It is the week before spring break at Pacific High School in Sitka, and a handful of students are scattered across different tables in a classroom, hunkered down in their final projects. While students often find themselves polishing up their final essays or posters, these teens are working on a different assignment: original comic books.

Sophomore Sydney Lindstrom is making her way through a stack of completed comic spreads.

“I’m working on folding my comic because it’s in a zine format,” she says. She layers the printed pages on top of a tablet illuminating pure light to help her straighten out her lines while she folds each paper into a pocket-sized magazine. Her comic summarizes creation stories from various cultures and compares and contrasts them to Western scientific theories she learned about in her physical science class.

Until now, Lindstrom only dabbled in illustration, usually characters from her favorite tv shows. But branching out to a whole comic in a new style was a fun challenge.

“It’s like a style that I don’t really ever draw in. It’s not my style really at all. But it was interesting to try out the new style,” says Lindstrom.

It is this very exploration of ideas and stepping out of one’s comfort zone that English teacher Tristan Guevin hopes to instill in his students during the course. 

“Oftentimes, graphic novels and comics aren’t necessarily seen as literature, but if you read them, you analyze them in the same way you would analyze a novel or, you know, a non fiction book. There’s so much richness there,” says Guevin. “Just a great medium for students to explore ideas, to learn about other people, other cultures, times, events, and so I think they’re just really, really accessible and just enjoyable.”

While this is Guevin’s second year teaching the comics course, it is the first time a guest artist helped lead the class, thanks to an Artist in Schools grant from the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, Sitka Public School District, and Alaska State Council of the Arts. The artist in question is Medar de la Cruz, a Pulitzer Prize winning illustrator and comic artist who taught art in Sitka before through the Fine Arts Camp. Chatting over Zoom from his home in Brooklyn, de la Cruz fondly recalls the first day at Pacific High, when he revealed the wide variety of art supplies he gifted to the school, including Lindstrom’s light-up tablet. 

“It was really cool to just watch everybody sort of flock through the materials and start using them. It’s a really exciting thing, and it reminds me of my first time,” says de la Cruz. “Every time I come home from the art store… It’s almost like Christmas, and you just really can’t wait to to play with the tool and see what it does.”

As he got to know the students throughout the residency, de la Cruz grew increasingly impressed with how knowledgeable they were about nature and global politics, with the students studying the autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis, which recounts author Marjane Satrapi’s life in pre-and post-revolutionary Iran. 

“I don’t know if the average kid would would have these sort of insights on the book. And I really appreciated that,” says de la Cruz. “I noticed that they are very well connected to current events, probably because of Tristan’s guidance, who chose a book, for example, in this situation, about Iran during a war in Iran, or during conflict in Iran.”

Still, de la Cruz said it took a bit of work to bring students out of their shells. He recalls leading them in an activity where they passed illustrations around the room at random, and each artist added something new such as dialogue or another panel. It’s typically a quiet exercise, but making it more conversational allowed students to open up. 

“And there was a much more organic approach in this sense. And there was a lot also a lot more laughing and a lot more fun being had than any other time that I’ve ever done this workshop,” says de la Cruz. “So it really gave me an opportunity to reconsider how I go about this in the future.”

Today, those comics are proudly displayed on the glass walls of the classroom, with different drawing materials and art styles coming together to tell a wide variety of chaotically imaginative adventures, like the origin story of a swan and goose hybrid known as the “swoose”, which became a running classroom gag. 

Guevin says the collaborative comic writing encapsulated the spirit of de la Cruz’s residency. 

“It was such a great experience. For me, and a collaborative one where students were able to be creative and express themselves through both art and narrative,” says Guevin. “And so I think that’s something that I take from this class, and I hope to build on, is just that kind of spirit of collaboration and creativity.” 

Guevin and de la Cruz are planning a second iteration of his residency for the course next year. More than anything, de la Cruz hopes the course will help students gain greater comic and graphic novel literacy. 

“Regardless of if they actually walk away with a desire to make comics, I really want them to walk away with a desire to read them more. And I think that’s the biggest distinction between the two right there,” says de la Cruz.

As Lindstrom folds the last of her comics, she says de la Cruz inspired her to elevate her artistry. 

“He was really good at free-handing his comics, which was surprising, but I want to try and do that more,” says Lindstrom. “I’m more interested in just getting into comics, because this was my first time making like a legit comic, and it was really enjoyable, and I want to try it again.”

Lindstrom has already given some of her comics to her teachers, but soon plans to distribute her latest completed ones to her family. She says she’ll keep at least one for herself too, and in the future, who knows how many more stories will stand beside it.

Young Performers Theater’s fall show will be gracing the Odess Theater this weekend, following the adventures of everybody’s favorite cast of characters from the 100 Aker Wood, including not one, not two, but THREE Winnie the Poohs. Actors Myles Hutchinson, Liz Pearson, and Louisa Sorrill join KCAW for the Morning Interview alongside director Zeke Blackwell on bringing the iconic bear to life, as well as what audiences can expect from their fun-filled production.

Following a series of successful rock shows at the Sitka Fine Arts camp, Sitka musicians will band together for two nights only (9/12 and 9/13) to put their spin on the hits of Led Zeppelin and The Who under the moniker “Black Dog.” Black Dog members Drew Sherman, Casey Tyler, and Tyler Kloewer join KCAW for the Morning Interview to speak on their individual music journeys, and what audiences can expect in the upcoming shows.

While actors are regularly lauded in the mainstream, the contributions and skills of those behind the scenes are often unknown. Rach Roach from Sitka Fine Arts Camp speaks with KCAW for the Morning Interview on the organization’s upcoming technical theater class, as well as the featured plays in their upcoming season where students will apply their new knowledge.

Theater Director Zeke Blackwell and cast members join the Morning Interview to discuss the musical’s appeal, noting its uplifting spirit and diverse musical artists like Aerosmith and Cyndi Lauper. Listen here:

The National Endowment for the Arts notified the camp on May 2 that it was withdrawing $60,000 in funding it awarded last fall.

Camp director Roger Schmidt says the loss is not going to affect operations this summer as much as it will affect the future of the program.

“We’ve been receiving funding from the National Endowment since 2004 almost annually,” said Schmidt. “So if this is the beginning of the end, it’s going to have a really significant and continual impact on our ability toprovide high quality arts experiences to Alaska kids.”

The Sitka Fine Arts Camp opens in June. 800 elementary-, middle-, and high school students from 43 Alaskan communities and from around the country will transform the typically-quiet downtown campus into a hive of music, dance, theater, and visual arts. The camp provides $150,000 in financial aid to students, and will cover that obligation out of reserves. It will also cover instructor salaries out of reserves. For Schmidt, the bottom line is about the kids.

“We have seen that the arts and its intersection with youth is one of the most powerful ways that kids can feel like they matter, they can be heard, they can be seen, they can feel good about who they are as they form community and friends,” he said.

The camp’s funding request to the NEA is straightforward: “To support teaching artist fees in the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, a multidisciplinary arts camp for Alaskan youth.” In its termination notice, the National Endowment for the Arts stated that the camp’s project no longer aligns with the priorities of the President, which include celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, supporting the economic development of Asian-American communities, and making the District of Columbia safe and beautiful. There’s also language about disaster recovery, helping veterans, tribal communities, and “fostering AI competency.”

Schmidt says it’s not likely that the Sitka Fine Arts Camp could conform to anything on this list. For him, the unstated benefit of the camp is mental health, in an era when kids still feel the residual effects of the isolation they experienced through the pandemic.

“And we have kids coming from communities that feel like the camp is their home away from home,” said Schmidt. “It’s their lifeline. Is their favorite place on Earth. I think that’s just another way of saying it’s what makes them feel well.”

The camp also receives support from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, which itself is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additionally, Schmidt says the camp has had a higher-than-usual number of cancellations – many the children of federal workers who’ve lost their jobs and are leaving Alaska, or are otherwise unable to afford camp.

Tickets are available here. The show is 7 p.m. May 2 at Odess Theater.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order to eliminate federally-funded programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. That order could affect a wide range of programs in Alaska, from climate research to summer camps.

On any given day, a handful of projects are in motion at the Sitka Sound Science Center. In an upstairs room, a group is meeting to coordinate regional landslide monitoring. In another, a graduate student lowers urchins into a tank for a climate research project. And a few blocks away, a staff member is teaching kindergarteners about forces and motion on the elementary school playground. 

“We’re in every single classroom here in Sitka every single year,” said Arleigh Reynolds, the Science Center’s Executive Director.

Reynolds oversees all of these programs. And right now, he’s wondering whether they’ll be funded next year. 

 Following Trump’s executive order, staff at the National Science Foundation and other agencies are flagging grants with a wide range of keywords, like “climate change” and “Indigenous communities.”

That could spell trouble for organizations like the Science Center, which gets about two-thirds of its funding from federal sources like the National Science Foundation. Reynolds said the executive order, combined with a freeze that paused federal grants last month, puts the center’s work in limbo.

“I think all the nonprofits are trying to figure out not just how to get through the next few weeks or this year, but how to, you know, how do we not just survive but continue to do the great work we all do long term,” he said.

Reynolds said he’s already thinking about reframing grant proposals for next year, avoiding words that might trigger scrutiny. He also plans to shift the focus from climate research to community preparedness for disasters like landslides.

“Hate to do that, but we’re in uncharted territory here, you know,” he said. “I think it’s better to to do something like that and then still be able to do the great work you do, than to lose the ability to do that work.”

He said the science center doesn’t have plans to lay off staff, and he’s cautiously optimistic that funding will stabilize.

“It isn’t just affecting red states or blue states or red people or blue people,” he said. “Everybody’s going to be impacted by this, and that’s why I have faith that it will, that the right things will prevail.”

On the other side of Lincoln Street, Sitka Fine Arts Camp Executive Director Roger Schmidt is wrestling with another set of federal guidelines. The camp, which serves kids from rural Alaska and 20 other states, has regularly received between $20,000 and $70,000 in annual funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for decades.

Earlier this month, the NEA eliminated a grant program targeted at underserved communities and announced that it would prioritize projects celebrating the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Schmidt said that isn’t likely to fly with his campers. 

“If I say to our students, hey, we’re going to do Camp 2026, and the theme is going to be the Declaration of Independence, you know, that’s just not why the Fine Arts Camp is successful,” he said.

He said the camp is about fostering self-expression, which means not telling students what to create. 

“What we want to hear from you, what we want to see from you is we want to see what you care about as an artist,” he said.

Schmidt said the camp will operate as usual this summer. In the long term, it could continue without NEA funding, but it could mean serving fewer students. 

“The question is, how many scholarships do you want to provide to families that wouldn’t be able to afford this service?” he said. “Or how much of Alaska do you want to serve?”

In the meantime, both nonprofit leaders in Sitka – Schmidt and Reynolds – said they won’t let uncertainty get in the way of their work. 

A Grammy Award-winning band is bringing bluegrass tunes to Sitka this week. The Steep Canyon Rangers will perform Thursday, January 16 at the Sitka Performing Arts Center.

Sitka Fine Arts Camp’s Kenley Jackson and Steep Canyon Rangers member Graham Sharp joined KCAW’s Erin Fulton to discuss the upcoming performance. Listen to the full interview below:

The show starts at 7 p.m, and tickets are available at fineartscamp.org or at the door.

Alaska Arts Southeast, the nonprofit arm of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, will now receive an annual fee for managing the Sitka Performing Arts Center. In a special meeting Tuesday, the Sitka School Board awarded the local nonprofit a one-year contract to manage the center, with four optional extension years. 

The Sitka Fine Arts Camp has been managing the PAC since it was built in 2008 in exchange for an annual stipend of about $100,000. Starting in 2019, they agreed to forgo a stipend to save the school district money, instead collecting revenue from rentals. In March of this year, they requested an annual fee to defray some of the costs of managing the facility.  

In a formal request for proposals, Sitka Fine Arts Camp brought forth the only bid, asking for $125,000 annually with a three percent increase each year. 

Board president Tristan Guevin said he was grateful for the organization’s management so far. 

“The level of expertise to manage that is one that we as a district don’t have, and you all do have, so we just really appreciate that,” he said. “You know, it benefits our students and our families, so we appreciate everything you all do.”

The school board unanimously approved that bid on Tuesday. The district will work with the city and Alaska Arts Southeast to develop a contract. 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the history of Alaska Arts Southeast’s relationship to the Performing Arts Center.