Gallery Walk at Juneau-Douglas City Museum features solo artist Crystal Worl

Visit the Juneau-Douglas City Museum for the opening reception of One Raven: Painting One Story at a Time by Crystal Worl on Friday, December 6 from 4:30-7 p.m. This exhibit will be on display through December 28. The opening reception is free; artwork and related merchandise will be for sale.

One Raven: Painting One Story at a Time is a collection of recent works by Worl depicting stories about Raven and other characters from Tlingit oratory. While the stories Worl shares through her art feature Raven, she also explores subsistence lifestyle in Alaska.

“In Tlingit oratory there are an abundance of stories about Raven’s journey to cultural knowledge and values. This exhibition will show a collection of gouache paintings illustrating Raven and other beings in transformation, and other characters in Tlingit stories. The series will also include imagery of subsistence lifestyle in Alaska with formline human and animal figures,” Worl says.

One Raven: Painting One Story at a Time is an excellent example of Worl’s ability to incorporate both traditional and modern design elements into her work. Deftly blending Tlingit formline design with Athabascan beadwork design, Worl utilizes non-traditional colors, textures, and paint splatters to add a bright, colorful, and “popping” contemporary mood to the collection.

“The purpose of my art is to bring attention to cultural growth and discovery. My creative process is a means to bridge my experiences between two worlds, the traditional worlds of Tlingit, and the modern world. I create art to share my ancestral knowledge of creation and life and to pass on old values to the new generations,” explains Worl.

Crystal is Tlingit and Athabascan from Juneau, and Fairbanks, Alaska. Her mother, Beverly Demientieff, is Deg Hit’an Athabascan from Holy Cross, Alaska. Her father, Rodney Worl, is Tlingit from the Thunderbird Clan. Crystal is Raven moiety, Lukaahadi Sockeye Clan, from the Raven House from the Chilkat region of Southeast Alaska. In Crystal’s words, “One Raven: Painting One Story at a Time is a collection of work demonstrating my love for Tlingit culture, design, and way of life.”