With a mission to spark artistic inquiry, innovation and equity to strengthen the physical, social and economic fabric of Alaska, Homer’s nonprofit art gallery Bunnell Street Arts Center hosts residencies, exhibits, performances and artist funding opportunities throughout the month of April.

Announcing the Ursa Major Fund for Artists

Funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Regional Regranting Program and administered by Bunnell Street Arts Center, the Ursa Major Fund for Artists is intended to support the independent, self-organized work of artists, small groups and collaborators that play a crucial role within Alaska’s cultural ecosystem. According to the Bunnell website, “the grants will provide an opportunity for artists to create artwork that engages their communities and experiments with new possibilities.”

Bunnell will award a total of $60,000 through 15 grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000. Information sessions about the Ursa Major Fund will run March through the summer, with the submission window open Sept. 1 to Oct. 31. Grants will be decided by a panel of jurors and awards announced in early 2026.

For more information, contact Asia Freeman at asia@bunnellarts.org.

A RuraAL CAP Foundation $10,000 Grant for Community Workshops

With the award of a $10,000 grant from RurAL CAP (Rural Alaska Community Action Program), Bunnell will facilitate community workshops focused on health, healing and recovery and community engagement associated with Bunnell’s artist residency and exhibits programs throughout the rest of the year. According to the Bunnell website, “Alaskans are struggling to find hope, energy, and vitality and with these workshops, artists will lead as healers through their creations and in celebration of community solutions to express resilience, innovation and adaptation.”

For more information, visit bunnellarts.org.

“On this sand (together)” Exhibit

Bunnell hosts Inupiaq artist Jenny Irene and her exhibit, “On this sand (together): A story of place” for the month of April. A body of photographs that showcase Inupiat familial connections to each other and Indigenous lands and waters, Irene’s artist statement says, “The space we knew as our subsistence camp near Nome has been altered by climate change and was washed away by Typhoon Merbok. This work connects past, present and future Inupiat and records our stories from fish camp, recording what climate change hasn’t erased — our ties to each other and the memories of place.”

A photographer whose work is grounded in storytelling, Irene’s portfolio includes work made with sound, video and sculpture.

“I’m inspired by kinship, home and our stories,” her statement continues. “This allows me to further understand my knowledge of self and ways of knowing that have been instilled in me by my family, culture and experiences. The work I make is quiet and explores notions of identity, place, refusal, and access through portraiture and nonhuman photographs. It makes room for Indigenous and queer-centered stories to take shape, to be acknowledged and shared. Photography provides a space for me to practice a form of careful observation that runs deep in the Inupiaq culture I come from. My art practice considers how portraiture can be used to share stories, to remember and how it has been used and is still used as a weapon in the colonial project.”

Irene holds an MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico, a BFA in Photo media and a BA in American Indian Studies from the University of Washington. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and Hause Kunst Mitte gallery in Berlin, Germany, as well as at the Portland Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, among others.

The exhibit opens on Friday, April 4 with a reception from 5-7 p.m. and an artist’s talk at 6 p.m. Between April 28 and May 2, Irene will travel to Nanwalek as a teaching artist through Bunnell’s Artist in Schools program.

Artists in Residence

Bunnell welcomes storytellers Quentin Simeon and Amber Webb as Artists in Residence from April 10-26, including their Yup’ik story sharing on Friday, April 25 at 7 p.m. at the gallery, entry by donation. During their residency, Simeon and Webb will collaborate to create a stop motion animation about Simeon’s new screenplay about Yup’ik culture.

Simeon is a Yup’ik storyteller who was raised on the Kuskokwim River and now lives on Kachemak Bay. He has worked as an Alaska Native cultural liaison and intercultural communication specialist. Webb is a Yup’ik artist and activist from Curyung/Dillingham whose work through portraiture and textiles visually explores the effects of colonization and the evolution and strength of Indigenous people after genocide and intergenerational trauma, exploring pictorial Yup’ik storytelling to communicate contemporary stories of oppression, historic trauma, resilience, humor, changing climate, motherhood and resistance.

Learn more at bunnellarts.org.

Bunnell Arts by Air presents Courtney Rose

On Friday, April 18 at 7 p.m., Bunnell Arts by Air presents Courtney Rose live in performance at the gallery with a live broadcast on KBBI AM 890 at kbbi.org. Community members are invited to join the live studio audience, with seating no later than 6:45 p.m.

Courtney Tatellgaq Rose Griechen is an artist and musician originally from Bristol Bay and now based in Anchorage. Their music is inspired by the honesty in small moments and memories, in the mundane, and life experiences expressed through rhythm bari uke and an indie folk twist. Currently working on a solo project called “Albatross” and looking to release an EP this year, Griechen also plays with a four-piece folk rock band, Murmur, who formed in 2019 and have spent the last few years playing festivals and venues around Alaska.

Live studio audience tickets are a sliding scale of $15 discount, $20 regular, $30 pay-it-forward and can be purchased at bunnell-street-arts-center.square.site/tickets-workshops.

For more information on Bunnell Arts by Air, contact Brianna at brianna@bunnellarts.org.

Bunnell Presents YogicStatica

On Sunday, April 27 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Bunnell hosts YogicStatica, twelve hours of multiple styles of yoga led by 12 teachers. Forty-five-minute yoga classes begin at the top of each hour, followed by a 15-minute break to allow transitions between classes. YogicStatica provides an orientation to the many yoga options available in Homer, ranging from yin, restorative, kundalini, vinyasa, acro, yogalates or piloga to fascia flow, while raising funds for the gallery. The event fosters community for local yoga practitioners and a space to share techniques and connections in a fun, healthy, educational and affordable day for the community and is an opportunity for teachers to share their special brand of yoga with those who might be interested in attending their regular classes. This one-day event is open to all for a nominal fee of $15 for unlimited classes. Youth under 15 are welcome if accompanied by an adult. Participants are asked to bring their own yoga mat.

Register at bunnellarts.org.

Artist in Residence Eve Beglarian

Bunnell welcomes composer Eve Beglarian for a creation residency from Saturday, April 26 through Monday, May 12. According to the Los Angeles Times, composer and performer Beglarian is a “humane, idealistic rebel and a musical sensualist.”

A 2023 winner of the Arts and Letters Award for “a spectacular body of work that innovates and takes enormous risks,” Beglarian is a 2017 winner of the Alpert Award in the Arts for her “prolific, engaging and surprising body of work” and was awarded the 2015 Robert Rauschenberg Prize from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts for her “innovation, risk-taking and experimentation.”

Founded in 2012 by three Alaska-raised musicians, Wild Shore New Music fosters collaborations between living composers, musicians worldwide and Alaska’s creative artists and residents and is sponsoring Beglarian’s artist residency alongside Bunnell Street Arts Center. During her month-long Alaska residency, Beglarian will also travel to Fairbanks, Talkeetna and Anchorage, returning to Alaska in the fall with Wild Shore musicians to premiere the commissioned work.

For more information on all of these activities, visit bunnellarts.org, call 907-235-2662 or visit the gallery in person, located at 106 W Bunnell Avenue, with open hours Mondays to Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Bunnell Arts by Air presents artist and musician Courtney Rose, live in-person at Bunnell and broadcast on KBBI on April 18, 2025, in Homer, Alaska. Photo provided by Bunnell Street Arts Center