Alaska Arts Confluence will hold a recycled art contest from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Fort Seward Sculpture Garden.
Tin cans, garbage cans, old plates and cups and chunks of sheet metal can be fashioned together to create images or montages for “Art in the Garden,” said Audrey Smith, vice-president of the local arts group.
“There are some amazing ideas on Pinterest,” Smith said. “You don’t have to be a major artist or anything to enter.”
Recycled creations fit the spirit of the sculpture garden, itself a garbage dump contained inside a burned-down barracks basement until 2015, when the Confluence started cleaning it up and putting art installations inside.
Sunday’s event is free and will feature live music, two food trucks, Camino and Julian’s Todos Tacos, as well as half a dozen vendors selling food and gifts.
The Alaska Arts Confluence, a nonprofit that supports artists in the Chilkat Valley, signed a lease for the garden site in 2019. With the recent addition of electrification, the garden will feature music by Dynaflow on Sunday.
This year’s contest follows years of “Trash to Treasure” events, where art pieces made by local artists were sold at auction.
This year’s theme similarly highlights repurposed creations. “We don’t want people to go out and spend a lot of money on making art,” Smith said.
Instead, contestants will submit art to win prizes in four categories: Grand, Adult, Best Father, and Kid. The grand prize winner will receive two roundtrip tickets to Skagway, while the adult winner gets two, four-day passes to the Southeast Alaska State Fair. Winners of the Best Father prize will receive a mystery award and bragging rights.
To submit an entry, visit haines.fun/art-entry, or pre-register by calling Smith at 766-2540. All submissions must be received by 10 a.m. Sunday.