Local artists Roberta Floyd, Jacquie Dozier (seated), Joyce Phillips, Olga Norris and Joan Benjamin at the Wrangell Art Gallery. The group will be celebrating their 50th anniversary this weekend, hosting an open house at their Front Street gallery on Tax-Free Day, Saturday.
The ladies at the Wrangell Art Gallery on Front Street will be celebrating half a century of making artwork together this weekend, hosting an open house with refreshments on Tax Free Day which is Saturday.
"It's a good time to celebrate 50 years of painting together," said Olga Norris, one of the group's founding members. "It started just as a friends' get-together," back in 1964.
"We've been at this a long time," said Joyce Phillips, another original member of the group.
At first, the group mainly worked on oil and watercolor paintings. "We'd invite people to come and do stuff with us," Norris said. With new artists came new styles of artwork, and the group has since branched out to weaving, decoration, sculpture and other forms.
The eight artists currently in the group still meet every Thursday to work on projects together and mind their shop. And the doors are sure to open up whenever a cruise ship arrives in town.
The group did not always have its gallery.
"Originally we were all over town," Norris recalled. "We started out at the school," hopping from place to place, from where the Irene Ingle Library now stands to the building Angerman's now inhabits. "We did pretty well there," she said, located so closely to the city dock.
The group even took to touring in an RV Phillips calls "The Paintmobile," taking artwork around the state. "We did it for years," she recalled, though those days are now behind her. The artwork still travels; a number of the artists' pieces took first place in various categories at the Southeast State Fair in Haines this year.
According to data released at this year's Southeast Conference, the arts brought $57.8 million dollars to the region in 2013. This includes visual artwork, Alaska Native art, music, literature and performance pieces.
More than affecting the economy, the arts have a cultural impact, lending uniqueness to local communities while adding to residents' quality of life.
"I think it adds a flavor," Phillips said, bringing a certain something to Wrangell.
From the various murals adorning business walls to the works at the local museum, and the sculpted bears and totem poles that bring a bit of civic pride, art really is a part of the borough, leaving a lasting impression on visitors and residents alike.
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