Following on the tails of a week-long residency earlier this summer, artists Danielle Stickman and Emily Sullivan are sharing pieces created while in Norway on Arnøya, Sápmi. “The Space We Breathe” will be on display at Alaska Pacific University through the end of next month — featuring bead work and photography installations.
“Beading outside, and especially in Norway, was a nice change, “Stickman said, who is of Dena’ina and Koyukon Athabascan descent. “And expanding on watercolor — it’s so easy to transport, so that was fun to bring you into the moment and see new things and colors. It was very grounding to be there, and then also to see the tides always changing, the landscape of the shoreline was really an indication of, ‘Listen to me, what’s coming up, what are you seeing?’”
Both Stickman and Sullivan work in northern latitudes and with northern communities. The duo went into the project fairly open-ended, and were in Norway for a total of three weeks; a week before and after the residency, plus the residency itself.
“We went to the Center for Northern Peoples and they had a great cultural exhibit on Sápmi relation to place,” Sullivan said. “We were reflecting on the themes that were similar to the way that we relate to place and lands.”
Sullivan brought a medium format film camera to shoot on while on their trip; a few of their images will be printed on fabric for the APU exhibition. She says that making that time for intention resulted in some unexpected artistic findings and “getting really weird with [it].”
“I ended up gathering buckets full of seaweed and embroidering on the seaweed, and drawing the seaweed and pressing it, and trying to sculpt with it, and that was an interesting piece of the process I never would have thought I would do before I got there,” Sullivan said.
Stickman says that the inspiration was overflowing, the real difficulty was narrowing down the pool of potential ideas.
“From what washed up from the ocean, there were all these sea urchins that were beautiful, and just different types of rocks. And the water, the shapes, and the way it changed during low and high tide,” Stickman said. “From the ocean to the top of the mountain when we saw the reindeer, everything was so inspiring.”
“The Space We Breathe” is on display at APU Art Galleries through January.
Sam Davenport is a writer residing in Anchorage. She's a leo and a plant-person, and loves spending quality time with her dog, Aspen. She is a Real Housewives fan and has been called a Bravo historian.
