A new exhibit is opening in Sitka, in honor of artists Eric and Pam Bealer.
The year-long project is a collaboration between a visual artist and a writer, both of whom found inspiration in the extraordinary lives of the Bealers, and in the extraordinary nature of their passing.
KCAW’s Robert Woolsey reports.
Eric Bealer was a wood engraver. Even if you don’t recognize his name, you’ll instantly recognize his art: Intricately detailed prints of the Southeast Alaskan landscape surrounding the home he made with his wife Pam, a textile artist, in Phonograph Creek, just outside of Pelican, on Chichagof Island.
In most ways, the Bealers were like so many other Alaskans living off the grid, forging a life from the land. But in one way they were quite different: Although it’s been five years since the couple died, their home – and their spirit – are very much alive.
Lawrie: ” The interesting thing about that couple is when you go there, her presence is strong, really strong.”
Steve Lawrie is a portrait artist and painter who’s been out to Phonograph Creek several times.
Lawrie: “And Eric is sort of not so much until he get out into the boat shop because he built boats, in addition to other things. He built all the buildings on the property. They built boats. It’s not that they’re any different in some ways than a lot of Alaskans. You know, you can look around and see people living out in the sticks and right there around Pelican. It’s the amount of art that Eric produced with Pam’s Hill. That’s pretty amazing.
Then and now, Eric Bealer’s engravings remain some of the most iconic works produced in Alaska, and they can be found in homes and galleries everywhere. The exhibit installed in Sitka isn’t a wall filled with Bealer’s prints, however – it is a collection of over 50 paintings by Lawrie and his literary collaborator, Maite Lorente, which illuminate the lives of these remarkable people.
The exhibit is called “The Squirrel and the Bear.”
Lawrie: ” Eric identified if you like, as a squirrel, and boy limit is appropriate. You know, I don’t know if you’ve ever met him but he’s very frenetic. Like a squirrel. His wife Pam, more grounded more solid to the earth. She He identified with the bear so that’s how the title came about.”
Thoms: ” They tried to live as close to the earth as possible.
Andrew Thoms is the director of the Sitka Conservation Society.
“They tried to have a small event environmental footprint as they could. They built their house out of beech logs that they salvage. They practice a subsistence lifestyle and put up all their food, they had gardens and grew stuff and they made a lot of their art from what they found and gathered and were inspired by by the surrounding environment. And it was a really Alaskan way of life off the grid.
In widely publicized news at the time, the Bealers disappeared from their home at Phonograph Creek in the fall of 2018 (and also from their remote property at Greentop, on Yakobi Island), leaving behind packages and postage, notes for friends and family, and a message for everyone else that they had chosen to end their lives together and to waste no time or money trying to find their bodies.
They were both in their late 50s, Pam suffering from increasingly debilitating multiple sclerosis, and Eric – as far as is known – in good health.
They left their Phonograph Creek property and its contents to the Sitka Conservation Society, to benefit the Society’s Living Wilderness Fund, and it’s now a retreat built by artists, for artists.
Thoms: ” Eric and Pam lived and built their property and designed everything that they had up, there was a work of art, you know, just like the artwork that they did. They were true artists to their core, and it was infused in everything that they did. They had a very strong connection with the lands and waters around them. And you can feel that they’re in the property, and living wilderness fund honors them, and the founders of the Conservation Society and people that really did great work to help preserve this place for future generations.
Although some will say the Bealers’ lives ended tragically, Steve Lawrie doesn’t. The context of “The Squirrel and the Bear” is much greater than the detail of their deaths.
Lawrie: ” It’s a love story. They’re to me, they’re about you know, I’m looking at me. I’m an older guy. We all know how life works. But this couple they met when they were young. And within two days, they started a life together and they never deviated. They went from back east to Haines, Alaska. They lived there for four or five years and then moved to Phonograph Creek when that property became available. And they never deviated from what Andrew just described, which is a life you know, far less impactful life that I live for example, and I really admire the tenacity and in doing it. “
Lawrie has become well-known in recent years for his oversized portraits – paintings large enough for the National Portrait Gallery, but displaying, in most cases, only his subjects’ faces in painstaking detail. While this might recommend him as an interpreter of Eric Bealer’s work, Lawrie goes in a different direction for “The Squirrel and the Bear,” and the departure has resulted in some surprising – and profound – new work.
Lawrie: “They’re all paintings that describe the bill as several portraits. The home, the interior of the home, the exterior of the home. Basically, I became an illustrator. In this series of paintings, I suppose it would be fair to say I think they explained their lives if there’s that this whole thing will help explain their lives.”
Lawrie credits his collaborator, Maite Lorente, for pouring over the journals and photos the Bealers left behind, including their notes to one another, and giving the exhibit a structure. Some of Lorente’s poems and excerpts from other writings are incorporated into the paintings themselves – about 60 in all.
“The Squirrel and the Bear” seems made-to-order for a book someday, but the Sitka Conservation Society doesn’t have a timeline. For now, it’s both a tribute to the Bealers and to their home in the Tongass, as well as fresh insight into the lives they led, and the choices they made.
“The Squirrel and the Bear” opening reception will be 5-7 pm Friday, April 7, in the first floor of the Venneburg Insurance building on Harbor Drive. All are welcome. The exhibit will be up until April 21. For purposes of disclosure, Maite Lorente serves on the board of directors of KCAW.
