Alaskan Raven Studio

Art in Alaska. Story of an Alaskan artist.

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Traveling Back in Time

July 13, 2017 by alaskanraven

I climbed up the riverbank and feasted my eyes on remnants of cabins. They were sinking into the tundra holding onto their own story that I tried to decipher. Where should I paint? Each cabin looked more intriguing than the last.

I walked all the paths and pondered what life must have been like when the community thrived. We had only traveled seven miles down the Koyukuk River but we had journeyed back over a hundred years. Gordon Bettles had chosen this site in 1896 to establish his trading post during the gold rush. It was as far as the old riverboats could go. Airplanes forced the community to abandon this beautiful location and move upriver next to the new airstrip in the mid 1940’s.

But not everyone left until recently.

Standing in front of one of the buildings, I was told, “We came here on our snow machines and would dance all night inside this building”. The General Store in Old Bettles seemed to bow in acknowledgment. The weathered dance floor was removed but it still held onto the memories of better days. This is where I chose to plant my easel. Old bottles peeked out from the windows, weathered sheet metal and signage told it’s story. It was a perfect location to contemplate local color and paint wildly.

Old Bettles General Store
Old Bettles General Store

10″ x 14″ watercolor by Raven, USA

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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
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