Photos by Michael R.L. Kern
First Friday patrons at the Annex look at “Heart and the Egg Two” by Gretjen Helene Hargesheimer.

This month’s art displays demonstrated that sometimes creating something beautiful is child’s play.

The Bear Gallery hosted the “Up with Art” show and competition. To commemorate Arts Education Month in Alaska, the Up with Art show, operated by the North Star schools and Fairbanks Arts Association, is designed to allow K-12 students to express their talents and skills in a professional manner.

They did not disappoint in creating a wide array of beautiful and creative pieces, some of which were indistinguishable from the works of a working artist. Ten works from each school were selected for the show, making simple acceptance of a work an award in itself.

First place winner, in the printmaking division, Kimberley Mahlen, wasn’t sure why she was judged as the best in her group, but was glad that she entered. “My teacher liked what I did, so it was entered.”

According to Art Coordinator Barbara Short, the Up with Art show is now 30 years in the running.

Well Street Art Company featured brilliant earthen works by Jim Brasher. The vessels were glazed with natural tones and many depicted primitive scenes of hunts on the open plains. Both well crafted and beautifully worked, an almost filmstrip story emerged on each of their circumferences.

The Annex Gallery played host to a showing by Gretjen Helene Hargesheimer.

“I am what I think of and have the desire to do.”

Her work told a story of love, loss, and a shattered state left from the initial feelings of perfection that turn to disillusionment during the process of love between two beings; the disharmony coming from an eventual shattering emptiness when the relationship ends.

“When people view love they see it as perfection, but it is actually a mergence of two beings into a separate entity, unto itself, chaotic.”

Using interdependent grape and ivy vines in her art, she created nests and structures. Within the nests there were broken eggs containing photos of the memories.

The centerpiece of the show featured a glass egg amidst a series of love letter streamers, depicting the length of several relationships. Within the egg a real heart lay, only viewable from the top.

The show was quite striking with its use of natural items and photographs. There was also some degree of shock value with seeing an animal heart within this opaque white glass vessel. I’m not sure that I received her message, but I do believe I took home something powerful.