First Friday Art Show

My friend Lorna, whom I have known for over 12 years now, is a great artist. She had an Art Show on Friday over at the Elim Café highlighting several of her new paintings.

I first met Lorna when I went to work down in Valdez. She was a co-worker, and one of the only three females down there at the time (or so it seemed). Both of us eventually ended up back in Anchorage, and she ended up being my supervisor for several years.

Her husband was an architect, and when he mentioned to her that he was looking for an assistant she told me to apply. She knew I was unhappy working for “Big Oil” by that time, and that I had gone to school for architectural drafting, so figured that would be a good fit for me.

I ended up getting the job, which meant that now her husband was my supervisor. Nothing like keeping it in the family! I worked for him for close to 10 years on the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport project, and am still working for him now at a different firm.

As an aside: if any of you have been following the news lately, you’ll recognize Ted Stevens as being our Senator for the state of Alaska, and as being currently indicted on seven counts of failing to disclose thousands of dollars in services he received from a company that helped renovate his home.

This means that if he gets convicted, we’ll have the only airport in the country named after a felon!

Anyway, back to the Art Show…

Anchorage has an on-going event they call First Friday. Several art studios around town showcase different artists on the first Friday of each month. They have an open house with drinks and hors d'œuvres and whatnot. People can stroll from studio to studio all evening long, enjoying the art and socializing with all the other people attending First Friday.

Lorna’s show was part of this. Unfortunately for her, the café showcasing her work is relatively new, so people still don’t really know about it. It’s also off the beaten path, so to speak, so it’s relatively harder to get to. This means that not very many people showed up for it.

But – I was there, and I did enjoy chatting with her and her boyfriend (she and her husband split up several years ago).