On Saturday, the Four Winds Resource Center and Upper Valley Art Confluence hosted the first annual Upper Valley Art Exhibition. Works from artists in the upper valley were displayed at the old Mosquito Lake School. The event also included a silent auction and appetizers made from locally sourced food.

The building hasn’t been operating as a school for around 15 years. Since then, residents have tried to revitalize the space for the community. They renamed the building the Four Winds Resource Center and formed a seven-person board, with Julie Korsmeyer serving as president.

“What we do up here is lots of community stuff where we have meetings about issues that happen up here,” said Korsmeyer. “We are always thinking of things that will enhance the community up here, and ways that we can use the school for the benefit of the community.”

The space also hosts child care twice a week, and is planning on starting a tool library. Erika Merklin, who is the grant writer, said the organization was denied a healthy communities grant from RurAL CAP this year, but did receive a grant from Chilkat Valley Community Foundation for a log splitter.

“Our next plan is to get Sortly, which is a software program that would be able to catalog all of our tools. And then from there, we’re going to ask community members if they have anything they want to donate. Once we have that organized, we’d be able to catalog everything. Then we can then try to get a grant to get tools that haven’t been donated,” said Merklin.

The tools would be stored in a garage, which currently houses several kitchen tools including a steam juicer and dehydrator.

The art show featured a variety of works from residents in the area, including works from Dave Pahl, the founder of the Hammer Museum downtown.

“I’m 69 years old and this is my first art show ever,” said Pahl. “It means a lot to me to be able to share stuff. It’s nice to share what we do over the winter. And I can say that for all the artists from the upper valley. It’s a long winter here and we have to have something that keeps us busy, and most people that live up here are rather hands-on.”

Pahl’s exhibit included a rocking chair made of hammers, a table with hammer legs, and the ro-ro, a kinetic art piece with a double hammerhead that rolls up and down a pair of metal railings.

He made all three pieces this year. He bought his hammers from a collector in Washington in 2007. The entire collection amounted to 4,200 hammers. Of those, 500 were homemade with the original owner’s signature bands across the handles.

Pahl made the rocking chair with the homemade hammers, which he says have been in storage for 15 years.

“The hammer was man’s first tool. There’s been special hammers for every occupation. Every museum has hammers that reflect the industry that was in their town at one time or another,” said Pahl.

Another art piece that had heads turning was Tom Letson’s painting titled “The Sacrifice,” a large black and white painting that depicts nails coming out of a gas can, mice performing some sort of ritual, and stairs that lead to an open doorway that floats in the middle of the painting.

“I would say it’s pretty surreal in the sense that surrealism is essentially working from your subconscious, and that’s kind of what I was doing here,” said Letson, who got his master of fine arts degree last year at the New York Academy of Art.

He explained that the painting started with abstraction then forms started to appear. He threw in elements of his life at the time.

“People interpret art differently. Some people want a distinct meaning, like what is this, and I don’t paint that way or think that way about a painting personally. I think about it like a dream,” said Letson.