What’s Up, YUKON!
July 8, 2005
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Thinking Art Outside the Horse: Dawson DAWSON CITY ome of the places for artists to sell work to Dawson’s summer hordes are the No Gold Gallery on Front Street, the 40 Mile Gold Workshop/Studio at 3rd and York between Klondike Kate’s and the Palace Grand, and on 2nd Avenue between Queen and King, Dancing Moose Gifts .... The No Gold Gallery is the only commercial art gallery I’ve ever encountered that buys work from artists outright. Tammi Wallace also runs Maximillian’s Gold Rush Emporium next door. She’s not buying new artwork right now. Her original concept was to have only original art by Yukon artists, but she’s had to branch out into more reproductions and lower priced items that will move quickly ..... Leslie Chapman, goldsmith and
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owner of 40 Mile Gold, has chosen to carry only original art by Yukon artists. She used to stock reproductions as well, but no longer. She finds original artwork ties in better with her original, handcrafted jewelry, which she creates and sells on the premises. She’s redesigned her interior to make it more spacious, better to host the wine and smoked salmon receptions she throws for conventions. She will be using the track from a D-6 dozer to frame a new flower garden outside the gallery. She will fill it with exotic flowers grown for her by a local horticulturalist, Andrew McDonald, and her guests will be able to spill out into the Dawson evening by her garden ..... Chapman’s small, highceilinged log building houses a wide span of Yukon artwork. Daw-
Stock up on your summer reading
with Nicole Bauberger
son artists include Michael Mason of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, who makes antler carvings and paintings. His paintings are based on “one line design” - he draws them without lifting the pencil off the paper, then fills the shapes with colour. Another TH citizen, Mary Ann Knutson carries first nations’ influences into her delicate and original gold jewelry. She works carved mammoth ivory feathers and gold from her family mine on Last Chance Creek into her bracelets and necklaces. Sharon Edmunds’ immaculate mammoth ivory carvings add a finely worked quality to her jewelry. Carole Lagace, also of Dawson, creates stained glass — one simple yet
powerful piece depicting mountain and sky sticks with me. Faye Chamberlain’s caribou tufting on caribou antlers hang near Barbara Jeanne Smith’s abstracted and expressive landscapes in charcoal and pastels. Smith taught a course in Watercolours and Drawing at the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture in mid June. And of course she has a couple of oil paintings by Halin de Repentigny ..... From outside Dawson, Chapman shows Alice Park-Spurr, and has a new selection of her intricate, intimate miniatures. She also carries inlaid mammoth ivory jewelry by Yukon Artists @ Work member James Kirby, and some of his stones and ivory mask series of sculptures. Roxanne Kennedy and Amber Bernard-Althouse learn to play guitar at Play It Loud, Play It Proud. Lessons are offered free to youth, aged 12 to 18, at the Whitehorse Youth Centre at 6029 6th Avenue Tuesday and Thursday nights. Beginners learn from instructor Johnny Rogers from 6 to 7:00 p.m. and then those with a little more experience learn from 7 to 8:00 p.m.
4194 B 4th ave Across from Qwanlin Mall 393-2987
PHOTO: SAM CASHIN
Come to MacBride Museum and explore Yukon history! Daily summer programs include gallery tours, heritage talks, Sam McGee Fact or Fiction, gold panning demonstrations, and walking tours.
Nina’s Numbers • Bookeeping
Call (867) 667-2709 or check out our website at www.macbridemuseum.com
• Computerized Accounting
Open 7 days a week: 10 am - 9 pm M-F; 10 am - 7 pm S/S
• Office management • Friendly Professional Service
Located by the Yukon River at 1st & Wood in Whitehorse.
Your one stop Gift and Souvenir shop in Whitehorse. T-Shirts, Jewelry, Native Crafts and much, much more...We have it all!
Phone: 668-6237 Fax: 633-6445 Email: ninas@whtvcable.com
Ride the Trolley
Located by the Yukon River, at the bottom of Main Street, accross from the Whitepass Train Station.”
7 days a week 10am to 5pm $2 per ride Children under 7 free Seniors 1⁄2 price
Fellow co-op member and Crag Lake glass artist Jeanine Baker shows her fused and foiled glass confections there as well. She has some of my Dawson and Tombstones landscapes on the wall as well. (I may have missed somebody — there’s so much there) ..... Aside from the art, one of the chief attractions to the 40 Mile Gold Gallery is Chapman’s collection of naturally occurring gold nuggets from the various creeks in the Dawson area. Visitors can buy a nugget and commission Chapman to make them a custom pendant or earrings from their chosen treasure. She enjoys commissions, often making jewelry for miners using their own gold. One of her favourite commissions was for a woman from Yellowknife. She had baroque black pearls from the Cook Islands and commissioned Chapman to make a pendant with gold from Chapman’s family mine. I overheard her developing an idea for a pendant with a woman wanting a pendant to go with her dress for the Commissioner’s Ball, fine tuning the shape to the neckline of the woman’s gown as well as the colours in the dress. Chapman figures that jewelry as wearable art runs risks, and all her work comes with a lifetime warranty — she will repair anything she’s made. The gallery’s open every day during the summer from 10 a.m. till 9 p.m. ..... Dancing Moose Gifts carries digital photos by Igor Plenicar, art prints by Alaskan Dot Bardarson, prints of Jim Robb’s paintings, Patrick Royle’s pottery and fabric art wall hangings by Margaret Nazon. If you’re interested in showing there, owner Diana Andrew is interested in looking at your portfolio ..... Looking for a way to get up to Dawson? For artists, applications to the Yukon Riverside Arts Festival are due July 15, and you can get the forms off their website at www.kiac.org. The festival will take place August 12, 13 and 14 this year. Munch popcorn as you watch 16 mm films in a tent in the first real dark of the year. Enjoy outdoor performances on the dike by Amsterdam’s Helsdingen Jazz Quartet — they’re touring Canada with a grand piano in their sideopening bus. The Odd Gallery will be facilitating a thematic residency and exhibition project on The Natural and the Manufactured. Artists Peter von Tiesenhausen and Shirley Weibe will be creating site-specific installations, and art historian Dr. Gerard Curtis (David Curtis’ brother) will give a lecture exploring land-based, site-specific and environmental art practices. In other words, you’ve got to be there ..... That’s all for me for now. Send me your news at nbauberger@yahoo. com. Till soon, Nicole.