished.
"So all of a sudden it's 50 years," Senungetuk said. "When I'm here now, I'm so impressed with the condition of the Native Art Center, its organization and its leadership. The students are regular people, just like me. Their input is sometimes traditional, sometimes just art as we know it. I'm so pleased it's morphing between strict Native art and between strict fine art."
Senungetuk, who lives in Homer with his wife, Turid, also an artist, returned to the center this week with a cadre of fellow Alaska creators as part of a grant-funded, three-year program in which experienced, established artists come to the center to share their knowledge with younger artists. In turn, those younger artists go into rural communities and the university system's rural campuses and teach art to residents and students there.
Growing up in Wales, Senungetuk showed promise as a child as a whale and walrus hunter and also took up carving ivory. It was at the Bureau of Indian Affairs High School in Sitka where his talents bloomed as a teen and where he spent much time in the art department becoming knowledgeable of Western modern art. After earning a degree from the School of American Craftsmen in Rochester, New York, and after his stint in Oslo, he started teaching art at UAF in 1961. During that time he knew he wanted a Native-centric art program, and the Native Art Center was born, eventually merging with the university's art department.
Even today, Senungetuk is still big on education and cultural awareness, things he's glad the center broaches. "I want Native artists across the Arctic to learn and grow," he said.
The center today
Da-ka-xeen Mehner, who is of Tlingit and Nisga'a heritage, is the current director of the Native Arts Center and a UAF assistant professor of Native arts. Mehner, in addition to teaching full course loads in studio arts and art history, coordinates the center's artist in residency programs and organizes workshops such as the one that brought Senungetuk and other Native artists to Fairbanks.
For Mehner, the program is a vital part of the university's curriculum in both its outreach programs and its in-house offerings.
"Just looking at the history of the Native Arts Center and looking at how many artists come through, it's amazing how many of our top Native artists have come through here. It's just incredible," he said. "We've partnered with the College of Rural and Community Development to extend the workshop program throughout the state. We reach most of the North and to the West, and the Aleutians and Bristol Bay. We're helping facilitate these artists and these really specialized art forms."
In a studio in the art department, Senungetuk showed students how to stain a chiseled and carved piece of silver maple while other artists taught the delicate and tedious art of weaving baskets or making garments for dancing or traditional hide tanning methods. It's those traditional arts that Senungetuk, as well as Mehner, want to keep alive.
"These have all been going on in the rural communities, and it's great to support these," Mehner said.
One of the visiting artists in the studio last week was Teri Rofkar, a Tlingit weaver from Sitka who grew up spending her summers in Pelican and her winters in Anchorage. She has worked with both Senungetuk and Mehner before on different projects and eagerly jumped at the chance to come to Fairbanks to work side-by-side with them again in a teaching capacity.
"Southeast has no programs like this," she said of the Native Arts Center. "There are usually two-week workshops but they aren't in-depth. This is professional-level interaction. We have well-seasoned artists, mid-level artists and students. That layering adds some depth. When you bring Alaskans together, it's really beautiful."
In the studio, Rofkar showed students the art of spruce root weaving, using the roots of Sitka spruce she harvested and roasted herself. She also displayed an intricate hand-crafted robe made of mountain goat wool highlighted with patterns resembling a double helix.
"In indigenous cultures, we didn't have a word for art," she said. "We always had paddles or berry baskets, and it was just there. Even science — there wasn't a word for it, it was just everyday life. Whether harvesting food or watching weather patterns, it was all science and life and art."
The center's future
One of the big functions of the Native Art Center is student outreach, in which students who've been taught an art take that craft and teach others. Donovan Felix is one of those students.
Felix, 28, from Arctic Village, learned the art of traditional hide tanning in the Native Art Center program from the late Maggie Roberts of Venetie. He's since taken that knowledge and gone into villages to pass those skills on, visiting and teaching in his home village as well as Venetie, Fort Yukon, Hughes, Nulato, Holy Cross, Barrow and Chalkyitsik.
The art of hide tanning and the program that allowed him to learn it are both dear to him.
"This program is where I've learned tanning," he said, "and now I'm able to teach others and help people with the tradition. Skin tanning is an art being lost in the villages."
He described it as a time consuming, laborious process but one that's worth it.
'It's the best, though," he said of traditionally tanned hides. "The indigenous-made skin is made without chemicals. The moose or the caribou is its own package. I tan it using fermented brains and smoke it with rotten spruce wood. It takes three to five days for a caribou hide, and for moose about two to three weeks. It's worth it."
When he's teaching the traditional art of hide tanning, Felix said residents come out to meet him, often bringing him hides to work on in tribal halls or outside in the sun when it's warm. Younger children often flock to him, asking questions about the dying art, he said.
"They all want to do it. People tell me we're making history, and it gets them excited," Felix said. "It's an important program. There isn't much out there to teach Native artists, and this grant sends us out to teach these skills. It was amazing for me to come and learn through Maggie Roberts, and now I'm teaching classes. It's great."
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Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com
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