Saving UAA’s artwork

Behind two locked doors in Gordon Hartleib Hall there is a room that stores works of art without a home. 

Paintings lean against the walls. In a corner, there is a sculpture of an owl with long legs, standing about three feet tall. The official name of this piece is unknown, but it’s been given the nickname of “Standing Owl” by those who brought it here. 

Lilli Major and September Sell are UAA students who have been working since the summer of 2024 to inventory, catalog and discover the history of the artwork across the Anchorage campus. 

In an interview with The Northern Light, they spoke about their efforts to discover and share the stories of the art. 

The project was initiated by Kim Mahoney, vice chancellor of facilities at UAA. In a previous article by The Northern Light from March 2024, Mahoney said, “This initiative that I’m just launching is to bring [the art database] up-to-date to make it more current, but then also make it more accessible to the broader community.”

According to the article, a previous inventory had been done, but it had not been updated through the years. 

Sell and Major were hired as interns and began inventorying the art the following May. 

Sell is pursuing a bachelor in arts and plans to switch to fine arts in the fall. Major has an interest in photography, having taken photography classes at UAA, and is majoring in business administration.

They began the project by looking at previous inventories. An inventory was done in 1999 by Wanda Seamster and in 2010 by Eric Rodgers. 

Major said they were able to talk with both Rodgers and Seamster about their efforts. 

Sell said, “Wanda (Seamster) was ecstatic” about the project. 

Rodgers, on the other hand, seemed disappointed that the inventory had not been maintained over the years, said Sell. 

“After you do a huge project like that you expect it to continue.”

Major said, “A lot of the problem with the inventories being so far apart and nobody keeping up to date with any of the art, is that when faculty go, we lose entire stories of the art. And we have no idea of where it came from … or what happened to it.”

Sell said a goal of the current project was to avoid letting that happen again. 

Over ten weeks, they scoured the entire Anchorage campus — inside and out — looking for art, including at the Bragaw Office Complex and the Aviation Technology Center at Merrill Field. 

Sell said they had floor plans of every building and kept track of the art on a notepad. 

Major said they got master keys for the entire campus and were able to explore nearly every room in every building. She also had the task of photographing every piece for the inventory. 

Major said that despite their efforts, there were about 80 pieces that they could not locate. 

Sell said, “We’ve heard some stories, people throwing them in dumpsters maybe, people walking off with them because they’ve been in their offices for years and they just kind of assume it’s personal property after that.”

Major talked about a piece in the Beatrice McDonald Hall called “Rockface” by Carol Nordgren that came close to being tossed in the trash. 

The building underwent renovations several years ago. She said the painting was in an IT server room and was going to be tossed, but someone intervened.

“One of the professors saw it and was like, ‘umm, I like that one, I’m going to keep it,’ and they just put it up in the building.”

Despite the pieces they could not locate, they found new pieces that had been acquired by the university since the last inventory — over 400 new pieces in fact. 

Overall, the collection grew from about 400 pieces to about 815 pieces.

Another task of the project was to establish the backstory behind each work. 

Major said a frustration they encountered was “lost information or just no information at all.”

“So we would just have to find lost ends, if there were any, and trace them back to where they were.”  

Sell said, “When you have nothing to go off of, there’s nothing to say except for the basic information you have ... And we’re so desperate to find more information too.”

Sell said that an important part of the project was to reach out to members of the art community across the state. 

Major said there were “a lot of cold calls,” and Sell added that there were “a lot of emails with no responses.” 

But, Sell said, the art community in Alaska is very close knit, and that often they could find someone with information just by asking around. 

They were able to speak with several original artists or those with information about the work.

Sell said that they knew the sculptures in the first floor of the Fine Arts Building were made by Hugh McPeck — the same artist that the gallery in the Student Union is named after. Aside from that, there was no other information. 

They contacted Hugh McPeck’s wife, Ann Gabler, who was able to supply information about the sculptures. 

Another artist they contacted was Carolyn Strand, the creator of several carpet tapestries that hung in the Fine Arts Building.

Sell said she remembers one of the large pieces, called “Tufted Tapestries,” from when she was younger. She said she came to the Fine Arts Building for recitals and performances while growing up. 

The piece no longer hangs in the Fine Arts Building. Instead, it’s rolled up in the storage room in the Gordon Harlieb Hall. 

“I feel like over time people kind of lost respect for it because it's been around for so long. And so people call it like ‘the carpet,’ or they say it looks dirty.”

She was able to confirm with Strand that the piece was in good shape and got information on how to preserve it. 

Sell said that they have received a lot of support and interest in the project. 

“People want to know the story of these art pieces.” 

She said that James Evans, UAA’s photographer, told her that he takes pictures of the art on campus and often wonders what the story behind it is. 

“He was like, ‘I have all these pictures, I’ve been trying to find out more about this artwork.’” 

She said, “It’s so interesting: People of the community have really taken a shine to this project because of their own curiosity.

Major and Sell are still working with facilities, having shifted over to administrative assistants. Aside from their other duties, they continue to work on the inventory and raise support for it.

The final part of their project is to help bring what they’ve discovered to the public. 

‍They created a website that has links to pictures of the pieces, a map of outdoor installations and background information.

And, they have started to give new life to some of the pieces by finding homes for them. 

The paintings that were hung on the wall downstairs in the Student Union last fall came from this project. Other pieces have been displayed in Lucy Cuddy Hall and the Engineering and Computational Building.

Sell said that if there are people on campus who would like to hang art in their department or buildings, they can contact them via the website. 

She hopes that the pieces become a feature of UAA that others can enjoy.