Cool performance — Comedian to heat up stage with standup show

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Andy Hendrickson’s standup comedy career got off to a cold start. Not in terms of response or success, just literally — it was North Dakota in January.

“It was freezing,” Hendrickson said.

That’s the coldest place his standup comedy career has taken him so far, although a trip to Alaska this weekend might break that record, if temperatures in Southcentral don’t rise above the below-zero mark they plummeted to this week. Nevertheless, he said he’s looking forward to the trip, which includes a performance Friday at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and one Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Kenai Peninsula College in Soldotna.

“I’ve been really excited to get up there, because I’ve always wanted to see Alaska,” Hendrickson said. “When I got the gig book I got real excited.”

Or he was, at least. Hendrickson said he was hoping to see the northern lights. He was also looking forward to the scenery between Anchorage and Soldotna, and had been told not to worry about the driving, unless there’s a storm. The aurora forecast is quiet this weekend, while the weather forecast is calling for snow.

“I’m not coming then,” he said.

If nothing else, the trip may provide him with new material. He said he sometimes works in observations from his location into his performance.

“Sometimes things strike me,” he said. “When I get there, if there’s something obvious, say in the airport in Anchorage or on the drive down, or if I stop on the way down, whatever things that happened to me on the way there, I’ll comment on that.”

Hendrickson is a Navy kid. We was born in California, moved to Hawaii and spent most of his time as a kid in Virginia. He graduated from Western Virginia University with a degree in advertising before moving to Atlanta.

He worked in graphics production for a while, at a sign company and for a company that made trade show exhibits. While in Atlanta he saw a news report about a guy who taught a standup comedy class and decided to give it a try.

“I kind of got the bug. Ever since then I slowly phased out my old job and became a full-time comedian,” Hendrickson said.

“It’s a fun job, obviously. It’s very rewarding getting feedback right off the bat. You say your joke, get the laughs and you know what’s working. Getting people to laugh is a good thing. It’s very addictive.”

Hendrickson said he enjoys the process of writing jokes and coming up with ways to relate something he’s noticed or that’s happened to him.

The lifestyle’s not bad, either.

“I just love the whole process,” he said. “It’s very creative and you only work an hour a night. There’s more to it than that, of course, but you get to be your own boss.”

Hendrickson has toured across the Lower 48, Hawaii and Europe in his 10.5 years doing standup, and recently returned to New York City from a stint in Canada. He performs at a lot of college campuses, and also has been part of the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo., the Boston Comedy Festival and D.C. Comedy Fest. His TV appearances include NBC’s “Night Shift,” the WB’s “Nite Laff-off” and Media One’s “Gonzo Comedy.” On national radio he’s been heard on the Bob and Tom Morning Show, XM Satellite Radio, Sirius Satellite Radio and National Lampoon Radio.

The KPC show starts with an opening live music performance by Diggin’ Roots, with Robb Justice, Dan Spencer and Dan Pascucci. Then Hendrickson takes the stage.

“I think it’s very rewarding to get that instant feedback from the crowd,” he said. “The only thing that might be cooler is to be in a rock band.”

Hopefully, “cooler” can be a figurative term this trip.

No bones about it — KPC anthropology professor charts path to distinguished career

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

Dr. Alan Boraas, professor of anth- ropology at Kenai Peninsula College, is the school’s most senior faculty member. But 36 years ago, the first time he asked for a job at the college, he was politely turned away.

Boraas had gone to Clayton Brockel, then the resident director of Kenai Peninsula Community College, a school in the process of building its first official structure, the McLane Building.

“He didn’t say, ‘Don’t ever come back,’” Boraas remembers. “He said, ‘We don’t have anything.’ He wasn’t overly encouraging. At the same time, he didn’t say ‘no.’”

Boraas, who grew up on a 1,000-acre wheat farm in Minnesota, had fallen in love with Alaska while beginning his master’s degree at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He had come to the peninsula in 1972 hoping to teach anthropology. Instead, he found himself living briefly in a camper in Soldotna’s Centennial Campground, working in a cannery, and then taking a job as a carpenter on the Damon Memorial Museum off Poppy Lane.

He was working on the museum roof early in the fall when Brockel pulled up in his 1963 blue Chevy Biscayne, affectionately known as “Ol’ Blue.” Brockel had an offer: “Would you like to teach ABE?” And Boraas replied, “Sure. What is it?”

“It” was Adult Basic Education, and the school had received a special grant to fund it. Brockel needed someone who could prepare adults to pass their General Educational Development (GED) tests.

“There was no promise of a future,” Brockel says now. “He went on a gamble. And he hung on there until we could get some money to hold on to him. He was thrown a bone, and he took it.”

Boraas soon parlayed this “bone” into his first anthropology class and also began teaching ABE classes to Kenai Native Association students at Wildwood through the Indian Action Program.

In the early days of his work in Wildwood, Jimmy Segura, the director of the Indian Action Program, said to him, “Our guys don’t have a lot of education.” Over the years, it was gratifying for Boraas to watch many of those “guys” — both women and men — earn an education and go on to become tribal, civic and community leaders.

Along the way, Boraas learned how gratifying teaching could be, and the importance of making a difference in people’s lives.

One thing led to another — it was “not career planning,” he said — and, as the college grew up around him, Boraas’ career also grew. He took on more anthropology courses and began making important local archaeological digs, including one in the mid-1970s at abandoned Kalifornsky Village. It was through this project that he met Peter Kalifornsky, who had been born in the village in 1911. Along with his sisters, Kalifornsky was among the last remaining speakers of the Outer Inlet dialect of the Dena’ina language on the Kenai Peninsula. He would come to influence the course of Boraas’ life and career long after Kalifornsky’s own death.

After a sabbatical at Oregon State University in 1979 to begin his doctoral work, Boraas continued to teach at the college and to further his investigation of Dena’ina prehistory, culture and linguistics. He also began writing articles about area history and culture for a local newspaper.

In 1983, he finished his doctorate, a study of the evolution of brain via specialization relating to the use of tools. He completed the degree over four years, focusing on it during summers and whenever possible while teaching, even traveling back to Oregon when it was necessary.

He laughed as he remembered that, after he had already presented and defended his doctoral thesis, he received a phone call from OSU.

“Got a call from the dean of the graduate school. ‘There’s a problem with your thesis.’ It’s the middle of summer. I’m out in the yard or something. The dean calls me. ‘It’s not on 20 percent rag bond paper. We can’t accept it.’

“In Soldotna in 1983, there was no 20 percent rag bond paper to be had.”

Finally, he located some 15 percent paper. Instead of retyping the entire thesis, he inserted the new paper into a photocopier, carefully copied his original work, and mailed it off to Oregon. No one was the wiser.

Sometime later, he received another notice from OSU.

“Since I didn’t go to my graduation (because of the expense and inconvenience), I didn’t get my diploma. And they sent me a card saying that, ‘If you want your diploma, we can send it to you if you send us $3.25 postage.’”

“I just spent thousands of dollars (in the OSU program), and they’re not going to send me my diploma unless I send them $3.25. So I never did get my diploma.”

It was the principle of the thing, he said.

In the mid-1980s, he had a life-changing encounter: Peter Kalifornsky, after the death of his younger sister, asked Boraas to help publish his collected writings. For years, Kalifornsky had, in his native language, been writing down stories of Dena’ina history, culture and mythology. He wished to compile his writings into a large volume that would feature all these stories both in Kalifornsky’s original language and in English.

“I was honored,” Boraas said of the opportunity. “When a man who is one of the last speakers of a dialect asks you to help him, you don’t ask questions. I daresay you don’t blink.”

He is reflective of that opportunity today: “The path one takes is often directed by the opportunities that present themselves. If you have the skills — background — to make a difference in whatever that opportunity is, you take advantage.”

With the help of James Kari of the Alaska Native Language Center, Boraas and Kalifornsky collaborated to complete Kalifornsky’s opus: the 527-page “A Dena’ina Legacy – K’tl’egh’I Sukdu: The Collected Writings of Peter Kalifornsky.”

In the early 1990s, Boraas was instrumental in the creation of Tsalteshi Trails at Skyview High School, and helped coach at the school. Skiing, Boraas said, is a means by which people of northern climates connect with their environment and embrace the range of seasons that the North has to offer.

Today, Boraas, 61, continues his Dena’ina connection. Although he is still at the college’s Kenai River Campus, he is not teaching this year. Instead, he is working to improve the Dena’ina language Web site to facilitate the reading and writing of the language, and is helping the Kenaitze tribe to finish analyzing an earlier archaeological project.

Despite all these accomplishments, however — and a lengthy entry on Wikipedia.org — Boraas, with a wry grin, refers to himself as “among the world’s most obscure archaeologists.”

Brockel, on the other hand, refers to him “as a real pioneer of the college.”

Muddy waters: Slikok project mired — Choice to drill garners question of water safety

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Plan B for getting a water pipe across Slikok Creek is making lemonade from lemons that shouldn’t have grown in the first place, according to Robert Ruffner, executive director of the Kenai Watershed Forum.

A project to extend city of Soldotna water service along Kalifornsky Beach Road and out to the Kenai River Campus of Kenai Peninsula College has been on hold since early September, when the first attempt to get the pipe past Slikok Creek ended up threatening the health of the creek.

The project originally called for doing a 100-yard underground bore and running the pipe under the creek, which is a productive spawning ground for salmon and trout. The boring process involves injecting mud into the hole to help move the pipe along. But something went awry and the mud started surfacing in the creek.

The mud was water-based and not a pollutant in a chemical sense, but it raised the turbidity level in the creek, said Rick Wood, head of the water department for the city of Soldotna.

Turbidity refers to the amount of particles, such as mud and silt, in water. If there’s enough of it, it can settle in gravel among salmon eggs and suffocate them, or ruin otherwise healthy spawning habitat. When it’s suspended in water it can clog up fishes’ gills so they can’t get enough oxygen, and it can eventually make it so juvenile fish can’t see to eat.

Drilling was stopped as soon as the mud was discovered in the creek.

“We didn’t want to have anything like that with our name on it.” Wood said.

The problem was caught early and the amount the turbidity level was raised wasn’t any more significant than a natural event, like a beaver dam breaking, Ruffner said. The Kenai Watershed Forum and Fish and Game were notified immediately and monitored the creek to ensure no significant damage was done.

“It got caught right away and the contractor’s a pretty first-class guy,” Ruffner said. “They did exactly what should have been done.”

But he questions why it was done in the first place.

“What I don’t know is how we got to this point, that would be really nice to know, because now that we’ve got a pipeline laid in both directions, with a gap where the creek is, it’s the wrong time to really look for a good solution,” Ruffner said. “So this is really going to be one of those cases of, ‘Let’s make some lemonade out of the lemons we’ve got there.’”

Wood said underground boring is a fairly new procedure in Alaska. It was thought to be safe for the creek, he said.

“Where they’re doing it you do mostly short runs. We were trying to do six to seven hundred feet,” Wood said. “We were led on by one of the contractors that was doing the drilling before we even put it out to bid, he thought it wouldn’t be a bit of a problem. The general contractor and city of Soldotna agreed. But, hey, enough is enough. We don’t want to risk any environmental damage.”

Now the plan is to wait until February or March when the water level in the creek is lowest, divert the creek, dig a trench, lay the pipe, backfill the trench and return the creek to its natural route. The city expects to hear whether it will get the permits required for the project in January, Wood said.

It’s a fine plan, as far as it goes, Ruffner said.

“There are always things that can go wrong, but doing it in the dead of winter when water levels are as low as they can get and working when the ground is frozen minimizes risks. They’re doing everything they can to make sure the lemonade is as sweet as possible,” Ruffner said.

Sweetening the deal even more is an opportunity to actually help the creek. There’s a section of it about 100 feet away from the drilling location that was damaged in the past when it was used as an ATV corridor, Ruffner said. The crew could put the pipe through there and repair the damage to the creek when they redivert it.

“So there’s the lemonade part of the story,” he said.

The sourness comes from Ruffner’s contention that pipes shouldn’t be run under creeks in the first place.

“At some point they’re going to fail and have to be tore up. At some point you’re going to have to go in there and dig these things out. So there’s no way to avoid impacts,” Ruffner said.

A better alternative would be to run the pipe along College Road, about a half-mile away, and cross the creek at the bridge, Ruffner said. He thought that was the plan, since there was a water main already put in place across the creek when College Road was torn up last year so the culvert Slikok Creek passes through underneath the road could be replaced.

Wood said water and sewer lines were installed at the creek crossing when the culvert was replaced. Since the road was already being dug up for the culvert, the idea was to install the water and sewer lines in case a bridge is ever built across the Kenai River off Poppy Lane, Wood said. The city considered using the water line for this project, but it wasn’t feasible because that route wouldn’t maintain the pressure required for firefighting purposes, he said.

Wood said there has to be a certain level of water flow maintained for fire hydrants. Using the water main at the culvert would add 5,000 feet of pipe to the project, which would result in lower water pressure and volume, he said.

“It wouldn’t serve a purpose. They’d (KPC) have to have another water source even if we did go along the College Road,” Wood said.

It also would be more expensive. With engineering and construction costs, pipe in this project costs $130 a lineal foot, Wood said.

“Times 5,000, it starts adding up,” he said.

At $265,000, the underground bore already was more expensive than if they’d diverted the creek in the first place, Wood said. But now the college, which is footing the bill for the project, has to pay for the failed bore and the creek trench project.

“They’re paying for all of it to get water from K-Beach to the college. We’re going to do it like we would for the city, we’re going to look for the cheapest route to do it for them,” Wood said.

Ruffner said money shouldn’t trump the importance of minimizing impacts to the creek.
“If it costs more, then whoever is paying for it just needs to raise more money to do that,” he said.

Better yet, everyone involved should learn a lesson from this scenario and avoid plans to lay pipes under sensitive creeks.

“I would be happy with the proposed solution if we learned a lesson and changed our behavior in the future,” Ruffner said. “It’s a palatable solution, for sure.”

“When we heard directional drilling under the creek we didn’t think much about it. In the future, we probably learned our lesson, that we ought to think about those things, and if there’s an alternative route, take it. Even better than that would be a policy saying, ‘These are the corridors that you can provide utilities through.”

Wood said the original plan was to have pipe laid by Oct. 15. Now the project could take until June.

Art Seen: Artistic challenge ‘found’ in KPC gallery

“Works from Found Objects” is as the name suggests, a show of a number of individual works that include found objects. What isn’t readily apparent is that the objects hail from a single source.

Drew O’Brian was cleaning up the Kenai Peninsula College machine shop and made an offer to Joy Falls, another faculty member, who teaches sculpture and ceramics. She was thrilled with the idea of utilizing some of the mostly metal objects in her own art, as well as offering them up to the other art faculty members. The culminating project stands as a cohesive faculty exhibit on view in the Gary L. Freeburg Gallery until Nov. 13.

Cathleen Rolph’s singular contribution is a totem-sized “fetish.” It is called “Oath Taking Figure and Sacred Trust,” and is a joy to absorb. She has driven large nails and spikes of many styles and types into a wooden post that feels as if it is splitting from the pressure of it.

The abstract “face,” however, feels quite serene and compassionate. It reminds me of Francis Picabia mechanical drawings from the Dada era; especially the effect of the red paint applied to the inside of the post where it is split apart, so that it is visible and protected, all at once. Also Picabia-ish are the multiple gears surrounding the “neck” area.

Celia Anderson, currently appearing to be the most prolific of the bunch, has become increasingly political and heartfelt with her work. She tackles issues as serious as poverty, genocide and AIDS, but presents them with such cunning aesthetics that you don’t feel preached to or hammered down from the weight of it.

In “Darfur,” dyed material is the base. The process is called arashi shibori, a Japanese technique of creating the fabric surface by folding, wrapping and binding it on a pole, and then utilizing a reductive method termed “discharge dying.”

To this she has added rusty chain and a good-sized broken bone that was amazingly also acquired in the machine shop scavenge. The center of the piece is the pure black of the material, providing a polarizing and psychological dimension in relation to the subtle Conté crayon drawings of skeletal shapes on the right side. The work is beautiful, the message, unsettling.

Similarly, in the acrylic on canvas “Holes in the System,” the colors and brushstrokes are luscious and inviting, yet the yearning in the subject’s eyes is painful to witness.
He looks as if he is being squeezed by the top and bottom edges of the canvas. His pockets are turned out and empty, and metal discs flow to either side and right off the canvas to the surrounding wall space.

The discs could symbolize money or coins, and have the movement of an energy flow, outward and dissipating. The darkness surrounding him and the constricted composition evoke a desperate feeling.

There is an ominous tone to William Heath’s “Monument,” as well. The colors are cold and crisp. The machine in the photograph seems to tower over us, even though the image is of moderate size.

I get the sense that all of the artists are uncomfortable with these difficult times, and that there is an underlying tension with hints of angst to be found among the otherwise pleasing arrangements.

During World War I many writers and artists were aware of a growing discomfort with the way things were headed, and it showed in their work. Dadaism was an organized effort to throw the world’s deeds back into its face and ask “why?” thereby exposing the nonsensical nature of war and violence, and the political machinery that creates it.

Ellen Chambers’ cozy constructs in this exhibit inform me that although there are sharp differences between many of us, we are all interconnected and can find some sort of balance if we learn to work together. We just have to stop taking sides.

Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works gallery in Soldotna. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.

Art Seen: Exhibit is new page in art book

When I walked into the Gary L. Freeburg Gallery at the Kenai River Campus of Kenai Peninsula College, the lights suddenly turned on. A motion sensor has been installed, probably to help the college save money on electricity. But while I found myself engrossed in the subtle and strangely intense exhibit, the lights quit on me no less than four times. A minor irritation, to be sure, but each time I felt a spell was broken.

Brenna Burns’ delightful Kozo (mulberry) paper installations have the breadth and depth to take viewers outside themselves, or inside themselves, if they are so inclined. Each lightly hanging piece incorporates quirky little drawings of cocoons, pods, creatures and dresses with blocks of writing, only sometimes legible, which serve to create varying textures on the already texture-rich handmade paper.

The words span from statements like, “the body is the garment of the soul,” to, “you’re not ready to know” (which is what I felt when I couldn’t read the words on some of the pieces, like a secret teaching I knew I could gain access to only when I was truly ready). Sometimes the repeated words feel like a mantra, other times more like the frenzied babblings of a manic-depressive. In others yet, like a detached factual statement, repeated in an offhand manner.


These works really seem like an archeological find, delicate transcripts depicting ancient practices, some areas torn, or bunched, or overlaid to varying effect. I found myself wishing I could literally surround myself in this element, in a paper house of sorts, enjoying the way the material responds to only slight movements around the room.

To quote the artist, who is also a writer based in New Haven, Conn., “Mulberry is the preferred food of silkworms, and I enjoyed this connection between the insect nature of the paper and the insect nature of the images I was working into the paper. Kozo also has a sound to it — it rustles and flutters without much provocation – and this struck me as another nice kinship with the insect world.”

The exhibit is called “Paper x3,” because of the three artists represented.Each have been involved in their own type of exploration into paper. Rhoda Rosenberg’s connection with paper was brought to the surface (I think I mean that as an intended pun) while she was learning printmaking in the 1970s.

“In etching, I fell in love with black ink. The surface was seductive. Instead of using the process to make images that I already had in my mind, I began to find images through the process.”

Each is a mono print and the artist has reiterated that point by writing 1/1 in the signature area. Her work is quite sensual and visually strong. I would like to see more of it, and on a grander scale, perhaps.

“Exhale” by Nicole Seisler, her only piece in the exhibit, is a series of chunky handmade papers, displayed so they are set off the wall and create nice shadows. The paper does not seem unlike those created by students in any number of printmaking 101 classes across the country. All of the artists appear primarily process oriented. And while printmaking and papermaking are imbued with seemingly magical properties themselves, it is Brenna Burns’ work that haunts me with its magical, whimsical and inherently thoughtful approach.

At the turn of the millennium, there was a summit called to decide what a time capsule should optimally contain that would not be opened for another thousand years. After much discussion (who knows what operating systems or even electrical/energy systems will in use by then, since metal does weird things in space and is heavy, etc.) it was decided that something on paper would be the best choice.

Paper, even though it can wrinkle, mold, get crispy and yellow from an abundance of tannic acid, fall apart or simply dry out, is a surprisingly long-lasting element when properly cared for. So cheers to paper, times three, in all of its glory and subtlety. Thanks to the curator, Ellen Chambers, who pulled it all together, and a special kudos to Celia Anderson, who makes things like this happen at our local college.

Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works gallery in Soldotna. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.

Industrious learning — KPC grant will enhance growing degree programs

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Dominique Bonaventure, Ben Reaves, Stacy Whiteley and Mike Stacy came to Kenai Peninsula College from different paths. They’ve met there at different times in their lives. But they all ended up in the same program for the same reason: The prospect of jobs.

The students are seeking their associate degrees in process technology at the Kenai River Campus of KPC, one of several programs the college had developed to meet the developing needs of Alaska’s work force.

Bonaventure came to the program after working in the field for a year. Originally from France, now of Kasilof, Bonaventure got a math degree from the University of Alaska. He spent a year doing computer work for Chevron in Anchorage.

“I met a lot of engineers and saw what went on behind the labor. Since I’m more of a hard laborer I figured the field would be better for me than the office,” he said.

He’s now in his second semester of the two-year process technology degree program at KPC and expects it to provide options for him when he graduates.

“That degree is very versatile. You can work in almost any process industry. … It opens a lot of doors, industrywise,” he said.

“My real goal is three weeks on, three weeks off. That’s the goal.”

Reaves, of Soldotna, came to KPC right out of high school. A 2008 graduate of Soldotna High, Reaves got a $12,000 scholarship from BP to fund his education.

“Going straight into school without having to worry about money is pretty nice,” he said.

It took Whiteley more time and life experience before she decided to get into the process technology program. She originally went to school for business with the intention of working in the tourism industry, and took a break to raise her kids.

“I got here and decided this is not where I was 10 years ago,” she said.
She plans pursue a management position in the process tech field.

“I found my abilities fit this. It’s going to offer a great career,” she said.

Stacy is working toward a degree in process technology after getting his associate’s degree in industrial process instrumentation, also through KPC.

Coming from a farming and construction background in Arkansas 10 years ago, he now sees the process tech industry as being a good fit for his outdoors and mechanical experiences.

They all agree that the KPC program is a great way to prepare for the jobs they see on the horizon, especially with the prospect of Pebble Mine and a natural gas pipeline being built in the state.

Process technology is one of the fastest-growing fields at the University of Alaska. As of fall 2007, UA had more than 300 students enrolled seeking process tech and/or instrumentation degrees, according to the college.

With relatively small class sizes, hands-on training, field trips to industrial plants in Nikiski and even the North Slope, the students said they are confident KPC is preparing them for what’s to come.

“It’s really person-to-person,” Bonaventure said of the KPC program. “All these guys (instructors) worked in the field before. Now they’re teaching. They know what’s expected of us, what’s coming our way in the field.”

“It’s ever-changing and developing,” Whiteley said. “I like how they’re building onto it and adapting to how the industry is changing.”

Thanks to a $500,000 donation from Chevron, announced last week at KPC’s annual community barbecue, the program will offer even better opportunities for students in the future. Chevron donated $1 million in all, split in half between KPC’s process tech, instrumentation and computer electronics programs, and the University’s Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program in Anchorage.

KPC’s portion of the money will be used to upgrade teaching labs, purchase industry-standard training equipment and establish a scholarship program for those fields, according to KPC Director Gary Turner.

“I’m very grateful for the donation,” Whiteley said. “It will open up a lot of opportunities for us in training and simulations that will help us with realistic job experience.

“I just think it’s fantastic that they’re involved in the community like they are and they give us a purpose to drive for, and we have the right instruments to go for it.”