"Icebergs"

Lis and I have been friends for about as long as our eldest sons’ age (who are also friends):  35 years.     Wow, 35 years seems like a long time, but it really isn’t.   So what does Lis have to do with the Folk Festival poster?   Lis lead me into designing the 37th Annual Alaska Folk Festival poster.

Last Fall, Lis and I were thinking about the Alaska Folk Festival’s request for their annual folk festival which always happens in the early Spring.  2011 would be the 37^th year.  Being recently divorced, with a large divorce debt, she encouraged me to make a few dollars creating this year’s Folk Festival poster.  We threw around a few ideas.  Lis insisted on having something that reflected the unique environment of Alaska – like glaciers, bald eagles, spectacular mountains, big rivers, etc.   She mentioned icebergs that have musical instruments sticking out of them…and as soon as she said that, I exclaimed “hey, what about icebergs that ARE the musical instruments!?  That’s IT!”  For a moment, we stared at one another, then laughed…I give her the credit.

The 37th Annual Alaska Folks Festival poster design by Clarissa Rizal - April 2011

In the 1980s to early 1990’s, my ex-husband and I used to hand-silkscreen the Folk Festival posters, a limited edition of 200.  He was the designer, I was the assistant printer and would occasionally consult with him on the designs.  The last poster he designed was for the 25^th Folk Festival (12 years ago), a design influenced by the Russian-orthodox icons, a Raven playing a balalaika – the painting was done in gold leaf.  You can check out all his old posters on the Alaska Folk Festival website.

Clarissa painting the folk festival poster

The acrylic painting was painted on 300-lb. watercolor paper.  I do not consider myself a painter of this kind.  Yet, I’ll try my hand at whatever, even if I think I will fail.  My daughter Ursala, pointed out that my design perspective was off and I had to tweak it a bit (you can see that in the rough draft below).  Painting the musical instruments to look like musical instruments was a challenge; painting a glacier was even MORE of a challenge.  This glacier turned out okay, but it just was not up to my sense of par.  I think I’ll stay away from painting glaciers…

The rough outline of the sketch presented to the AFF board members to see if they would be interested in seeing the finished product

Opening night of the festival was this past Monday, April 10th; the festival is free and runs the entire week through Sunday, April 17th.    There are the usual items on sale sporting the design; all except the mugs and hats.  They could not figure out what aspect of the poster to place on these two items so they drafted up nice-looking wording with an image of fireweed.  It looks good.  The stock of T-shirts, sweatshirts, and even babies’ “one-zies” are going fast.  Do not wait until the weekend to buy this year’s souvenir; get down to Centennial Hall as their stock is limited.

If you are like me who likes to dance, their are all kinds of dance bands playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday night’s dances at the Old Armory’s Juneau Arts and Culture Center.  Check out the folk festival’s website for the program guide.  If you are from out of town, and you want to tune into the music, there is a link from the Alaska Folk Festival website to the local radio station KTOO, otherwise, we’ll see you at the festival!