The arts of Bearfest

More than being about biology and conservation, this year’s Alaska Bearfest was also a time to highlight the region’s different art forms.

On Friday, local artists and crafters displayed their creations, which ranged from glassware and quilting to stone jewelry and fruit preserves.

Artist Faye Kohrt explained how she weaves her baskets, hats and necklaces from cedars and canary grass, incorporating local garnets in some of the pieces. She first learned to weave in 1988, after attending a class given by the daughter of a basket weaver from Haines.

Kohrt found she enjoyed it.

“It was real creative, and it was natural,” she said. Better still, all the materials she needed were available from the local landscape. “It was there, you just had to learn how to use it.”

Photography also featured prominently in the festival, with a number of workshops offered by Yakutat-based photographer Robert Johnson and James Edens, of Wrangell. There, curious shutterbugs could learn to make the most of their equipment, use lighting and framing to their best advantage and even tackle new technology.

“I like teaching and workshops,” said Johnson, who hopes to share his passion for nature both as a biologist and a photographer. “It’s proven that education is the best way to foster appreciation.”

“Bearfest gives me a really good place to sort of hone my skills,” he went on, as being given sometimes random subjects to teach – like the smartphone photography class – helps him to reassess his knowledge and improve his abilities.

He said Wrangell’s nearby Anan Wildlife Observatory presents a particularly unique opportunity for the public to observe bears closely with minimal interaction. “That’s the thing about Anan. It’s always different. It’s always unique. It’s always amazing.”

Music also found its audience at the festival with The Accomplices flying up from Savannah, Georgia, to play Friday night. Describing themselves as a low-country string band, the group blends elements of country, folk, and bluegrass music.

“We want to bring something that stimulates us,” Bearfest organizer Sylvia Ettefagh said. She liked The Accomplices’ sound and thought their music would be a good fit for the festival. With thanks to First Bank, the U.S. Forest Service, and Alaska Airlines for their support, Ettefagh was pleased the band was able to join this year’s festival lineup.

In addition to Friday night’s concert, band members gave tips to young musicians the next day at a stringed-instrument workshop. In the evening, they played a final set at the Totem Bar.

Perhaps the biggest turnout of the whole festival was for Ray Troll, the iconic Alaskan artist whose surrealistic style and edgy humor playfully highlights the region’s wildlife, particularly its fish.

While best known for his piscine art, he also has a penchant for drawing Alaska’s mammals, such as bears. Appropriately enough, bears feature prominently in the logo he designed for this year’s festival.

“It’s a wonderful thing to be a part of Bearfest,” Troll said. “The bears are a big part of the ecosystem.”

His presentation followed the course of his life, from a smirky youngster in 1960s New York through college life in the 1970s, to moving up to Alaska in the early 1980s. It was here where he happened to turn his art to t-shirt screen printing and found his niche. Angerman’s was among the first stores to begin selling his shirts.

“I made a special effort to have – pretty much – a new slide show,” Troll said. His slides displayed alternate ideas for the Bearfest logo, unpublished artwork and excerpts from an upcoming book mapping fossils of the West Coast.

Troll’s fascination with wildlife is not limited to sketching the animals of today; he described his love for prehistoric giants as well and his work spent looking for fossils along Alaska’s North Slope.