Kenai artist Abbey Ulen isn’t on the same painting schedule as her wall neighbors in the Kenai Art Center.
They paint at night. Ulen comes in during the day.
“Every morning I come in and there’s different things on either side of me," she said. "So I try to maybe pull some colors into my piece. Just to give a little bit of continuity.”
The delightful cacophony of colors and artistic styles is what makes the center’s mural show so eye-catching. Twenty artists from around the peninsula are assigned canvas-covered panels of wall space to put up their paintings, one right next to the other, covering the walls of the showroom.
Now, with a week until the opening reception, all the murals are in different states of completeness.
Ulen’s is one of the more finished pieces. Her slice of wall is a scene from her childhood on the peninsula.
“This is kind of a story about when I was a little girl," she said, gesturing to her mural. "I used to go catch frogs in the frog pond behind my house and have adventures with my dog. And so it’s kind of a comic book representation of the images I used to have when I was little.”
She likes painting on large surfaces. There’s more freedom and room to get creative.
“This is my jam," she said. "I like this a lot, painting big.”
On the other side of the room, Susan Watkins was painting the tentacles onto an octopus. Watkins, who lives in Kasilof, is relatively new to the Kenai Peninsula, by way of Eagle River.
But she’s not new to murals. You can find her work all over Alaska and the country.
“I have my background as a freelance artist," she said. "I worked for Bass Pro Shops for years and Cabela’s and did their background murals for wildlife museums and stores across the country.”
Each time she’d travel to a new place to do a mural for a store, she’d dig into local landscapes and incorporate them into her pieces.
“That was part of the job," she said. "Get out and find out where people fish and what people like.”
Now, she’s painting a scene in her ownbackyard. Her mural brings spectators underwater, eye-to-eye with three belugas. Overhead, Redoubt and Mount Spurr loom behind white-capped waves.
“This is my scene, what I see. It’s new to me and refreshing," she said.
Hannah Kniceley, of Sterling, also found artistic inspiration in nature.
“I want it to look like it's breathing when I’m done with it," she said.
Her canvas is a column in the center of the room, where she piped bright orange acrylic onto a dark, gravely background. The base layer is a combination of paint, glue and sand, inspired by something that caught her eye on a hike in Seward.
“I sat down on this rock and I just realized, looking at this rock, that there’s this beautiful orange growth on it," she said. "So there’s this beautiful orange growth on it. It’s just the beautiful orange lichen and I was so inspired by the way it grows out circular.”
Artists are largely working solo. But there is room for impromptu collaboration. Watkins is working with Kenai artist Diane Dunn on a panel that will combine paper cranes with an ink-wash background.
Dunn is a prolific paper crane maker. She’s folded thousands for the Kenai Peninsula Peace Crane Garden Trails and Hospice of the Central Peninsula.
She has another piece in the exhibit, covered in white plastic masks shaped like faces. Hers has a message, rooted in the challenges of the last year and a half.
“It’s been really difficult. People take sides, we’ve divided ourselves," she said. "Some of us have come together. So trying to find compassion. I mean, that’s really the main thing.”
Some of the faces have blue masks painted over their mouths and noses. Others are mounted on large black dots. Behind every face is the word “compassion.”
It’s a word she thinks of when she recalls her own experience with the virus.
“Personally, I received the vaccines and I still got COVID and experienced some pretty terrible things. And the biggest fear was, ‘Did I give it to my family?’ Because I didn’t know that I had contracted the variant, even wearing masks," she said. "So this is very personal to me. It’s like, I have more compassion for people after going through it.”
Dunn is incorporating her own story into her part of the exhibit.
“Part of this installation will be a performance piece where I’ve kind of written out my story on a mask," Dunn said. "And so I’ll sit here so that people can read my story. And hopefully look inside themselves and maybe think a little differently about all of this. And have compassion for each other.”
The Kenai Art Center is hosting a reception for the mural show Nov. 11.
Muralists are wrapping up their work Sunday. Until then, members of the public can watch them paint during the center’s normal hours, between noon and 5 p.m. each day.
