PRATT MUSEUM

Inspired by Diaries

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November 11 – December 29

Have you ever kept a diary or journal? Had the opportunity to peruse the personal writing of your ancestors? Several diaries and journals are held in the collections of the Pratt Museum: their stories range from weather reports and moose sightings to extended narrative and personal reflection. Often the written word leaves much to be imagined, and could serve as a jumping-off point for something more.

The Pratt Museum is excited to present Inspired by Diaries, featuring artwork inspired by personal and historical diaries. Also on exhibit will be numerous excerpts and original historical diaries from the Pratt Collections.

Museum Macabre: The Pratt Files

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October 7 – 29, 2016

img_7014Like many historic institutions that emerged in the latter half of the 21st century, the Pratt has a lurid, less well-known founding mission: to document the undocumented and unexplained, specifically the extraterrestrial alien unknown. Due to filing issues, the shuffle of organizational merges and departmental shifts, the original founding documents and primary collections of the Pratt Museum were lost over time. However, a recent inventory and re-housing project uncovered several objects that shifted the entire paradigm of our understanding for the museum’s collections. This exhibit shares a few of the stories associated with Kachemak Bay’s extraterrestrial history over the last century. . . . Or does it? Join us for October 7-29, and see if you can distinguish between fact or fiction!

Ritz Auction Preview 2016

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Opening Reception: Friday, October 7, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.2016-ritz-flyer

Visit the Pratt Museum Special Exhibits Gallery during October to preview artwork to be included in the 31st Annual Ritz Art & Experience Auction. The dinner and auction event, which will be held on Saturday, November 5 at Wasabi’s, will include a live and silent auction, featuring artwork and other items donated by artists, businesses and individuals throughout Alaska. All funds raised at the Ritz will help the Pratt Museum continue to increase the diversity and quality of its exhibits and programs. Plan your bidding early!

 

Heartfelt and Handmade

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The soaring framework for the workshop porch roof looks a bit like a breaching humpback whale.

The soaring framework for the workshop porch roof looks a bit like a breaching humpback whale.

August 5 – October 1, 2016

The Dean farmstead reflects “Life as Art” – from functional artworks including handmade tools and implements, aesthetically designed and crafted structures, furniture, and housewares, to representational and more abstract artworks inspired by nature and farm life. “Heartfelt and Handmade” shows not only Jeff and Ranja’s skillful artistry, but also a glimpse inside their thoughtfully crafted and unique home.

Jeff Dean was born and raised in Fairbanks and exposed to art and innovation from an early age. He’s been a working sculptor since the late 70’s, making fine art and functional pieces in clay, wood, bronze, stone, steel and other materials. “I’m also a bit of an inventor and tinkerer. I bring my creativity and artistic background to each project at hand, be it artwork, a new tool, a curved rafter, computer programming, or even a solar thermal heating system.”

Girl with Rooster

Girl with Rooster

Ranja Dean grew up in the Tennessee hills among a menagerie of art, animals and gardens. Her father was an artist and a professor of horticulture and landscape design.He painted, wrote poetry and made the most amazing gardens. She is self taught with no formal education but has been developing her creative character since childhood. She loves the magic of life and it shows in her work, giving it a fairytale appeal whether it be an apple tree dollhouse, a garden, a sculpture or a chicken house.

See more exhibit images at the Creative Fires Studio website.

Paula Dickey Legacy Exhibit

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Mountain 1crop

The Pratt Museum is proud to present a legacy exhibition representative of Paula’s lifetime of creating (1937-2011). Many of her lovely works will be available for purchase, as well as other artists’ pieces that were in Paula and Brad Dickey’s personal collection. The Pratt Museum appreciates the gifts Paula has given this community and is honored to offer the opportunity for community members to have a remembrance of Paula Dickey.

Art Sale: Saturday May 7, 3-6 p.m.

Art and Science of Bears

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May 6 – July 31, 2016IMG_9497

Since the Fall of 2015, the Pratt Museum has hosted a series of special presentations and activities surrounding the science of bears on the Kenai Peninsula and Lower Cook Inlet region. Drawing from those presentations and a coinciding call for new works, we are thrilled to present the Art and Science of Bears. Local and regional artists from Alaska will present works interpreting our region’s bears alongside current science.

Please join us for the opening reception on May 6. Additional presentations and events are listed on the BEARS project page.

Living Alaska: A Decade of Collecting Contemporary Art for Alaska Museums

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Aurora Borealis

February 26 – April 23, 2016

Opening Reception: February 26, 5-7 p.m.

For more than a decade, the Rasmuson Foundation has been giving annual grants to Alaska’s museums to acquire contemporary art. This unique program has allowed museums throughout the state, to purposefully build their collections. In its first ten years, the Rasmuson Art Acquisition Fund distributed 173 grants to 33 museums to purchase works by 436 artists.

Living Alaska shares the far-reaching impacts of the fund and a sample of the artwork it has preserved for the public. Curated by Sven Haakanson, Jr. and designed by the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, the exhibition contains 25 pieces loaned from 12 different museums.

The exhibition, “Living Alaska: A Decade of Collecting Contemporary Art for Alaska Museums,” was organized by the Anchorage Museum. Major support for traveling the exhibition has been generously provided by the Rasmuson Foundation.

Image: Aurora Borealis I, II, III
Ron Senungetuk, 2006
Silver maple and oil stain
Pratt Museum, Homer
22″ x 56 ¾”

Alaska Native Art from the Pratt Collections

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Extended, February 2 – 20, 2016
(Following annual museum closure during January)

For the extended run during February, additional works from the Pratt collection will be added to this already-stunning exhibit!

Explore the Pratt Museum’s diverse and rarely seen collection of Native Art from across Alaska, featuring fine and functional art from St. Lawrence Island to Southeast, archaeological finds to contemporary works.

Join us for the opening reception, Friday November 13 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and hear a special presentation at 6 p.m. by Port Graham artist Jim Miller: “Second Life: Spiritual Restoration Through Traditional Art.”

On November 14, Jim Miller will also present a bone a jewelry making workshop from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is required. For more information visit the event page.

Ritz Art Preview

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October 9 – November 3, 2015

Opening Reception: Friday, October 9, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

2015 Ritz Poster copyVisit the Pratt Museum Special Exhibits Gallery during October to preview artwork to be included in the 30th Annual Ritz Art & Experience Auction. The dinner and auction event, which will be held on Saturday, November 7 at Wasabi’s, will include a live and silent auction, featuring artwork and other items donated by artists, businesses and individuals throughout Alaska. All funds raised at the Ritz will help the Pratt Museum continue to increase the diversity and quality of its exhibits and programs.

For this 30th Anniversary Ritz, we’ll be celebrating Havana Nights! Ritz at the CopaCabana. Celebrating the 1940s and 50s that was Cuba in its heyday, this year’s Ritz will include Cuban food, music, dancing, diamonds, pearls, bright lights, rum, and cigars (to take outdoors)!

For more information, call Michele Miller at 435-3342 or e-mail mmiller@prattmuseum.org.

Museum Macabre: Darkest Secrets of Kachemak Bay

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October 9 – 31, 2015

Some stories from Kachemak Bay have been lost to common knowledge, swept under the rug and into collections storage at the Pratt Museum. Now is your chance to learn about the dark days of our past through original artifacts and rare images:

Museum Macabre 2015

  • Silver bullet casting molds from the werewolf outbreak of 1934
  • Taxidermy mount of the now-extinct native scorpion forest squirrel
  • Various and frightening specimens preserved stuffed (fanged hare and parasitic fish crab) or in alcohol (giant huntsman spidermoose and assorted viscera)
  • Relics from the vampire wars of the 1970s, including impaling stakes, fangs, and desicated vampires (in bat form)
  • The brain (cast) of a 3-legged land whale
  • Kandorian “siren” eel extracted from Homer Pennock’s leg

This special exhibit is only up through Saturday, October 31, after which the specimens shall be appropriately forgotten…