Machetanz Art Festival offers up annual inspiration

PALMER — This Saturday was the seventh annual Machetanz Art Festival at Mat-Su College. There were 19 classes available this year with prices ranging from $15 to $95. One-day art students had several types of mediums from which to choose, including everything from oil pastels to pyrography (woodburning). The festival appeared to be a chance for any budding artist or casual hobbyist to try their hand at a new craft with welcoming and practical instruction. The festival can be seen as creative collaboration and artful adventure for the community.

For the past three years, the college has brought in a featured artist for the festival. The day before the classes begin, the featured artist gives a presentation that is free and open to the public. They discuss their life and their craft, going over how they got where they are and bits on how they do it, answering questions afterward.

For 2017, Ray Gamradt was the featured artist. After his lecture on Friday, Gamradt instructed a small class Saturday morning on his specialty — charcoal. Still fairly fresh to Alaska, Gamradt is nevertheless hooked on the seemingly limitless bounty of inspiration the state’s vast wildlife and landscapes have to offer.

Gamradt graduated from Montana State University in 2007 with degrees in civil and structural engineering. According to his lecture and his website’s biography, engineering didn’t seem to fit quite right. His love for nature and art pushed him to take that leap from comfort and contentment to head north to Alaska for adventure — a classic trope the locals know all too well.

He may have started his journey alone, but now he has his wife Kirsten and their two boys along for the ride. The two seem inseparable and share a common lust for life and draw strength from nature’s bounty.

During Gamradt’s lecture, he explained his background, illustrating his family’s roots in the natural world, with hunting trips, expeditions and the spirit of adventure akin to his upbringing. He also went over his mother and father’s medical blunders. He stated that after a falling off a horse, his father painted since it was one of the only things he could do during bed-rest. Gamradt later asked the existential question of starting the path of art, “am I waiting for a horse to buck me off?”

These were some of the inspirations that led to his creative drive and eventual beeline from engineering to a life of art. As with every artist, there’s the always that looming question of: “how do you make money?”

“It helps that my wife is a nurse. We’re going to make it. We really have to be careful where our money leaks out of our equation. That’s pertinent for all of us because our boats are all leaking, it’s just how big are the holes?” Gamradt said.

Gamradt went on to say that the path of an artist always has that inherent risk. He begs the question, “What kind of risk do you want to take?” He illustrated the point that one must gamble and go for it, seeing what happens — but to also have “parachutes” in place.

“Ninety-five percent of it, I think this is a great idea, this art thing. All go, all forward, the adventure, the business of it,” he said. “We just love the adventure and it all makes perfect sense. Then there’s that five percent where I wake up in a cold sweat and think ‘what am I doing? Am I capable of this? I don’t know but we’re gonna keep trying it,’ ” Gamradt said.

After embarking on that art quest and years down the road, Gamradt then begs another question: “What does arrival look like?”

“For some artists, it may be getting your piece in the state fair; maybe you have a piece in a show; maybe you really like the watercolor that you did last weekend at a friend’s house; maybe you got your name written up in a magazine, maybe you got on the cover of a magazine; maybe you’re at a gallery, maybe you’re at 12 galleries all over the world,” he said. “I’m not sure if there is a point where anyone has arrived or not arrived.

And Kirsten- being the wonderful wife that she is- she looked at me and she said, ‘I think you’ve arrived.’ ”

Gamradt considered all of this. He continued through his slides, moving past his bodies of work, charcoal etches of rams, bison, caribou, fishermen, and so on. He got to the end of his presentation and showed the audience pictures of his cozy little house in Palmer, his wife, the kids, the dog, his truck and the point of it all: their journey together and their little slice of freedom to do it all with.

“I don’t make a lot of money but you know what I’m in charge of my schedule. I get to have a lot great sandbox time with my boys and I think she’s right.”

To learn more about Gamradt and his work, visit his website at raygamradtstudio.com