Alaska House, New York: multi-use approach for art and culture.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: ART

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Perry Eaton made "The watcher" during a 2009 "artist in residence" at the Chateau-Musee in Boulogne sur Mer, France. The traditional Alutiiq Suqpiaq bird mask is made from a white spruce stump the artist selected for the grain variations. It takes about three years to dry a piece of wood large enough to make a mask this size.

Timing has an awful lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. So when Alaska House, New York (AHNY) opened its doors Sept. 15, 2008, just the day before what would go down in history as the black Friday that marked the Dow's biggest plunge since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it was like expecting showers in the middle of a draught.

A nonprofit arts and cultural center, dedicated to promoting Alaska from the pulse point of Manhattan's SoHo district, the facility had built its business plan around the promise of selling high-end Alaska Native art to visitors from around the world. The inventory for the inaugural exhibition reflected the cultural diversity and artistic traditions of Alaska's indigenous people and was one of the largest and most diverse collections of art ever assembled. The lineup included renowned Alaska Native artists such as Larry Ahvakana, Sylvester Ayek, Alvin Amason, Susie Bevins-Ericsen, Sonya Kelliher Combs, Perry Eaton and John Hoover.

SUCCESS STORY

The opening was a huge success: a steady flow of hundreds of people packed the gallery, making it impossible to even move. Sit down receptions had standing room only. "It was heady stuff," Perry Eaton, also a board member for the facility says. "At one point, I was standing on the sidewalk watching and it was like an out-of-body experience--like watching an Alaska village in the middle of SoHo."

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Despite the promising marketplace for art sales in SoHo, unknowingly they had picked the worst time to open a gallery. No sooner had the champagne glasses been cleared, than art sales dried up and the board of directors found itself looking at ways to zig instead of zag to keep the doors open--rent is $21,000 a month for the 3,000-square-foot-duplex facility--while continuing to develop the program.

Alice Rogoff, a successful philanthropist and co-founder of the Alaska Native Arts Foundation (ANAF)--the sister organization of AHNY--became interested in Alaska when she came to watch the 2002 Iditarod. While visiting the state, she had the opportunity to travel to several rural villages. As she met many of...