We are back from our November break with a great new art wall feature, Hope Studios! Hope Studios is doing amazing work in the Anchorage community and we are so happy to be able to feature this cheery collection.
According to Jenny Moore, the Hope Studios Director, the mission of Hope Studios is to “to provide artists the space and opportunity to create while allowing them to explore their form of self expression through different mediums.” They seek to provide artists with disabilities with an avenue to express themselves artistically. Their studio works through a collaborative model, which allows for individual exploration and expression and then is joined together in a collective body of work. This collaborative method allows “for the artists to create works in different sizes, mediums, and customize to specific spaces,” Moore said. There are staff, both with and without disabilities that act as the creative team, working to pull together all the artist’s ideas into a collaborative body of work.
“It is also our mission to elevate the talents that develop through self expression to becoming a viable part of the art community in Anchorage,” Moore said. “We believe that it is possible to enhance the quality of life through participation in the arts.”
All of these pieces were created amidst the COVID pandemic, so each artist created in their own homes and then the pieces were transported back and forth by studio staff, being disinfected between each transfer. This is such a great picture of how art can survive and thrive during these challenging times and how it can bring people together, even without them physically being present.
For every show that Hope Studio does, the artists themselves come up with the theme. When presented with the Wild Scoops space, the artists unanimously chose Ice Cream!
Hope Studios has been in operation for 10 years and Hope Community Resources has been serving the community for over 52 years. Before COVID hit, there were about 47 regular artists who would come to the studio every week to create and express themselves.
We are so grateful to have work from Hope Studios in our space. We hope you are able to stop by and check it out - or see it virtually via our social media!
You can find out more about Hope Studios on Facebook @HopeStudiosAlaska