First Friday gives Homer art lovers reason to celebrate

Published 3:30 am Thursday, July 2, 2026

As the community gears up to celebrate 250 years of American pride, Homer’s artists and galleries are once again putting their works on display for all to see.

First Friday is a perfect chance to head downtown to take in the artistic talent found right on your doorstep ahead of the flags, fireworks and festivities on the Fourth of July.

Bunnell Street Arts Center

106 West Bunnell Ave

Kindred Spirits by Linda Infante Lyons and Re-matriate: Home/Land/Security by Rika Mouw

Opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. with artist talks at 6 p.m.

Homer artist Rika Mouw has a long history in design and environmental advocacy beginning with the study of landscape architecture in college and working in Colorado in that capacity. Later she apprenticed in metalsmithing/jewelry making, before establishing and maintaining her own studio for many years, showing and selling work in galleries across the country.

“Salmon are iconic. They are sacred. They are keystone beings. Salmon are the thread that stitches together land and ocean, forests, wetlands and rivers of clean cold water, whales, bears, marine mammals, birds and other fish, peoples and cultures, customs and traditions, identity, and ways of life,” said Mouw. “The culture of patriarchy, capitalism, commodification, and religious ideology has transformed a once sustaining living system on Earth to one that is breaking down. All life is sacred and exceptional in its infinite and wondrous sentient forms.

“It is all stitched together in kinship that is the living, breathing, precious tapestry that wraps the Earth. As salmon are endangered, I feel the threads fraying, unraveling.”

Linda Infante Lyons (Alutiiq/Sugpiaq) is a painter and multimedia artist whose work engages themes of Indigenous sovereignty, cultural resilience, and environmental sustainability.

“Alutiiq cosmology is built on the belief that all things, living and inanimate, are sentient, and that people are equal members of a system that is built on reciprocity and kinship. My ancestors understood there is but a thin veil between the natural world and the spiritual world and deeply valued their relationship with other living beings,” she said. “In my paintings, both landscape and portrait, I take a deeper look at the spiritual and sentient nature of our world, representing landscape, plant, animal and human life as brethren and worthy of our reverence and care.”

Raised in Anchorage, she earned her B.A. from Whitman College before spending 18 years in Chile, where she studied at the Viña del Mar Escuela de Bellas Artes. Her maternal family is from Kodiak Island — her mother was born in the village of Karluk, and her grandparents were commercial salmon fishers.

Both exhibits run through Aug. 4.

Ptarmigan Arts

471 E. Pioneer Ave.

Wildlife and landscape photographer Pam Roseveare

Opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m.

Ptarmigan Arts will showcase the work of local wildlife and landscape photographer Pam Roseveare during a 3-day event running July 3-5.

“My dad cultivated a love for wildlife and nature in me at a very young age through the many road trips he would take my family on,” Roseveare says of her journey into photography. “Some were very long trips around the entire state of Alaska, while others didn’t take us far from home, but all of them focused on the beauty of Alaska and the amazing wildlife found within our great state.”

View Roseveare’s work and meet the artist Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Art Shop Gallery

202 W. Pioneer Ave.

Stained Glass by Lisa Carlon

Opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m.

Carlon is from Soldotna and has been making three-dimensional stained glass for over 25 years. Each piece is an original design. Her show this year is titled “The Power of Flower” and the featured images will be fireweed, lupine, panies, and tulips, along with a beautiful sandhill crane.

Homer Council on the Arts

355 W. Pioneer Ave.

Summertide by Kathleen McCarthy

Opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. with artist talk at 5:30 p.m.

Using acrylics, and watercolor with pastel, McCarthy looks to bring the peace of the outdoors and all its beauty inside, to splash the walls with color and fill them up.

“My work is the exploration of light and shadow and their transient nature in the world. I try to capture that feeling when you see the sun filtering through the trees, momentarily changing the color we see all around us,” she said. “Looking for hidden overlooked hues in the shadows. The unexpected pop of bright red, the deep purples, the golden glow on the horizon. That’s how I’d like my art to feel – transient, vibrant, and a little overwhelming.”

Using acrylics, and watercolor with pastel, my goal is to bring the peace of the outdoors and all its beauty inside, to splash the walls with color and fill them up. To showcase the little fleeting moments of the world around us as a reminder to take time to pause and enjoy it.”

The exhibit runs through Aug. 3

South Peninsula Hospital Gallery Hall

4300 Bartlett St.

The Shape of Silence – Artwork by Musallam Youngblood

No opening reception but the works will be on display in the SPH Gallery Hall through Aug. 3.

This show explores the intersection of surrealism and material presence, where memory becomes tangible and emotion is embedded in oil on canvas. Emerging from a personal journey from the Middle East to Homer, Alaska, the artist’s paintings reflect an encounter with a landscape that is not merely seen, but deeply felt.

“In Homer, both nature and community unfold quietly — through silence, distance, and subtle connection. This duality shapes the work, where forms exist between belonging and observation, and where the boundary between human and environment begins to dissolve,” said Youngblood.

“These paintings are not representations, but transformations — of place, memory, and inner experience — inviting the viewer into a space where the visible and the unseen coexist.”