Sunday, July 13, 2008

July 13 PA Arts Sunday -- Volcanoes

One of the great powers of art is how it can help us realize how small and utterly powerless we sometimes are. Photographs of staggering natural events can do that. Alaska has more volcanoes than all the rest of North America. Many of them are active.

Late this week, Okmok Volcano on Unmak Island began erupting. Residents were evacuated late Saturday, as rocks and debris were coming down on them. Here's a satellite picture from early today.

Okmok has gone through many, many eruptions. Unmak Island, from the beginning of 1942 through 1943, became home of the most important Army Air Corps base in the Aleutians. After Japanese Navy's aircraft carrier planes attacked Dutch Harbor, some were totally surprised, as they were intercepted by P-40s from the air base at Ft. Glenn, on Unmak.

In 1945, the most spectacular recent eruption on the Island caused havoc there. By then, the base had become fairly secondary, with the main base of operations moving far westward, as the threat from Japanese military forces was beaten back, one invasion or isolation maneuver at a time. By the time of this eruption, the main bases for land-based aerial operations were situated on Adak Island and Shemya Island.

But few islands in the Aleutian chain are free from volcanoes. All the islands are volcanic in origin. Some of the islands are almost entirely comprised of a big volcanic cone or growing set of jagged hills. Others, like Kiska, for instance, have their strange, rugged topography sculpted toward their islands main feature, the volcano.

Between eruptions, the caldera on Okmok has undergone many transformations, some quite beautiful. Here's a waterfall into the Okmok caldera, from the recent past.

At times, the caldera's lake has been fairly large. Sometimes, after a new formation, the lake has grown, until the water begins to find a new way through fissures, new or old.

Art by Alaskans about volcanoes is probably mostly in the visual sphere.

The most famous work of fine art about volcanoes, is wood sculptor John Hoover's "Volcano Woman." It is in the main lobby of the Egan Center, and I try to visit the wonderful installation a couple of times per year. Here's Alaska's foremost authority on our visual artists, Dr. Julie Decker, with her description of this great work (of which I cannot find a photograph):


"In 1984 Hoover received a commission for what would become his favorite public art installation. Volcano Woman consists of thirteen figures and the central figure of Volcano Woman is surrounded by eight female figures (guardian spirits) forming an outer circle, and four cormorants making up an inner circle. Cormorants are diving sea birds, whose ability to both fly in the air and move underwater accounts for their appearance in shamanic contexts in Northwest and Alaskan cultures, as shamans often seek the guidance of creatures that can move from one environment to another. Hoover is pleased with the way this sculpture fills a seating area in the building and the complexity of the interaction of the forms.

"Volcano Woman, in Northwest Coast culture, is the protector of the forest. People must respect Volcano Woman, as she protects all wild creatures as her children. Volcano Woman is volatile, vengeful, and violent at times. According to Lydia T. Black, a scholar of Aleut art and culture, only one Aleut story of Volcano Woman has been documented in writing, and no images of Volcano Woman exist from ancient times. Rather, Volcano Woman was described through oral traditions, from generation to generation. Hoover's depiction of Volcano Woman, however, combines the Aleut text (referred to by Black) and versions of the story from oral traditions with his own imagination. The story of Volcano Woman seeks to explain how the Aleutian Islands of Alaska were populated. Hoover recounted the story in this way:

Volcanoes were being formed in the Aleutians and the volcanoes formed islands. A flock of cormorants went by one volcano and a beautiful woman emerged, the Volcano Woman. So they all stopped and changed into human form and mated with her and then changed back into cormorants. But they flew their babies all over the islands, and, in this way, the islands became populated.

"Hoover believes that his is the first visual interpretation of the Volcano Woman story by an artist. Each of the three separate, but interrelated, circular elements is a different color, which Hoover says reflect natural earth tones: grays, greens, and reds. The simple, plain carving on the backsides of the figures is consistent with the Northwest Coast tradition, which usually left the backs of totem poles, mortuary poles, and other ceremonial sculptures unadorned."


After seeing John Hoover's sculpture of Volcano Woman, I discovered the essence for the final scene of my yet unperformed robot ballet, Robot Gagaku. That final movement is itself named Volcano Woman.


images - top to bottom: Mt. Augustine - by Cyrus Read; current Okmok eruption from weather satellite; 1945 Okmok eruption by U.S. Navy photographer (UAF collection); Okmok Caldera waterfall - C.G. Reyes; Cleveland Violcano erupting - from the International Space Station (May 23, 2006); Mt. Redoubt on April 21, 1990 - J. Warren. All images from the Alaska Volcano Observatory

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