Alaskan Raven Studio

Art in Alaska. Story of an Alaskan artist.

  • About Raven
  • Paintings and Prints
  • Ravenistas
  • Studio
  • in private collections
  • raven ramblings outside the studio window

A Dream Fulfilled

March 16, 2019 by Raven

KFAR Radio Tower, moose wearing cowboy hat, wolf staring at you, mountains cape with river, aurora and baseballs flying out as moons in the galaxyA Dream Fulfilled
48″ x 60″ Kroma paint on canvas by Raven $5500.
sold

Sometimes you have an idea that doesn’t make sense but you have to explore it. You could list all the reasons it won’t work. but why bother? You know you have to try it.

Just begin and see where it goes.

I can’t explain the concept. I don’t know how it is going to work. It is only a sketchy rough feeling kind of idea. Find symbols and shapes to represent all of their eight different radio stations. Make them interact and form a painting full of energy, hope and promise.

I reasearch their history. KFAR went on air in 1939 with the tallest self supporting tower in North America! During the early days of Alaska aviation, pilots set their homing beacons on 660 AM to help guide them back to Fairbanks. Austin “Cap” (short for Captain) Lathrop’s vision was to broadcast to the whole interior of Alaska. He invested in a transmitter 10 times bigger than he needed for Fairbanks.

What if his dream was actually much bigger? What if…

My painting begins with swoops of orange lines on canvas. Five feet by four feet of stretched canvas. Held up by two ladders because it is too massive for even my largest easel.

Story emerges as paint flows. Words grow on a sheet of note paper within arms reach. Story and painting grow together for several weeks.

Story changes the painting. Painting changes the story.

Finally it makes sense in a crazy fun sort of way and I laugh.

Delivery day for the painting. Squeeze the large canvas at an angle into the back of my Toyota Four Runner and dash to my appointment. Fortunately, the station manager understands crazy-fun-wonderfullness of story and dreams. He finds symbols in the painting that I didn’t realize are there. He chooses to immediately hang his painting on the wall.

Stop by 529 5th Avenue, Suite 200 when you are in Fairbanks and find the painting in their lobby. You won’t miss it.

I hope you will be energized to plunge forward with your impossible dreams. Let me know when you decide to make real your galaxies of impossibilities.

I’ll be cheering for you.

Filed Under: sold

What’s New?

Receive the inside scoop of what’s happening in Studio Notes,

Raven Ramblings

Shipment arrives

“Sterling, look at that!” “Look at what, Felix?” “That huge box. From Canada.” “Looks like the artist received another shipment of Kroma paint. Watch, she’ll spend the rest of the day arranging it in her studio. All those tubes of paint go in some sort of order.” “Paint? What is that?” “Paint is color. She […]

Edges are important

“Sterling, What is the artist doing now?” “What do you mean, Felix?” “She spends lots of time brushing paint on the sides of her painting. The edges. You know what I mean?” “She makes changes on it when she changes the front of the painting. The sides appear to be important to her.” “But why?” […]

More Adventures

contact me with questions or comments

Alaskan Raven Studio
PO Box 80231
Fairbanks, Alaska 99708
USA
alaskanblackbird@yahoo.com

 

Represented by:
Well Street Art Co.
1302 Well Street
Fairbanks, Alaska
907 452-6169

Stephan Fine Arts
939 West 5th Ave.
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
USA
(907) 274-5009
http://www.stephanfinearts.com/

more about Raven

I ventured to Alaska before there was an oil pipeline and fell in love with the gnarly spruce trees, intense weather and mountains I could touch. Very different from the landscape in St. Louis. I was looking for different. The spruce trees: those scraggy, wizened, lanky conifers danced onto the first page of my sketch […]

  • About Raven
  • Paintings and Prints
  • Ravenistas
  • Studio

Copyright © 2025 · Modern Portfolio Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in