PRATT MUSEUM

established in 1968

The Moveable Feast

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Opening May 6th from 4 – 6 PM 

Welcome to Kachemak Bay’s moveable feast that attracts migrating birds to stop over as they make their annual journeys along flyways that stretch from wintering areas along the Pacific Rim northward to Western, Interior, and Arctic Alaska.

May 6th will be the opening of a month-long special Shorebird Festival exhibit “A Moveable Feast” at the Pratt Museum and Park that celebrates Kachemak Bay as a place for migrating birds to rest and refuel. From 4 pm-6 pm, get a closer look at birds from the museum’s natural history collection and bird art at this free First Friday reception. There will be supplies on hand to make drawings and then your work will be added to this exhibit!  Posters and information will be available about local bird research and citizen science opportunities. You can also tour the Museum to view other local birds on display as well as go birding on the Pratt Museum and Park trails. Museum hours during the Festival will be Wednesday through Sunday, 11 AM – 4 PM and the Park trails are always open.

It’s a place to rest and refuel, replenishing the fat stores required for migration and breeding. Although many migrants feed on what is available year-round like mussel beds in the intertidal zone, the migration of others is made possible by the massive bloom of plankton in the ocean and the growth of nutritious aquatic plant shoots as day length increases in the spring. Seaducks and seabirds feed on the abundant zooplankton and on small fish that are fattening up on the bounty. The pulse of migrating
birds also provides a spring feast for bald eagles, other raptors, and owls. The twice-daily tidal cycles in Kachemak Bay provide a smaller-scale moveable feast on tidal flats and
rocky beaches that are covered and uncovered, altering access to marine invertebrates and aquatic plants at the water’s edge or in shallow waters. Shorebirds probe the mud-filled with burrowing worms and clams. Ducks follow the rising tide, dabbling, and diving. Waterbirds, like loons, grebes, sea ducks, and seabirds, are superbly adapted for diving deeper after plankton, mollusks, and small fish.

As the birds move through the air and watery places, they’re a resplendent feast for our human eyes. As we pay attention to and mind the birds, we can feast on the intricate and dynamic ecological connections they make manifest.

The exhibit also showcases artwork by the late George West, a long-time Board member of the Pratt Museum, and the featured Shorebird Festival Artist
on its 25th anniversary in 2017. His pioneering work monitoring shorebird use of Homer area habitats is also featured in one of the posters about the continuation of this work as a Kachemak Bay Birders citizen science project.

Painting at the End of The Ice Age

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An Art & Science exhibit by David Rosenthal. Open now through May.  Artwork is available for sale.

THE paintings in this exhibit can be appreciated individually as works of art. As a whole, they stand as evidence of the unfolding tragedy of global warming. Through interpretive
panels, Rosenthal ties together his fine art with the science that plays a role in its creation and contributes to his understanding of the landscape.

David Rosenthal, of Cordova, studied physics and ended up as an artist. He has traveled widely with the U.S. Coast Guard Art Program; the U.S. Antarctic Artist and Writer Program; the Alaska State Artist Program; and as a science tech and contractor. His art is informed by experiences at the Arctic Polar Ocean and ice cap; Greenland and its ice cap; the
Northwest passage; and in Antarctica.

Native Ways in Changing Times: Photography Exhibit by Lisa Williams

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Native Ways In Changing Times is the accumulation of photographs taken over a 5-year span from 2005 to 2010 in the villages of Nanwalek and Port Graham Alaska. The Exxon oil spill occurred in 1989 but the social-cultural ripple effect is felt to this day. The work shown here is an attempt at examining the tightly held traditions and values of the Native people of these two villages and their resiliency with which they responded to the impact the Exxon spill had on their way of life. These 35 images and quotes were selected from over 1500 photographs and 50 pages of transcribed interviews. This project was funded in part by the Alaska Humanities Forum.

Photo of Peter Anahanok Sr.

Meet Lisa Williams. Lisa Williams is an award-winning photographer whose images are featured in the book, “Our Changing Seas”. She received her MFA in Social Documentation from Sonoma State University in Sonoma, California. Born in San Diego, California, Lisa has spent the last 30 years hiking the mountains, making friends, and exploring Alaska. She is a two-time grant recipient from the Alaska Humanities Forum and values the opportunity this has given her to learn about and document Alaskan Native Cultures. Lisa’s passion is visual anthropology and hopes her photographs compel deeper respect and appreciation for the cultural values of Native Alaskans. Her work has been shown in museums and cultural centers throughout Alaska and she looks forward to more photographic adventures. She now resides in Chico, CA where she teaches American Sign Language and goes on walkabouts with her two wire-haired pointing Griffons; Sunny and Alma.

Rafael de la Uz: Homer’s Nutcracker

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Rafael de la Uz is a photographer and filmmaker, with more than twenty years of experience in the profession. Born in Cuba, Rafael began his work behind the cameras in his hometown, Havana, where he worked as a press and advertising photographer as well as a Cinematographer on various documentary films. In 2001 Rafael moved to the United States, and since then he has worked on projects for HBO, PBS, NYT, Discovery, TVE, and the BBC. His latest photographic work is a small portrait of the community of set netters in South Naknek, Bristol Bay, which was published by Fern magazine last fall.

Exhibit Description: Homer`s Nutcracker is a photographic exhibit that tells the story of Homer’s town staging The Nutcracker, in the midst of a pandemic. The intention of this exhibit is to show the level of effort, work, and dedication that the community invests in this ballet work. There is nothing unique about a small town that each year hosts a big event, it happens all over the country, and it is usually done with the intention of attracting tourists, however, at Homer, The Nutcracker it is a gift from the children, parents, and volunteers for the local inhabitants, who every year, for the last 33 years, come to the local theater to enjoy this ballet.

The young dancers, choreographers, and technicians do not disappoint their audiences. The child dancers may not be technically perfect, but they show up every day to give everything they have to the choreographers. The production may not have the budgets of professional theater, but that does not prevent that with typical Alaskan ingenuity a balcony gets built in an hour and that the decorations are hand-painted and spectacular. There might be a lighting error during the play, but the teens in charge of the work behind the curtains run like crazy to ensure each prop is ready when needed. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, Homer’s children rehearse with masks, maintain a discipline of soldiers to measure their temperature and work to provide their community with several nights of joy and beauty. As the curtain drops and everyone takes their bow, the tiny town of Homer gives them a great applause every night, an applause full of pride and gratitude. In the end, The Nutcracker is everyone’s work.

That spirit is what Rafael’s camera captured. In this exhibit, he documents the efforts of the dancers, parents, staff, and volunteers – their success, their mistakes, their work. This is their story.