Annual Machetanz Art Festival set June 2-3

PALMER — It’s time again for the Machetanz Art Festival at the Mat-Su College. Tonight at 6 p.m. there will be reception at the Glenn Massay Theater. Starting at 7 p.m., this year’s featured artist, Ray Gamradt, will give a presentation discussing his life and craft. The lecture is free and open to the public. The classes start Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be total of 20 classes available covering an array of mediums.

This is the seventh year for the festival, and according to Talis Colberg, the campus director of Mat-Su College. Colberg also is the lead coordinator for the event this year.

“it started as a way to try to connect the college and the arts, and the things we do at the college with the arts, a brighter, broader spectrum of the community,” Colberg said.

It was named after Fred and Sarah Machetanz, two of the college’s major funders and historically some of the community’s most prominent figures in the arts and local involvement.

“They’re people who really endowed this college with all sorts of things, their libraries, their paintings, their scholarship funds, and their property (240 acres to the college campus after their death). This is our way of reinforcing that memory and that heritage that we have to one of the most prominent artists to ever come to Alaska,” Colberg said.

New to Alaska, Gamradt said he has a strong affinity for nature and draws his inspiration from the vast wonders of Alaska.

“I am simply thankful for every day that I can try to tell a small part of her whispered story through my art,” Gamradt said in his 2017 artist’s statement.

“He’s actually kind of a renaissance person in his own right,” Colberg said. “He has a master’s degree in engineering but he went full time into art instead over the last few years.”

According to Colberg, for the past three years the college’s goal has been to bring a featured artist to present to the public, free of charge. The Saturday classes’ prices range from $15 to $95. Having taken a few classes and seen his fellow students over the years, Colberg also said that there are plenty of regulars who plan for this festival every year.

“It kind of morphed over time from a tradition, becoming a festival and we’re trying to keep it going,” Colberg said. “There are people here who always plan to be here for it.”

Saturday classes:

Full Day Workshops—9 am-4 pm

Shadows & Light Art in Charcoal

Pastels for Everyone

Beginning Watercolor Painting

Drawing for the Artistically Challenged

Make Like a Bee—Encaustic Painting Techniques

Fiber Painting

Intermediate/Advanced Watercolor

Mosaic House Sign

Painting the Poetic Landscape in Oils

Painting with Alcohol Inks Photoshop Basics

Shoot, Boot and Print—Digital Photography

Wool Needle Felting

Morning Workshops—9-11:45 am

Athabascan Style Beaded Brooch

Aluminum Sand Casting

Pyrography—Woodburning

Sumi-e’ Alaska Style

Lunch Break—12-1 pm

Afternoon Workshops—1:15-4 pm

Athabascan Style Beaded Brooch

Pyrography—Woodburning

Zentangle Basics 101

To register online, go to: https://register.asapconnected.com/Courses.aspx?CourseGroupID=14213

Call: 745-9721 for any questions regarding the festival.