Haines artist Steven Villano’s new exhibit examines landslide experience and aftermath

Haines resident Steven Villano began drawing a few days after last December’s deadly landslide on Beach Road. He’s an artist with a background in music, sound design and film, and has been living in Alaska for the last 10 years. He evacuated the slide zone with his family during the massive storms, with many others from the area. Later they learned their house was intact, but the landslide had destroyed or damaged 28 homes and killed two of his neighbors. 

 

“A day or two after we were evacuated, as soon as the bookstore opened I bought a sketchbook and a pencil, from Amy. And took that upstairs and I just started to draw and found myself not drawing the slide per se, but using drawing as a means to understand what I had seen, how it had happened, the forces at work. Along that time we were hearing updates from the geologists. To see the land that you live on in 3 dimensional models, taken from the lidar data, and to see that understructure, was already an important aspect of the way that I worked, but this really brought it home. Because you’re seeing sort of like an X-ray of the land that you live on that just gave out. I found it to be both compelling and challenging (laughs). It led me into a process of trying to think this out and understand it, and I’ve found that all the way along I’ve been drawing.”

Now, Villano has a new downtown exhibit of paintings and drawings examining the landslide experience and aftermath that altered his life and the community he calls home.

“So in this one you see the topographical map, and these topography lines correspond to like… this line should continue to here, but now this line is down here. And you see that falling, the movement of the land in that way. You see the tops of the trees. These trees that are huge, sturdy, amazing forest, that in a moment was splintered. Um, and you can still see them on the beach where, you know, the trees themselves are still in tact, but they’re reduced to just splinters.

Not only have we had the event itself, but subsequently we’ve had a lot that’s happened. We’ve moved to five different temporary housing situations since that event. So in six months we’ve moved five times (laughs), so it gives you the idea of this process of overturn. I watched as I was going through this, the land go into this deep kind of slumber of winter, but still very conscious of what was happening inside the land, because I had to be now.”

“The whole community suffered in that, not just the residents of one area. Residents from all over the borough suffered from the weather. Those issues that came from these weather events are not done. The weather is coming back. We’re trying to understand how to respond in the future. These are all very vital things”

Steven Villano’s collection of drawings and paintings are exhibited now at The Haines Bookstore on Main Street, and will be up for the next few weeks. Or you can see them on his Instagram page here @sfvillano