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Support those who support F:
Anchorage: MTS Gallery 3142 Mountain View Drive | International Gallery of Contemporary Art 427 D Street | La Bodega 3801 Old Seward Highway | Modern Dwellers 751 E. 36th Ave. or 423 G Street | Sugar Spoon 2601 Spenard Road | Dos Manos Art Gallery 1317 West Northern Lights Boulevard | Out North 3800 Debarr Road | Anchorage Community Theatre1133 E 70th Ave | Fromagio’s Artisan Cheese 10950 O’Malley Centre Dr. #C | Middle Way Cafe 1200 West Northern Lights Blvd #c | Pack Rat Antiques 1068 W. Fireweed Lane |Summit Spice and Tea 1120 Huffman Rd # 4 | Laughing Lotus Yoga| 7 20 D Street
Fairbanks: Red Couch Bakery & Trading | 309 2nd Ave.
Homer: Bunnel Street Arts Center 106 W. Bunnell St. Suite A | Homer Bookstore 332 East Pioneer Ave | Old Inlet Bookshop 3487 Main St. | Two Sisters Bakery 233 E. Bunnell Ave.
Palmer: Fireside Books | 720 S. Alaska St.
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Inside the April issue of F Magazine:
Very Best of 2010 Alaskan Youth Artists & Writers → Anya Garrett, Devin Ball, Shanae’a Moore, Matthew Ellegard, Salome’ Scott, Hayley Chapman, Aryeh Lax, Jeong A. Lee, Lauren Chun, Deanna Stait, Jessie Marman, Emma Funk, Heather Parsons, Christian Teston, Christopher Starkey, Dorian Granger, Lauren Heyano and Devin Ball.
GOLD KEY AWARD sculpture
GOLD KEY AWARD photography
SILVER KEY AWARD poetry
GOLD KEY AWARD mixed media
GOLD KEY AWARD photography
SILVER KEY AWARD mixed media
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MARCH ISSUE:
FEBRUARY ISSUE:
Take a look inside the fantastic one-of-a-kind fashion event in Anchorage. It’s not just
for New Yorkers anymore. In fact, we’re pretty convinced we do it better!
It’s not just about being beautiful, it’s about the art of delivering beautiful images.
Unbeknownst to many, Anchorage is rich with fashion talent. From hairdressers and makeup artists to models and photographers. It’s hard to believe these people live here. But then that’s why we created F Magazine: We’re not devoid of talent like most Anchorageites think we are!
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DECEMBER ISSUE:
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Inside the November issue of F Magazine:
New Work → by Priscilla Hensley, D.C. McKenzie,
Jesus Landin-Torrez III and Jack Gette
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Sharing Goats → Not just pretty faces 
By Teeka A. Ballas
I’ve set aside an hour to interview her. I arrive modestly early to the salmon colored house with raspberry vines clinging to the side trying to survive the fast encroaching winter. I know nothing about this woman other than she goat shares.
I hear a clatter from inside the house, the kind of rushing about that I can only assume is the sound of someone preparing for company. But when she opens the door, Barbara Rowland pleasantly smiles, completely relaxed. As I enter her home, I realize the noise is just the sound of her moving about; stacks of “projects,” which could be mistaken for clutter consume every corner, every open space.
“It’s not because it’s economical,” she says as I walk into her kitchen. She’s referring to her projects. “It would be cheaper just to hop over to Costco, but it’s about feeding myself wholesome food and supporting local organizations.”
She grows vegetables, raises chickens for eggs, makes her own wine (which we drink a good amount of while we separate quinoa seeds she grew over the summer), and participates in a goat share.
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Passion, fruit → Anchorageites are putting down deep roots and working on creating a shelter of branches.
Story by Riza Parsons
Photos by Teeka A. Ballas
It is a gorgeous fall day; one of those days that would have been much welcomed in the summer but is no less beautiful for arriving at the beginning of October. It is a day for celebration, with golden leaves twirling like confetti from the skies and sunlight saying its fierce goodbyes.
It is also harvest time. And Saskia’s belated birthday party. I have basically invited myself to dinner, under the guise of “journalistic research.” I don’t know the hosts, Saskia Esslinger and Matt Oster, or any of the guests save one, but I have heard a lot about them and their little community.
I know that they build greenhouses and have several on the property; they make their own goat milk and goat cheese; they are intense proponents and practitioners of sustainability; and they serve up some damn good food. The last is all I need to know before I am throwing two bottles of wine into my car and driving over to a stranger’s house.
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Southside Culture → On a wing and a spoon
By David McElroy
Photos by Edith Barrowclaugh
Three peregrine falcons, high in a tree on a corner of our mid-hillside lot, were carrying on again with their high-pitched cries. It was late summer, and the juveniles wanted more food than ever. Although they were full-fledged and spectacularly airworthy, they were apparently not yet signed off to hunt. During the summer, weather permitting, we eat our meals out on our back deck. For a month this summer, the falcons entertained us with their family issues and rooftop swoops across the yard. The nightly rain we’d been experiencing stopped momentarily, so we wiped off the table to eat breakfast outside. Quite pleased to have our conversations interrupted by falcons, our own quest for food came to mind. It was a Saturday. Time to make our mental list (because the table is still too wet to write on) of things to buy at the market.
While some complain that the moving of the Tap Root Café from Huffman, with its good food and live music, has left a hole in society here, we contend that culture (and art!) in South Anchorage still exists, especially in the genre of local organic food. Two good reasons for living here, in addition to falcon neighbors, are Summit Spice and Tea Shop, and the South Anchorage Farmers’ Market.
That day, the sun was out and so were the shoppers. Unlike the impersonal super market experience, people were clearly having a good time striking up conversations with strangers, greeting old friends, fondling the snow apples and zucchini, tasting the cheeses and breads, and admiring the alchemy of sunlight shining through jars of jams and jellies.
There is also the petting of one another’s dogs. Nothing rewards the needy personality so much as receiving a compliment about one’s dog, and nothing mellows a crowd so much as a few well-mannered canines in the midst. So the people were happy and, bless their hearts, paying with cash. Remember cash? “A dollar goes from hand to hand,” is a line in an old blues song, reminding us of the obvious, but often forgotten, human connections in commerce. Of course, in the context of the song the simile is of a wayward woman … and the benefit to society, not so much. A couple sits on a curb eating barbequed ribs, their own little world at peace.
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Music in the Rough → Jazz
By Michelle Saport
Photo by Clark Yarrington
The introductory column is at once awkward and brambling, ambitious and pragmatic, broad and abridged, and intimate and formal. Call it a first date. Music in the Rough is dedicated to the city’s live music with particular fondness for blues, jam, jazz, and open mics. Music that, like the diamonds in the appropriated phrase, is unpolished and uncut, but exceptional. Music that often gets skipped over. This week: jazz.
Put lightly and politely, my experience with jazz is limited. I know it can make good background music and I lied about liking it on a freshman housing survey since I thought it would get me a more interesting roommate (it didn’t). I know that it’s always a two-sided coin … Jazz has an equally solid reputation for both background and active listening. Jazz is at once mellow and tense. It’s probably the most controversial and complicated music you’ll ever hear in an elevator as so-called muzak. And that’s about it.
Jazz though, with its dual nature, has always intrigued me. Factor in as well that jazz is often improvised and rarely (or, rather, difficultly) duplicated note-for-note and you have the basis of what led me to conscript for a column on something I know little about.
The first encounter was to be at Tap Root on Oct. 5 for Jazz After Dark, their recurring Monday night jazz event. I set off, after a little over a week’s worth of immersion had left my head swimming with a general idea of the difference between swing, hard bop, bebop, cool, fusion, and free subsets of jazz, but I had no idea how to classify what I heard beyond “jazzy.” An example of my ignorance: I made notes about a cello player, but as the Internet has so grandly demonstrated to me, most cellos involve sitting. So, post-research, I’m calling it an upright bass. I also needed to reaffirm that the “giant simple horn” they had was indeed a trombone.
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W.A.T.T. → First Thursday in Portland
By Theodore Kincaid
Twenty-four years ago the Portland Art Dealer’s Association (also known as PADA) started the First Thursday events in Portland, OR. What I’ve gathered from the folks I’ve talked to, it was originally on Fridays and the first mass art opening in the United States. Either way if you have not been to one of these, you need to. It is a carnival! If we’re smart (Anchoragites) we can take a little bit of this and make it our own.
A good portion of the galleries close up around 8pm and unfortunately I started the walk a bit late, maybe around 6:30 or so. (Back home you can see everything in half an hour, but then I have a ridiculously short attention span). I headed home with a head full of art-overload around 9:30pm and still had only seen one third of the galleries.
The first shop I stepped into was Gallery 903 and it was ridiculously full of walking meat-sacks. Right then it dawned on me why the Anchorage art scene is struggling: we ain’t got no monies! The patrons were wearing the fruits of their careers on their hides swilling the gallery wine. This wasn’t only a retail outlet for art, it was also a social event for the wealthy, and they were there to network, glad-hand, talk shop and be seen. I could only imagine the pressure to purchase art so to illustrate their wealth and taste for their friends. No disrespect, the artwork was amazing, something of a group show with price tags that would look like my down payment on a beginner house, figures bouncing on the lower side of the seven digits. They were making a career as an artist a viable occupation.
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Inside the August issue of F Magazine:
New Work → by Jesus Landin-Torrez III, Peter Porco, Rebbecca A. Goodrich, Ella Harrison Gordon, Kellie Doherty .
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Rejection in Earnest → Catching up with Duke Russel 
By Kathleen McKoy
As an Anchorage resident, I’ve always taken comfort that Duke Russell lives in my town and records it. He flashed onto my like-o-meter a long time ago, as the veggie-biker at an Out North Under 30 back in 1996. The exact monologue has faded, but what’s left was the impression that he knew and lived the Anchorage experience more directly than I did, with wit and humor and truth-telling that he shared with the rest of us. I laughed along with the audience, and felt the sting of automotive complacency that his biker-self railed against.
This April, when the Rasmuson Awards for artists were named, I heard he didn’t get one. Ouch. It sent my mind wandering through what it must feel like to be well-established and appreciated, but not be validated by a cash prize that would support your artistic efforts.
Back in 1992, Duke experienced another similar shortfall, when the Visual Arts Center of Alaska decided he wouldn’t be joining them as an artist. It conjured up a sting with the power to bruise. Not a deathblow, but something an artist has to tangle with before moving on.
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Homer’s Burning Basket → The Volunteer Art Department at Work
Story and photos by Sandy Gillespie
Imagine time the healer. Imagine sharing. Imagine art. Imagine compassion. Imagine: to conceive in one’s mind all possibilities. Imagine that!
These are a few of the phrases people attached to the handmade basket created on the beach in Homer last September. For seven days, artist Mavis Muller led a crew of volunteers in the construction of a temporary sculpture. Materials had been collected over the summer: long grasses, nettles, fireweed, alder, birch, a myriad of plants and flowers — even bright yellow devil’s club. Inspired by Burning Man, where she worked with a team to create a quarter-mile-long, 100-foot-high sculpture, Mavis has designed and coordinated this project at Mariner’s Park for seven years. She has given each event a theme: Adieu, Renew, Reflect, Impart, Surpass, Sustain. And this year: Imagine.
I arrived from Ester, AK on Wednesday, September 15. For several hours a day, I helped twist and weave grass, found driftwood to “write” with, shaped dried pods into wreaths. Community members dropped in throughout the day offering hands and spirit to create the basket. A wall tent housed materials, including hot water for tea and donated cookies. Fog rolled in every afternoon, and I put on long underwear for the first time this season.
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Of Mice and Art → Julie Decker
By Benjamin Allen Ellis
What impresses me most is that in all of her work and in person, Julie Decker exudes a sense of invitation. It comes from checking the ego at the door and a repeated intention to serve. She seems to find and share so much joy in that.
I first became aware of Julie early in my own art career. The Anchorage Daily News ran a big piece on the Decker-Morris Gallery in the early ’00’s. It was one of the first galleries in town that celebrated a more contemporary and experimental vein of local art. I intended to one day show at that gallery. I was inspired to know there were people in the Anchorage scene who didn’t espouse support only for artists who had “made it” outside Alaska, a once-dominant attitude toward local creators.
Too bad I never got the chance. The Decker-Morris Gallery closed its doors in 2005; the space now houses the downtown Kaladi Brothers on Sixth Avenue in the Performing Arts Center. Lucky, humorous and perhaps ironic that our first meeting would take place there. A second meeting in her studio space followed.
Our interviews bring forth a welcome internal celebration. The first hour-long conversation was recorded; I’ve sat and listened to it in a quiet space more than once … like a good book I keep getting more out of it.
Julie has a rich art background. She holds a bachelor’s in fine art and journalism, a master’s in arts administration and a doctorate in contemporary arts history. Perhaps even more impressively, she is the new director of the International Gallery of Contemporary Art – the only person on their payroll. She is also an instructor at UAA, a frequent curator for the Anchorage Museum, and one of the driving forces behind the upcoming Andy Warhol exhibit.
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Warhol → Art to visit Anchorage
By Benjamin Allen Ellis
With the November 5 opening of one of the biggest exhibits to ever come to Anchorage, artists and patrons alike will have the chance to celebrate the vision, aesthetic and lifestyle of one of the most influential artists of the last century. Venues such as Midnight Sun Brewery, MTS Gallery, Snow City Cafe, Sub Zero Lounge, The International Gallery, Border’s Books and Middle Way Cafe will showcase Alaska talent under the banner of “Pop 11,” a media-blitz helmed by Anchorage artist and curator Julie Decker. Pop 11 events run the length of the “Warhol Season,” three months during which 7,500 square feet of the Anchorage Museum will showcase a broad mix of Warhol’s work, from the widely known to the little-seen.
Warhol was on the short list of artists who were felt to have the range and relevance to draw in a vast majority of spectators. From school kids to Alaska bourgeois, from sports extremists to Alaska’s indigenous people, Warhol’s name and visuals are known far and wide.
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Rare Light → Exibit
By Kellie Doherty
The largest juried photo exhibition in the state, sponsored by the Alaska Photographic Center, will only grace the walls of the Anchorage Museum until October 31 -— after which it will tour the rest of the state.
This year’s “Rarified Light” exhibit features 50 photographs in all, with seven honorable mentions and two for best in show. The judge, Keith Carter of Beaumont, Texas, saw fit to choose both “Fire Eyes” by Ward Hulbert of Anchorage and “Prodigal Daughter” by Maggie Skiba of Eagle River. The two photographs won the same award, though they differ vastly from one another.
According to Carter in his juror’s statement, “The submissions to ‘Rarefied Light’ represent photography’s continued evolvement and passion for life on our small, elegant planet” — though “rarified,” by definition, means to be esoterically distant or exclusive from the lives and concerns of ordinary people.
Skiba’s “Prodigal Daughter” is centered mainly on a little girl sitting on a fence. Angled straight forward, the camera’s eye is focused on her. The entire photo is blurred, however, and the edges are blackened as well. While the actual picture may not be mind-blowing, the depth certainly is intriguing. Punctuating the photo in the upper-right corner is a smaller photo of presumably the same girl but as an infant sitting with her parents.
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Witness for the Prosecution → ACT Mystery
By Jessica Bowman
I have a passion for Agatha Christie. Not a creepy, undying love or anything like that, just a fervent devotion to her work. Of course, I can’t resist a good mystery in general, but the Dame of Deviousness brings a new level of sophistication, wit and intrigue to the traditional “whodunit.” And one of her most famous plays, “Witness for the Prosecution” is a classic example well-presented by a slew of local actors and a small community theater.
You can’t have a Christie mystery without a good twist — and in this case, it’s a doozy. The play (first performed in 1953) is about a young man accused (in his opinion, wrongly) of murder. His lawyer and an esteemed judge take on the case and attempt to get him out of all charges. Of course, complications ensue, and things aren’t exactly what they seem. I can’t tell you any more because trust me; you’ll want to figure it out yourself.
Lauded local Robert Pond, formerly Anchorage Community Theatre’s Artistic Director of more than 40 years, directs the season-opener and brings an air of formality and gravity to the show. He’s a helpful coach, and a hands-on director — the actors listen to his every word as he moves across the stage in another skin to show this actor how to pick up a book, and this one how to sit on a chair just so, with an ease and presence that denotes decades of experience.
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Rare Light → Exibit
By Rebbecca A. Goodrich
Chuck bloviates. It happens on page 153, in a sprightly romantic comedy, The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway by Janice Weber (1985). This particular interior literary voice also commands, clucks, echoes, moans, instructs, and tortures, as well as prescribes, as in: So back up, Chuck prescribed.
Our Heroine, a feisty hymn-composer married to A Very Nice but Wrong Man, also has a few literary twists and shouts of her own:
“So, cutie,” I postured, executing Pooh with my eyes, . . . ” she says on page 162.
All these dialog tag words and more, in addition to told, whispered, muttered, soothed, insisted, panted, and explained, decorate this novel.
And of course, he said, she said.
Victoria Mixon, author of a March 2009 article on dialog tags, notes that her favorite “antique dialog tag is interpolated.’” Ellery Queen, she says, was a great one for interpolating.
Now, I wouldn’t call Ellery Queen antique, I’d call him classic. Goes to show how one writer’s sour is another writer’s tang.
Just because Victoria Mixon bears the name of a bodice-ripped protagonist, one mustn’t assume she will blithely promote the use of antique, er, non-contemporary expostulations.
In fact, her article gives her own severely limited list of dialog tags; she uses six. Six.
Should we follow her example? Only if we want to get published, Ms. Mixon admonishes. (Says, says, says.)
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Inside the August issue of F Magazine:
New Work → by Jesus Landin-Torrez III, Peter Porco, David McElroy, Cynthia Deike-Sims, Phyllis Dalton and Tim Wilson.
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Formally Known As → Sophie The Clown
Story and photos by Teeka A. Ballas
They were the sidekicks, the funny men, the pause for laughter between nail biting trapeze acts. Then a social evolution occured and seemingly overnight clowns became all the terror. Children went screaming to their mothers when Bozo jumped onto the stage. Adults professed an innate and illogical fear of men with fuzzy red wigs. It was a little like a cosmic consciousness. One didn’t even have to have been plagued with John Wayne Gacy stories or have seen Poltergeist 100 times to know there was something intrinsically wrong with anyone who wore fluffy pants, a red nose and face paint. Finding a clown for a birthday party became quite the challenge, and parents often had to resort to dressing themselves up – only to learn in the midst of a hundred screaming and crying children, that their costume didn’t have the same affect as the Santa Claus attire.
But the cosmic consciousness seems to be changing yet again, and the love for clowns is coming back around. As alternative circus acts are popping up all over the country, the clown is making returning to the limelight. Though also slightly alternative, the schtick is still the same funny business as it once was: messy juggling, foiled acrobatics and mimed interpretative skits.
Though there are still only a couple of clowns to be found in Anchorage when browsing the Web (there’s not a “clown” listing in the phone book), there are up and coming clowns to be found via word of mouth. One such jester is Sophie the Clown. And what makes Sophie different than the rest of the resurging clowns in Alaska – not to mention that the word of mouth has to really come from some serious connections, is that she’s only 9 years old.
Sophie Gustafson is a pretty normal 9 year old in most ways. She’s 4’9 and has a pleasant gap between her two front teeth – a signature of youth. She plays piano, reads ghost stories, watches Goosebumps, sings with the school choir, and adores Justin Bieber. She even has a lemonade stand.
Or as her mother, Lydia Johnson says, “A lemonade business.”
“She’s like a regular carnival barker out there,” says Lydia. “She makes up new jingles all the time.”
Sophie charges 50 cents a cup, and according to her mother, profits about $30-$40 a day. At 9 years of age, she’s already learning the hardships of running her own operation. She has to buy all of her own supplies and pay the neighbor girl who helps out.
She’s almost a normal kid. But what really sets her apart from her friends though, is her goofiness. Even without a clown suit on, she’s got tricks up her sleeve.
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Art From Afar → The walls of the Backpacker Inn
By Kellie Doherty Photos by Serine Halverson
Every kid knows they’re not supposed to write on the walls. Heck, even in our adulthood this is a well-reasoned fact and the act is (usually) frowned upon. It’s just common courtesy not to do such a thing.
But what would you do if you were encouraged to write on the walls – to paint a picture or pen a quote? Would you go against all reason and do it?
The folks at the Alaska Backpackers Inn are hoping that you will. The owners and receptionists even give out the paint, brushes, and pens to do just that. No, they’re not advocating graffiti in Anchorage, but they would like travelers visiting Anchorage to ink up the inside of their backpackers’ hostel.
“When people travel they like to leave their mark somehow,” long-time receptionist, Manuel Browne said. Browne has been at the Alaska Backpackers Inn since it opened during the summer of 2007. He saw the idea flourish into life from the very beginning. He said he actual idea to open the walls up to the travelers was, regretfully, not his own, rather the musings of then owner of the Inn – Jamie Boring.
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Mixing It Up → Yngvil Vatn Guttu
By Yngvil Vatn Guttu
Many lovers of music collect albums and favorite artists, but possess little knowledge of the inner machinations of composition, performance and the recording process. Anchorage-based musician (who can also be attributed to a myriad other qualities), Yngvil Vatn Guttu released her first solo album “Akutaq” this summer. This is a personal account of some of the trials and tribulations she encountered in the process of recording Akutaq – perhaps lending a little insight to the magically mysterious art of album creation.
ME AND MY HORN
According to my own publicity I am an experienced composer. That doesn’t mean I know what the hell I am doing, or that I’ve ever had a specific direction. Looking back, my career path meanders like an unconscious river over soft tidal marshes.
A famous dead Norwegian poet said each of his songs would come “drifting by on a plank.” I guess that means he didn’t know exactly where the song came from, just that it was somewhere behind the horizon, and he could get a good sense of it by looking at the current.
I’ve always had this turbo charged mind incessantly bubbling with ideas that become projects, which in turn spawn tasks that add up to staggering “to do” lists. It may seem creative to others, and it does even to myself in moments of glorious denial.
I don’t retain memories of actually writing a tune. I think songs happen incredibly fast or not at all. If I have a song or a tune that’s only 80 percent there and I am in not in a mad rush to finish it, it will probably never be finished. It has taken me MANY years to learn the art of completion – transcribing musical ideas and then letting a bunch of musicians loose on it.
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Hurricane Dave → Here to Stay
By Matt Sullivan
Cheechako is an old Chinook word meaning “newcomer.” Specifically, it applies to a person new to Alaska. Anchorage-based singer/songwriter Hurricane Dave’s new album marks his own graduation from newcomer status, having moved here from Florida two years ago. On The Cheechako Chronicles, released just a couple months ago, Hurricane Dave shows off what he’s learned about his adopted home state and makes the case for his eligibility for the Permanent Fund Dividend. The album’s subtitle is Postcards, Emails and Tweets from Alaska, but if that wasn’t an obvious enough clue to Dave’s general goofiness, lead track “Dance With the Wide-Eyed Cheechakos (Dave & Jill’s Waltz)” sets the album’s tone right off the bat.
It’s a song that’s beyond goofy, and the drum machine coupled with Dave’s delivery might sound too hokey for some. But that’s obviously Hurricane Dave’s personality, and these songs would be nothing without it. The fact that Dave is funny doesn’t hurt either, even if some of the jokes are corny ones your dad might embarrass you with in front of your friends. There’s a song about losing a fight with a bear over a salmon, an ode to Iditarod musher Jim Lanie , and another one about buying genuine Alaska artifacts only to find out later that the tourist shop sold you something made in China.
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Hoop! → With or without fire
By Aurora Lewis
In the beginning, I was a dancer; from the formal education of ballet, to underground raves held in gymnasiums. Then there was the hoop – this magical little ring of opportunity.
Like all my friends, I started hooping at music festivals in the summer time. At first I wasn’t too interested because I felt it would interfere with actual dancing, but when a friend finally convinced me, it changed the way I moved forever. It was so addictive, even with bruises all up my left side.
That fall, I packed up everything and moved to Seattle, determined to learn everything I could about hooping. I got a job at a toy store, Top Ten Toys, a nice little family affair in the Greenwood neighborhood. I made and sold hoops from the store and spent 8 hours a day teaching kids to hoop and practicing everything I could find on you tube during my lunch breaks. It consumed my life. Then I got a fire hoop for Christmas that year. It added a whole different level to this hooping thing. I still say that fire hoops and regular hoops are 2 different beasts.
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Inside the August 2010 issue
Carving Alaska → Totem Poles 
Story by Makenzie Rose DeVries, Photos by Serine Halverson There is life here, and joy, I think to myself as I enter the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. A Native Tlingit dance group is performing on the main stage. Nearly every seat in the audience is taken. Dancers swing and stomp in their long red and black button blankets, or dancing robes. Faces open in chant behind masks carved into the shape of ravens. My chest expands with the same feeling that I get from pulling up to the Glenn Alps trailhead, my breath full of mountains and tundra, an unmistakable flavor of the Alaskan land and life celebrated by both Alaska Natives and non-Natives alike. Outside and behind the Heritage Center building, are several representations of different traditional Alaska Native dwellings. The Southeast Village Site, representing the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes, is a low wooden-clan house, its inner belly sunken into the earth for clan members’ sleeping space. To the left, a carving shed dominates the area with four totem poles, animal faces and designs that are only partly emerged from the wood. A wood carving demonstration has been in progress here since June 14, and will continue through August 14, when the poles will be erected amid much celebration. . . .
A Grating Pleasure → The Moon Knights
By Matt Sullivan Photos by Gretchen Weiss
F Magazine celebrated a year of publication back in June and marked the occasion with a party at the MTS Gallery in Mountain View. To commemorate the anniversary Alaska-based artists, poets and musicians were on hand to do their respective things, including the Moon Knights, who just so happen to do a pretty show-stopping sort of thing. The Anchorage-based quartet is an indie band of the classic mold. Their recordings are far from slick and far from mainstream. In a simple punk tradition, the musicianship on their recordings can sometimes get a little spotty, and spotty doesn’t come close to describing the fidelity. But none of that is an accident. It’s a calculated naivety that’s as old as rock and roll, and it lets the character of the players shine through. The Moon Knights’ playful and impish lyrics tend to skew toward decidedly youthful concerns, while drums, keyboards, guitars and occasional saxophones are played with greater concern for enthusiasm than precision. That sort of reckless abandon is infectious. . . .
Collaboscope→ Words & Music
By Teeka A. Ballas Photos by Gretchen Weiss Jim Carroll was the first poet to inspire me with his spoken word (“Basketball Diaries” is a film about his life). He was a slammer in a sense. His “Metamorphosis of a Cockroach” was an ok read, but to hear him render his words to the air with his wit and sarcasm made them a completely different experience – and thus my mind was opened to the world of slam. It was with this knowledge and experience of how poetry can be transformed by voice that I first heard Mickey Kenny. But for me, Kenny is no Carroll; his words don’t rely on his voice to convey them, they’re equally as powerful in written form. For instance, read the first stanza of “Music Meditation: Track #2” (semi-colons denote line break and possibly voice inflection): The ancient philosopher Pythagoras once said; that a stone is just frozen music; Well I think music is a stone melting; into a hot breathe of lava; blown through a volcano like it was a; trumpet trying to split the heavens open with an opus; I think music; is when a shell in the desert will still speak the ocean; music is the ocean; swaying in tune with the radiance of the moon; when watery waves break dance to space needles; scratching those flattened black holes rotating like records; music isn’t an old radio; music is the golden ratio; music is when a fire speaks; sparks and sparks speak fire; and stars seem brighter than the sun; music is sound and; silence fighting inside of your lung; firing guns; iron bullets flying from tongues get; caught in clarinets; bullet shaped stones melt into a breath where; fingers lift and leave; like pistons releasing steam; music isn’t an itunes playlist; music is a tongue coated with; cadence; using passionate assonance and a little bit of; alliteration where syllables paint; a literal illustration; music is the pulsating; stars and skies that harmonize with the; rhythm of our; hearts and eyes when arteries become these; red stained flutes that start to cry: silver sounds that scar silence … . . .
Fairbanks → Opera
By Jessie Desmond The familiar music of the overture for Mozart’s Don Giovanni filled the Charles Davis Concert Hall at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks last July. Being a fan of classical music I knew the overture well. I glanced around at the crowd in the dim theatre and saw attendant faces and empty seats. The halfway filled hall was a little disappointing, but the crowd seemed excited to see the show; having never been to an opera before, I too was excited. The orchestra (music director, Gregory Buchalter), situated at the back of the stage, played beautifully and fell right into the first act without hesitation. As the first character, Leporello (Grammy-nominated Richard Bernstein), made his way onto the stage, I was delighted to hear his bass-baritone voice carry so far into the theatre. The opera itself was in Italian. I was quite pleased to see that there were some basic subtitles on a discreet screen above the stage. . . .
Fairbanks → Burlesque
By Jessie Desmond
In the dim front half of the basement bar, The Marlin, last July, I found myself trying to find a place to sit amongst the growing crowd. The usual bohemian suspects were there, along with the more conservative rubber neckers. It wasn’t long before people started showing up in waves: People in costumes, a bachelorette party in ‘80s attire, bohemian college students, along with all the rest who’d heard about the one time Thursday night event. Before long, The Marlin was packed shoulder to shoulder. Carrie Seward (a.k.a. Dick Smoker), the organizer of the show, started the night off as MC, introducing the crowd to the night’s event, Hot Mess. The show was put on by Fleurs du Mal, a local Burlesque group in Fairbanks run by Seward. The night opened with a dancing duo and an erotic poem read by its author. This was followed by several music numbers, dancing acts, standup comedy, and even some mimes – all performed by locals who had the guts to strut their stuff. Hot Mess was the best I’ve seen in Fairbanks by locals, in a few years. I think the small space and the positive attitude of the crowd really gave it the spunk that it needed. . . .
Plein Air → For hire
By Amanda Thompson Photos by Steve Thompson
Bugs? Oddly absent. Gloomy weather? Not in Talkeetna during mid July’s Moose Dropping Festival. Buskers? Just one – a young guy in slouchy clothes, playing a fiddle just squeaky enough to be happily rustic. Busker. I first heard the term during my recent stint teaching art in Germany. I was listening to an interview with Rodrigo e Gabriela. They started their career on the streets of Ireland – Mexicana-meets-Metallica acoustic covers of all things. My inner rock star had listened with interest. I raised sympathetic eyes to the busker in Talkeetna, and my friend threw a dollar in the case. My hometown hasn’t thrown me any money for my amateur songwriting. It has, however, rewarded me in many surprising ways for painting en plein air along its city streets. Last year I volunteered to teach art at a unique school in sunny Southern Germany. The pack that I dragged back over the ocean contained chocolate that didn’t survive my Dallas layover, clothes from European flea markets that smelled like melted chocolate, and my set of 10-year-old oil paints. Absent were any plans to work in a tourist-related industry for once. It was scary, but I felt it was time to not spend a summer that way. Away from the tourist traps, I was going to paint. . . .
Theatre → like a drive-by shooting
By Jonathan Lang
Watching live theatre can be sheer entertainment. There’s not much that compares to the thrill of being the actor, and the rush of adrenaline when the lights come up – but believe it or not, the most exhilaration to be experienced may just in fact be by the writer – at least Alaskan playwrights. There are a horde of Alaskan playwrights every year who get to experience, for two different events, the combination of hypertension and ink. For some, it’s about the consequence of time; the Alaskan Overnighters is the competition of writing and producing a play in less than 24 hours. For others it’s about the parameters of space; One Page Play Festival is comprised of plays written on one 8½ x 11 page – Both events are hosted and administered by 3 Wise Moose and TBA Theatre. . . .
W.A.T.T. → Invest
By Theodore Kincaid
Okay, so you all know we live in this American culture, an odd one full of back and forth, up and down, black and white, ripe with double standards. Part of which is derived from living in a Democracy with a plethora of voices all screaming for different things and settling inconsistently on things that they feel are acceptable compromises. One of those dualities in our culture is the battle between Socialism and Capitalism, two camps fighting for supremacy since day one. Two camps fighting, sometimes to the death; the forum is the American psyche and the weapon is language. As artists tend to be of the extreme Socialist camp, they adopt a different sigma to common words than Capitalists and Centrists, and they forget how those words are associated amongst the other camps. Or you could say, artists use words that are inappropriate and do not always convey their intent. I am no language scholar like Noam Chomsky, but I have a proposal toward the vernacular to make. I propose we strike the word “support” from our inventory. The problem with the word “support” is that it is temporary and does not generally advocate payoff. You support the firefighters when they bring out the boot, but you really aren’t making an association with the future benefit of the firefighters. It feels good. You do it and write those dollars off with no intent of getting anything in return. .
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Inside the July issue of F Magazine:
New Work → by Jesus Landin-Torrez III, Elizabeth L. Thompson, Andi Powers, Avril Johannes, and j.t. Shedaker
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Wheels & Willpower → Ted Kim 
Story by Riza Parsons, Photos by Brian Adams, Illustrations by Ted Kim
Ted walked into Modern Dwellers Chocolate Lounge wearing a black Thrasher hoodie and looking, well, studious and very young. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had walked up to the counter, ordered a skinny half-caf cappuccino and sat down to study for a final.
Since I had done my research prior to this interview (read: some light Facebook photo stalking and YouTube browsing) I knew I was meeting a pioneer of Anchorage’s skateboarding scene and producer of local skate videos. Beneath his calm demeanor lies a frenzied passion for all aspects of skating, which he considers an art rather than a sport. Conversely, his actual art looks like it takes the indefatigable will of an Olympic athlete; the intricacy and detail are astounding.
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F’n Recap → revisiting our F’n past
By Multiple Authors
Art Impermanent By Teeka A. Ballas Art, by definition is subjective. Whether it’s the geometric configurations of Kandinsky or the spontaneous liquid drips and splashes of Pollock, there is a beholder who will revel in its existence. Then there are those whose every aspect of their life, not just the manipulated canvas, but the space in which they dwell that defines them as artists. Local Artists to Gather in Street By Lindsay Johnson Watch out Portland, Anchorage is making moves to hang on to its talent! This city’s art scene is busting to get outside the box, and instead of encouraging the exodus to artsy towns of the Lower 48, a group of downtown merchants have come together with a way to retain and refresh local artistry. plain brown wrapper “I was livin’ in a warehouse off Arctic in the depths of Spenard. It was an artist studio I had come to share with my friend Alisha’s brother, Zak… The times were blurred and debaucherous with a tendency to fuel our most eccentric nature. I lived off canned soup, day old bread, microwave burritos, cheap beer and Stoli…. The warehouse wasn’t zoned for livin’ in, so I had to sneak out early in the morning and come home after business hours so I wouldn’t get caught.”
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W.A.T.T.→ Your Final Request
By Theodore Kincaid
One of my favorite places to visit when I arrive in a new town is the cemetery (plural if I am lucky). It is not so much out of a morbid curiosity or a romance with death, but the tenderness associated with the loved one as well as a desire to commemorate those who are forgotten. The sad part is most tombstones are as personal as the diet cola they once drank: mass produced with predictable verbiage. In a way you could argue that is what sums a person up in their base components. But let us pretend for a few minutes that there is more to a person than the sperm and egg that they came from, the diet cola they drank and the regurgitated phrases they pass. What about an individual’s legacy? More importantly how can you and I help?
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What time is it? → The 11:20s
By: Matt Sullivan
It’s hard to say just what the 11:20s are getting at with a name like that. The Anchorage-based band could be referencing a time of day, but is it closer to midday or midnight? Is it some sort of police officer lingo, like 187 or 311 or maybe a 10-4 good buddy? Either way, Good News First, the name of the 11:20s debut album released early last year, is a reference that’s maybe a bit more immediate. When given the option of good news vs. bad news, a lot of people would probably choose to hear the good news first.
The photograph on the cover of Good News First depicts some surfers riding out a low, rolling wave, and, try as hard as one might, imagining a bummed out surfer is difficult—at least not one in the act of surfing. But that sort of counterintuitive thinking is what kick-starts Good News First. The four-piece rolls out “Why (Bang Bang),” an upbeat and fun lead track with a sound akin to early Wilco. It hints toward Being There’s rusticness and leans on Summerteeth’s idiosyncrasies, creating a wave of mild psychedelic, synthesized quirkiness, and a pinch of heartland twang. But instead of riding along and enjoying the sounds of the good times, vocalist Chad Reynvaan croons about being bummed out and doesn’t understand why his girl left him.
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View F Magazine June 2010 online here
Download the F June 2010 PDF
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Inside the June issue of F Magazine:
New Work → by Jesus Landin-Torrez III, K B Imle, Kellie Doherty, Andi Powers, Stefie Coppock, AKA Jaz, Caroline Stellhorn, and Trevor O’Hara
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Music Activism → Whole Wheat Radio 
Story by Teeka Ballas, Photos by Serine Halverson
The directions are 7.5 miles – from Talkeetna, or are we supposed to be looking for the milepost? We hit Talkeetna without any sightings of E. Birch Creek Blvd., so we drive back from whence we came, and miss the sign again. Evidently I didn’t look closely enough at the directions before we left Anchorage, and my chicken scratch scrawl makes medical scripts look like calligraphy. Thankfully we are full of caffeine and humor. Eventually we find it, and within moments we are pulling into the dirt lot of the Wheat Palace, a 48×36 log cabin on a 20-acre lot. Home of Whole Wheat Radio. Of the list of places we selected to preview for the Road Tripping for Art issue of F Magazine, it is by far at the top. Partially because it is a pirate radio station (and who doesn’t love pirates – at least those of yore), but mostly because it imbues the qualities F Magazine represents: independence and arts-based community.
Download the F June 2010 PDF
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Across the Bay → Escape to the Simple Life
By Gretchen Weiss
Anchorage slipped away in the rearview mirror as the trusty Subaru sporting a kayak cap sailed along the inlet highway. This is the first road trip of the season and the rotation of the tires and the traveling odometer paved away the bumps, stress and bustle of everyday life. Cruise control set, shoes off and salty sweet road snacks taste of freedom.
It is the third weekend in May, the leaves in Anchorage have just blushed, and everyone is sniffling into a coat of birch pollen. Travelling though Girdwood, the mercury stretches to a balmy 55 degrees in the sun. Climbing the pass, the leaves shrink and disappear leaving sleeping sticks that as we continue, are still wrapped in snow. I fervently ask the powers-that-be for the nine feet of snow reported at Across the Bay Tent and Breakfast to have been obliterated by the sun before our arrival.
Download the F June 2010 PDF
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W.A.T.T.→ Homeless
By Theodore Kincaid
So I had this idea: If the art world is about looking at the world through a different lens and challenging the conventional, then how can an artist who is part of the art world take a step back, assess through an alien perspective and truly challenge the norm? Only through an earnestly divorced perspective can someone learn that which cannot be learned from being too close to the subject. Otherwise the product is the same stale regurgitated cannon that has been echoed for decades.
Download the F June 2010 PDF
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North of Southern Rock → Last Train’s TurnAgain
By: Matt Sullivan
The title of Last Train’s debut album is a reference familiar to Anchoragites, but Turnagain’s function in this title might represent something broader than a stretch of water jutting out of Cook Inlet or the neighborhood to which it lends its name. The themes in TurnAgain often revolve around a familiar rock ‘n roll trope: A fear of confinement. Bruce Springsteen was born to run. Tom Petty ran down a dream and didn’t want to live like a refugee. Rock musicians are always blowing this Popsicle stand or another. Many of TurnAgain’s characters are doing just that—turning and running to or from something else.
Download the F June 2010 PDF
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- First Year Anniversary
Download the May 2010 PDF
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Inside the May issue of F Magazine:
New Work → Poetry by Jimmi Ware
Burgers & Sardines → Poet Sol Gerstenfeld 
Story & Photos by Teeka Ballas
Poets come in all shapes, sizes and ages, but I have to admit, I got rather excited when I received a tip on an 85 year-old published poet hiding out in Mt. View; a potentially great story!
Expecting a standard sort of interview, I phone him to set one up.
“Well, tomorrow will be fine,” he says, in a curt raspy voice, “but call before you come over to make sure I’m still here.” He seems to be inferring he might not be alive tomorrow.
So when tomorrow rolls around, I call him to let him know I’m on my way.
“Well, alright. But bring me a Whopper and a cherry soda.” He’s quite demanding, and I assume at once I am going to have my hands full with this one.
Download the May 2010 PDF
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Flow & Form → All She Wants To Do Is Dance
By Riza Parsons
Photos by Serine Halverson
Language is an inadequate means to describe dance. It is a poor substitute for the ethos of the limbs, the struggle of muscles, the blood coursing to supply energy to the expression. A thousand different things are happening in one sweeping movement. Even the dancers themselves can’t properly articulate what they are doing as they do it.
When Stephanie Wonchala, founder of Pulse Dance Company, calls out, “1,2, booties, 4!” or “We’re grabbing seeds here…and then we’re feeling the air,” it can only convey the mere slip of an idea. Dance is an experience for all the senses, but a striking visual effect is the goal. Stephanie knows first-hand how far appearances can take you.
Download the May 2010 PDF
The {street art} Beat → Mountain View Community Road Project
By: Jessica Bowman
Let’s be honest. When you think Mountain View, you think of enormous shopping centers, pawn shops, dense populations, vibrant diversity, and, for the past decade, a focused effort toward revitalization. You think Red Apple. In a state filled with natural, wild and aesthetic grandeur, compact city blocks just can’t compete—especially those with few parks, trees, benches and tall buildings. So when you think Mountain View, you usually don’t think “beauty and art.”
But at the end of August this year, think again. Mountain View Drive—from the Glenn Highway turnoff to the new Credit Union 1 building—will soon have a definite claim as one of Anchorage’s most artistic, if not gorgeous, streets.
Download the May 2010 PDF
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Essay → Only Shades of Gray: Color in Words
By: Rebecca A. Goodrich
Color-blindness. Fortunately, most of us don’t have it. Especially not the true and complete lack of ability to see color called autosomal recessive achromatopsia.
This is the blessing and curse of Kay Farrow, a character created by David Hunt in his murder mystery The Magician’s Tale, (1997). Kay is a professional photographer in San Francisco. Naturally, she works only in black and white.
This wonderful and many-layered character longs for a dream in which she can perceive colors. All she can do is “savor the sounds” of the names of the colors. On the flip side, she enjoys listing the appellations of the colors she is able to see, in the rarefied world in which she exists.
Download the May 2010 PDF
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Bells & Whistles, Please → Anchorage-Style Showbiz Needs Juicing
By: Matt Sullivan
Some complaining is coming up, maybe even some bitching or moaning, so this is probably the best place to start: kudos to the student-staffed Concert Board at University of Alaska Anchorage. Between the Iron & Wine, Upright Citizens Brigade and Aesop Rock shows of the past few months, they’ve convinced some world-class entertainers to visit our far-flung city. No doubt, a lot of that convincing is expensive, often times prohibitively so. Couple that with all the promotion and legal headaches that surely follow when you actually reach an agreement with an artist (or artist’s management), and a lot of the following suggestions might seem a little moot. But the Aesop show on April 10th made obvious something that’s problematic city-wide. The production value behind some of these big shows is typically crap.
Download the May 2010 PDF
F April Issue PDF
March 2010
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February 2010 ISSUE
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JUNE 2009 ISSUE
Order a printed copy |:| June 2009 pdf (Link will redirect to another page, click on file name again to download)
- Cover
MAY 2009 Issue
Order a printed copy |:| May 2009 Edited PDF
May 2009 Cover
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