A gathering last Friday at the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge headquarters was like a First Friday art event, with fancy cheese platters, peppermint bark and other finger foods spread on tables. About three dozen attendees filtered in and out of the lobby, gazing at multimedia paintings and sculptures while jazzy instrumental music played in the background.
Brittany Sweeney is the refuge’s assistant manager. She said that besides one-off artist-in-residence workshops or small get-togethers, art events in Kotzebue are rare.
The refuge hosts a two-week, artist-in-residence program called Voices of the Wilderness. It’s held at many refuges, national forests and parks throughout Alaska.
Work from the program’s past artists was on display, but the main attraction was hanging in the corner: a large sign showing sheefish chasing tiny feeder-fish, a backdrop of mountains, and the kind of colorful trim often found on parkas.
“If you didn't know, ‘Selawik’ comes from the Inupiaq ‘Siilvik,' or ‘place of sheefish,’” Sweeney said. “So when they had us pick an animal to feature on our sign, definitely sheefish had to be the one.”
Norma Ballot was one of the sign’s designers.
“The old sign? It needed help,” she said. “The old sign looked too much federal-y style.”
One of Ballot’s contributions was the parka trim pattern, or qupak. She chose the colors from the four berries found on the tundra: cloudberries, black or crowberries, blueberries, and cranberries.
“The orange represents the aqpiks, and the black represents paunġaqs and the blue represents asiaviks and red represents kikmiññat,” Ballot said.
Ballot said the qupak design, which uses tiny pieces of fabric meticulously sewn together in a geometric pattern, was inspired by her daughter’s work.
“Reena, she makes parkys or jackets, and so I kind of just took her parky design,” said Ballot.
The sign’s mountain backdrop comes from a photograph Ballot took of the mountains between Selawik and Kiana.
Ballot said her passion for art began at a young age, and she often got in trouble in school for doodling. She became a bilingual teacher, after her mother, also a bilingual teacher, passed away. Ballot taught in Selawik for two decades, until the pandemic made it challenging.
“It was kind of hard to teach the culture through online,” Ballot said.
Ballot collaborated with Christina Nelson, a former employee of the refuge, on the new sign. Nelson said it was an honor to work with Ballot.
“She's incredibly creative, and every time I’d go over, I sit in on her classes and help out, or she would help me with different ways of coming up with programs or just learning,” Nelson said. “She was just really good at incorporating me into that.”
Nelson said she modified an existing sheefish design from a static image to one with more movement.
“It kind of looked like a dead fish on a plate,” said Nelson. “No offense.”
Nelson said she and Ballot were also heavily involved in the final product, experimenting with several colors and themes from mid-winter pastels to bright autumnal red and orange.
“Throughout that process, we had like 10 different versions,” Nelson said.
Refuge assistant manager Brittany Sweeney said she’s pleased with the final design, and she hopes community members will check it out in person.
The Selawik Wildlife Refuge is typically open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., except during lunch hours.
