Bob White:
Giving Artists Northern Exposure
Giving Artists Northern Exposure
Art Talk Magazine, January, 2006
| The Garden: Designed as a natural, minimalist setting with sculptures on black basalt columns reflecting the sky. The garden is U- shaped built around a gift shop, which has paintings inside it. It’s located five blocks from Skagway’s docks. |
During dark nights anchored in desolate, southeast Alaskan coves, Dr. Bob
White dreamed of turning his floating dental office into an artsy Love Boat,
connecting artists with the pristine Alaskan landscape.
Chartering his 68-foot wooden, Norwegian trawler named the Sea Comber, he
left vacant rooms open for big name artists like Sandy Scott, Bob Kuhn and
Richard Schmid. And made his dream come true.
Scott’s words are written in a 1983 journal on her first cruise with White, his wife,
Diane, and fellow artist Austin Deuel. Scott says White’s invitation to share a free
ride for a sculpture developed her as an artist.
“It helped to broaden my horizons with subject matter, says Scott. “The
experience added to the reality of my work.”
Northern Dreams
The collected paintings and sculptures started the building of White’s greatest
hope - a museum showing work from Alaska’s four-period history, including:
before mankind, the Native, Russian American and Gold-Rush periods.
He wanted Schmid to paint the waterfalls at Bernoff Hot Springs. He strategically
put together a well-thought out collection to show the beauty of Alaska.”
This year, a part of that vision came to pass with the opening of the Skagway
Sculpture and Flower Garden in the town that the 1980s television show
Northern Exposure was created and based on. With an average population of
800, the summertime brings 750,000 tourists through the town, As John
Kinkade, director of the American Sculpture Society Guild and designer of the
garden, says travelers enter the town in summertime “like a wave coming up the
street.”
“Skagway is the kind of town where the hardware store is closed on Sundays,
but the back door is left open,” says Kinkade, “So you go in there and take what
you need and write it down and get settled up on Monday.”
In 2008, White plans to open the Alaska Historical Museum, which will show his
paintings, including work by nine Russian artists. White brought Russians to
Alaska in 1991. He wanted them to paint the Russian American period as they
saw it.
Last True Patron
Susan McGarry, editor for Southeast Art during the 1980s, defined White as
one of the last great art patrons. He worked as a dentists for money to build a
collection showing Alaska’s beauty and history.
He wanted to share a love that he first experienced in 1956, when he was sent
from Oregon to Alaska to serve as an Army dentist. He eventually split his time in
Seattle and did consultant work in Alaska. “At that time,” says White, “The entire
southeastern part of the state was without an orthodontist.”
In the early 1980s, White made a permanent move to Juneau, Alaska, after
acquiring the Native Dental Contract for southeast Alaska. He installed a dental
chair in the Sea Comber, and brought his expertise to remote villages only
accessible by boat or float plane. He was set up to take artists into far off native
villages and natural areas.
“It was like I was a catalyst in these artists creative process, so it was like I was
part of creating the art,” says White. “I hope to leave the world work that can
touch people. Art moves something within you, it gives you an appreciation of
live that nothing else can give you. It’s better than the best vacation o best
steak, it brings something to life, you have it forever.”
White dreamed of turning his floating dental office into an artsy Love Boat,
connecting artists with the pristine Alaskan landscape.
Chartering his 68-foot wooden, Norwegian trawler named the Sea Comber, he
left vacant rooms open for big name artists like Sandy Scott, Bob Kuhn and
Richard Schmid. And made his dream come true.
Scott’s words are written in a 1983 journal on her first cruise with White, his wife,
Diane, and fellow artist Austin Deuel. Scott says White’s invitation to share a free
ride for a sculpture developed her as an artist.
“It helped to broaden my horizons with subject matter, says Scott. “The
experience added to the reality of my work.”
Northern Dreams
The collected paintings and sculptures started the building of White’s greatest
hope - a museum showing work from Alaska’s four-period history, including:
before mankind, the Native, Russian American and Gold-Rush periods.
He wanted Schmid to paint the waterfalls at Bernoff Hot Springs. He strategically
put together a well-thought out collection to show the beauty of Alaska.”
This year, a part of that vision came to pass with the opening of the Skagway
Sculpture and Flower Garden in the town that the 1980s television show
Northern Exposure was created and based on. With an average population of
800, the summertime brings 750,000 tourists through the town, As John
Kinkade, director of the American Sculpture Society Guild and designer of the
garden, says travelers enter the town in summertime “like a wave coming up the
street.”
“Skagway is the kind of town where the hardware store is closed on Sundays,
but the back door is left open,” says Kinkade, “So you go in there and take what
you need and write it down and get settled up on Monday.”
In 2008, White plans to open the Alaska Historical Museum, which will show his
paintings, including work by nine Russian artists. White brought Russians to
Alaska in 1991. He wanted them to paint the Russian American period as they
saw it.
Last True Patron
Susan McGarry, editor for Southeast Art during the 1980s, defined White as
one of the last great art patrons. He worked as a dentists for money to build a
collection showing Alaska’s beauty and history.
He wanted to share a love that he first experienced in 1956, when he was sent
from Oregon to Alaska to serve as an Army dentist. He eventually split his time in
Seattle and did consultant work in Alaska. “At that time,” says White, “The entire
southeastern part of the state was without an orthodontist.”
In the early 1980s, White made a permanent move to Juneau, Alaska, after
acquiring the Native Dental Contract for southeast Alaska. He installed a dental
chair in the Sea Comber, and brought his expertise to remote villages only
accessible by boat or float plane. He was set up to take artists into far off native
villages and natural areas.
“It was like I was a catalyst in these artists creative process, so it was like I was
part of creating the art,” says White. “I hope to leave the world work that can
touch people. Art moves something within you, it gives you an appreciation of
live that nothing else can give you. It’s better than the best vacation o best
steak, it brings something to life, you have it forever.”
| Visiting Alaska? Name: Skagway Sculpture and Flower Garden Opened: May of 2005 Sculptures: 28 Sculptures, Six Foundations The Task: After three years of planning, Kincade says the biggest challenge was getting topsoil and flowers into the garden. “The plant materials had to be shipped in from Seattle, because the most accessible soil in Alaska sits below glacier ice,” says Kincade. Theme: The garden that friendship build. -Bob White |
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| “Alaska is best explored by boat… Inaccessible snow- topped mountains rocket out of the sea… Jagged peaks crowd together in compositions that only nature can invent... Pod of humpback whales heaving into view… Eagles perched on dead branches along the edge of a dripping spruce and hemlock forest… Silvery fingers of glacier-fed waterfalls plunging from a height of perhaps 4,000 feet into the sea… Dreamy vastness of snow fields and glaciers in the distance. Nature reigns here, all powerful and wild.” Sandy Scott - Spirit of the Wild Things: The Art of Sandy Scott. |
