Community art wall created

SUNSHINE -- The Sunshine Community Health Center went fishing for ideas on how to fill a wall of their new clinic with art that recognized contributions from the community. Area artists submitted their ideas to a committee. Bill Barstow, a Talkeetna artist, was selected to create the piece.

A combination of paint, fiber, metal, wire and other materials was used to build the piece, which is 16 feet tall and eight feet wide. Creating the wall took Barstow "about six weeks of hard work, with lots of help from others."

Barstow said he hadn't thought much about a title for the piece, but while thinking on it at the grand opening of the clinic, he said he would probably name the piece "Life-stream."

"I'm borrowing this from the painter Marc Chagall," Barstow said, quoting Chagall: "Everything in art must spring from the movement of our whole life-stream."

Barstow was quick to acknowledge those who helped him with the piece. Ross Benischek fabricated the aluminum plate silvers, the wire rainbows, and put the finishing touches on the stainless steel hooligan. Kevin Foster plasma cut the hooligan free from their plate. Julia March-Crocetto fashioned the silk Dolly Varden. Dondi Ford-Visser helped transform the donor names into the streamside shapes. John Ross gave them their color and texture in a digital representation tested to remain lightfast for more than 100 years. And glass expert Donna Schelin of Anchorage cut and fused into existence the king salmon forms.