| FRIENDS OF THE HOMER LIBRARY Our mission is to provide support for the Homer Public Library programs and services, to raise funds that enrich the library experience, and to promote the use and enjoyment of the library, including outreach and lifelong learning. |
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Art is an integral part of the Homer community. Every year we ask local artists to send us samples of their work and a Community Artworks Selection Panel selects the pieces that will be displayed at the library. None of the works on display are for sale, but it is an opportunity for artists to showcase their work. We seek artists at all stages of their artistic endeavors. |
Jim Lavrakas July - September 2026
“Kachemak 180˚: The View From My Deck” Photos printed on metal by Jim Lavrakas Friends of the Homer Public Library is thrilled to announce our next Art in the Library exhibition titled “Kachemak 180˚: The View From My Deck,” by local photographer Jim Lavrakas, opening on July 1 and running through September 30, 2026. The public is invited to view this exhibit during open hours at the Homer Public Library in the fireside reading lounge. Over the span of about 10 years, the vista from Jim Lavrakas’s deck on Mountain View Drive in Homer has provided an ever-changing panorama, one of the most beautiful in the world. Jim’s Art in the Library exhibit titled “Kachemak 180˚: The View From My Deck,” will include luminous photos of stunning vistas printed on metal. From a brooding Grewingk Glacier to a rainbow spray over the Homer Spit, and views of Kachemak Bay and the surrounding mountains. About the Artist: Jim Lavrakas was an Anchorage Daily News photographer for 30 years. Over his three decades at the newspaper, his assignments encompassed an astonishing diversity of news, northern people, remote places, and wilderness lifestyles. He loved his job. He learned photography and darkroom skills from his father at the age of 12. Growing up in the dairy farm country of Massachusetts, he started his career in photojournalism when he was 14 years old, as a stringer for the Lowell Sun. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts with a B.A. in English, he moved to Alaska in 1975 to find newspaper work. Working a variety of jobs, from “gandy dancer” on the Alaska Railroad to camera salesman, he talked his way into a job at the Daily News in January 1981. He was awarded the 1988 Joseph Costa Award from Ball State University for taking the best courtroom photograph in the nation. In 1989 he was part of the Daily News team effort that won the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for a series of stories, called "A People in Peril", dealing with alcoholism and selfdestructive behavior of Alaska Natives. He has been married to Ruth for 28 years, and has 43-year-old twin sons, Nick and Gabe. In October 2008 he retired from the newspaper. He and Ruth moved to Homer in 2010, where Jim ran Skookum Charters, a saltwater eco-tour business, until August 2013 when he took over as the executive director of the Homer Chamber of Commerce. In 2012 he published his first book, “Snap Decisions: My 30 Years as an Alaska News Photographer”, a photo memoir of his time at the Anchorage Daily News. It is in bookstores across Alaska. |
July - September 2023
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Achim Jahnke
RJ Nelson has created art for 40 years using a variety of mediums. Her favorite is the stained glass window she made for St. Mathew's in Fairbanks, Alaska. RJ paints, carves, designs, decorates, enjoys calligraphy, takes photos and also teaches art to children and adults. Her flower photos were taken with a Galaxy 9 phone, and were not filtered or manipulated. They were then printed onto canvases.
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Counsel Langley grew up among shipwrights and foundry workers – people with strong traditional skills and respect for materials. Their influence played a large part in her choice to study metalsmithing at Massachusetts College of Art (Bachelor of Fine Art, 1999). The rigor of metalwork honed Langley’s discipline, steady hand, attention for detail, and love for surface treatment (rough, smooth, matte, shiny, sparkly, natural, mechanical etc.). Her work remains rooted in a metalsmith’s approach to making art. Langley’s mixed media pieces have been widely exhibited; venues include the International Gallery of Contemporary Art (Anchorage, AK), Bear Gallery (Fairbanks, AK), and in the PNW the Museum of Northwest Art, Roq La Rue, PUB Gallery at Peninsula College, OGHE Ltd., and Bridge Productions. Her work was recently featured in Microsoft Surface Launch Campaign and is held by the Seattle City Light Portable Works Collections and Arts WA Public Collection. Langley’s work has been featured in Seattle Magazine, City Arts Magazine, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Trickhouse, Beautiful/Decay blog. Her Love for cross-discipline collaborations sparked opportunities to work with literary publications Filter Literary journal, Poetry Northwest Magazine, the creation of album art, scenic design, and illustration. At the Edge of All We Have Built This series is a celebration of those strange, and sometimes lonesome, folks that walk the boundaries. Visually, the series takes a cue from scenic turnouts—those delightful opportunities to pull off our highways, get out of the vehicle, and walk to the very edge of our infrastructure so that we may gaze at the sheer beauty of nature as it sprawls before us. What if we move off planet—why would we not still build those opportunities? A chance to view a particularly stunning nebulae, galaxies, birthplaces of stars. The characters here are mostly in a contemplative isolation, alone with the vista and their thoughts and questions. And, like the silhouettes common to folktale illustration, they are anonymous and therefore can be any of us, all of us.
Featured Artist Linda Robinson October - December 2022
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| FRIENDS OF THE HOMER PUBLIC LIBRARYFriends of the Homer Library is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 community organization.
907-435-3195
info@friendshomerlibrary.org
500 Hazel Avenue • Homer AK 99603 |