Legacy of Wrangell artist lives on through friends, family

If something interested Ira Merrill, he would throw his all into it. He would order books to absorb and learn, just to master a subject before moving onto the next thing.

As it was in all things that caught Merrill's attention, so it was especially in art. By the time of his death two years ago, at age 83, Merrill had created thousands of pieces of artwork which can still be found throughout Wrangell and beyond.

Born in 1936, he had already lived an adventurous life by the time he reached Alaska. Before that, Merrill lived between Northern and Southern California, working as a commercial fisherman. He started selling his oil paintings in the Bay Area in 1961.

He studied with various artists in California, learning as much as he could. His work would eventually be shown in Hobart Brown galleries in Eureka and Palm Springs.

Merrill moved to Alaska in 1969 in his early 30s. In 1970, he met and married Lucille Schwartz, whom he would remain married to for 49 years.

"He was the real-deal hippie," said Brenda Schwartz-Yeager, Merrill's stepdaughter. "He was authentic, genuine, arty, and he spent a lot of time with well-known painters in California in the art and music scene. ... But he was adventurous at heart."

Merrill began working at the sawmill when he first arrived in Wrangell, but didn't stay there long, Schwartz-Yeager said. "He and my mom scrounged up a boat that the harbormaster or someone gave them, and half-a-dozen boats later he retired as a highline longliner and troller from Wrangell."

Throughout all that time, he remained steadfast in his artistic pursuits, she said. "In the entire time he was here, he was always an artist with an intensity and passion with great abandon. No matter what he did, he did 100%, all in."

Lucille, an artist herself, was a continuous support for Merrill, often hunting down materials, and helping him in the exploration of different mediums, sculpting or even giving away the pieces he didn't want.

"(Lucille) told me it was ugly. She didn't like it, and that was my favorite," said friend Anny Newport, holding up a small vase resembling a cross between rough ironwork and an avocado that Lucille had brought her.

Out of the many pieces of Merrill's artwork in Newport's collection, only one was bought for her from Merrill by her husband, Dan. And that was before the Newports moved to Wrangell and became friends with the Merrills. Every time Anny Newport visited, she came away with more pieces of art, including polished rocks.

"He gave us a lot of rocks. He was a rockhound," she said, pointing to an embossed metal sign reading "ROCKHOUND," that Merrill also gave her. "We kind of connected because he and Lucille both knew that we both like the same weird stuff."

Among the many mediums Merrill dove into was Raku ceramics, a process whereby pottery is fired at a low temperature, then placed in an enclosed space with combustible materials. Those materials, such as paper, will catch fire and create patterns or colors on the surface of the pottery.

Merrill learned his pottery skills under the guidance of Kirk Garbisch, who, in turn, learned a great deal about fishing from Merrill.

"I told him, 'I taught you ceramics, and you taught me how to fish,'" Garbisch said. Merrill didn't think the art teacher was tough to enough to be his deckhand, but when two of his men came up seasick, Merrill gave Garbisch a chance. "He still didn't think I could handle halibut fishing, then I ended up being his main deckhand."

Brian Merritt, who was a co-worker of Garbisch, was a friend of both men, and learned much about fishing and hunting from Merrill. Merritt met the artist when he was 15, and Merrill asked if he wanted to be a deckhand on his boat, catching halibut.

"(Ira) was an outstanding fisherman, especially for halibut, one of the top in Southeast," Merritt said. "When I first went with him, I just fell in love with the fishery, with him and all that sort of stuff. When I'd go out in my skiff, I'd catch maybe two or three halibut a day. When I went out with him, we were catching - I don't even know the numbers - 100 to 300 halibut a day. Great big hogs. We're talking 200- to 250-plus-pound fish, lots of them."

The lessons Merritt learned from Merrill allowed him to later become a successful commercial fisherman himself, something he still does during the summer when he's not teaching fourth grade. One of the traits Merritt said he adopted from being Merrill's friend was to always be curious about everything.

"He had the most dynamic mind about things he was curious about. He would master every one of them," Merritt said. "He mastered how to make orchids perfectly. He mastered how to raise rabbits and get different fur color patterns he wanted. Pottery, he mastered as far as masks and bowls. He just was a master of all that stuff."

And just as Garbisch had shared knowledge of pottery with Merrill, Merrill would share his knowledge of fishing when going out with Garbisch and Merritt, ribbing them both when he'd catch either of them making a mistake.

Aside from giving of his time and artwork, Merrill gave his influence and inspiration.

"It was hard not to be enthusiastic about art when you were with this person who was so talented and made art out of everything and was so supportive of anybody else being inspired to do art," Schwartz-Yeager said, having become an artist herself.

Though Merrill was reclusive to a degree, he was also charismatic, she said, often drawing people into his world of creativity.

"He wasn't afraid to launch into some crazy, ridiculous thing, like raising orchids," Merritt said. "He would just take off on some of those different things he was curious about and investigate them; buy books and listen radio shows and podcasts. So, when I go to fix something on the boat or I'm looking at a driveway or something, I generally do a lot of homework on it, and I learned some of that from him."