Larry Ulaaq Ahvakana
Larry Ulaaq Ahvakana was born in Fairbanks and raised in Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow) and Anchorage, Alaska. He grew up within a Inupiaq Native heritage that did not separate artistic creativity from everyday experience. His mother was a skin-sewer who created beautiful clothing for members of her community and, once she and her family moved to Anchorage, for other Alaskans and tourists. His older sister is the artist Susie Bevins Qimmiqsak.
Following study at the influential Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, a short stint in New York City attending the Cooper Union School of Art, and graduation from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1972, Ahvakana returned to the Northwest. Since 1980 he has been a “self-employed artist.” He lived near Seattle for fifteen years and currently resides in Homer, Alaska. Larry also spends time during the summer on his tribal land near Utqiaġvik in Beechy Point, Alaska.
An active art-maker, over the last three decades he has become adept at manipulating a variety of media that include various stones from alabaster to marble, wood, ivory, glass, bronze, and other metals and often huge preliminary drawings to realize his figures and animals. His carvings and sculptures capture the lifestyle of his ancestral Inupiaq hunting and fishing community. The images with their pristine, clean-lined form and an almost reverent presence capture the spirit of his culture.
Larry was a sculpture and glass instructor at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He served as the head of the Sculpture Studio at the Visual Arts Center in Anchorage, Alaska. Larry also had a glass studio and gave lessons in glass blowing in Utqiaġvik from 1973 -1974 and at the Institute of American Indian Arts from 1977 - 1980. In 1985, he was the Artist-in-Residence at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington.
His works are included in a large number of major museums and numerous corporate collections. His public art commissions include the Eben Hopson Middle School, Utqiaġvik; Fred Ipalook Middle School, Utqiaġvik; North Slope Borough Main Office, Utqiaġvik; Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Anchorage, Alaska; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; and the Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona. Larry is represented by various art galleries throughout Alaska and may be found in national and international private collections.
