Tributaries
Tidbits from the Headwaters
Al Laudert Corners the Shrimp Art Niche
Al Laudert pulls shrimp pots from underwater and heaves them onto the deck of his boat, bobbing near the mouth of the Valdez Harbor. Most shrimpers dump their catch into buckets, then begin processing the shrimp for eating. But Laudert has a different routine with a particular goal in mind: he is auditioning shrimp to play the main characters in his live art photographs. Al Laudert is known as the “Shrimp Whisperer.”
McCarthy Snow and Ice Sculptor Paul Hanis: Best In Snow
Within two weeks of first touching a snow carving tool to frozen water, Paul Hanis was carving at the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks. Fast-forward to this winter: Hanis won 1st Place at the 2022 Fur Rondy Alaska State Snow Sculpting Championships and was selected as a Pro Carver for the Disney+ TV show, Best In Snow.
Athabascan Artist Maggie Roach Sews to Heal
Many would say losing a child is one of the deepest pains one can experience in life. In 2019, Maggie Roach received that call. The grief was crushing. She put down her sewing and beadwork art for three years and couldn’t touch it. This summer, she fell ill with severe Covid and was flown to a hospital in Fairbanks, where she faced the choice of surviving to reunite with her husband and children or leaving this world behind. She chose to stay. After she got home from the hospital, Roach started sewing and beading again.
Artist Profile: Kristin Link
Faded bell-bottom jeans hang from a red rope between cottonwood trees near Kristin Link’s home in McCarthy, Alaska. The illustrations are life-like and show the motion of flight and a gleam in one raven’s eye. The illustrator is Kristin Link, winner of the 2021 Alaska Press Club Best Illustration Award and artist for the Copper River Record Nature Journal. The jeans belong to Jewel, who will wear them during music performances.
Irish Photographer’s McCarthy Love Affair
Redheaded, blue-eyed photographer Paul Scannell from Dublin, Ireland, was hell-bent on visiting Bus 142, or the Magic Bus, where Christopher McCandless’ journey ended near Denali National Park. In 2015, after a failed attempt to reach the remote bus site, Scannell and his travel companions wandered around the state. They heard about a quirky town called McCarthy.