Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Postcard from Alaska, Part Two
Art Works: As you read yesterday, my first day in Alaska was truly jam-packed. The pace didn’t let up! On the second day of our trip with the Rasmuson Foundation, we went to Bethel, and a small town nearby called Napaskiak, which you can only reach by boat. Both towns are very poor and it was very sobering for all of us on the trip. I’ve been in the third world and haven’t seen conditions this tough. Napaskiak didn’t even have a road. It had a boardwalk on which some very small three-wheelers could maybe go, a store without much on the shelves, and a rudimentary medical center. I mean this is deep poverty and subsistence-fishing living. Again, it was very sobering to see the economic conditions and what these people are struggling with just to survive.
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It is so sobering to hear an account of this nature. Surrounded by incredible talent and immense resources at our fingertips, we often forget that there is a world with very little in our own back yard. Some of the towns and cultures that Rocco was introduced to are based on the fact that they are producing oil, or have another desired resource that is drawing in corporations and creating jobs for those people. Many people in our business are roamers of sorts. We wander from place to place for jobs, potentially reside in melting pots.
The culture associated with our business is not one based in the quiet, and poor standings of society, but in the aspirations of stardom and success. I would be interested to see what a company could do if it focused on employing these "developed" arts into a culture such as Deadhorse or Barrow. Would it be rejected? Would it flourish?
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