Sea Siren — Contributed photo

SJIMA sends along an update about one of their cur­rent exhibitions.

Sculp­ture artist M.J. Ander­son will tell you that she sculpts because some­one need­ed to por­tray the female form dif­fer­ent­ly. See for your­self in Anti­dote, an exhi­bi­tion of her work on dis­play now through Dec. 5 at the San Juan Islands Muse­um of Art.

“Every­one finds a way to give voice to how they’re feel­ing,” says Ander­son, whose mar­ble tor­sos rede­fine his­tor­i­cal norms of how the female form is viewed. “For me, the stone is my voice.”

For cen­turies male artists have cre­at­ed sculp­tures that present women as objects of desire in pos­es designed to tit­il­late. “Women have a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive,” Ander­son explains. “And since tra­di­tion­al­ly there have been so few women who worked with mar­ble, my work express­es a woman’s body in her own right, with a mes­sage that says, “I am enough.’”

Ander­son often finds ideas in dis­card­ed chunks of mar­ble that car­ry imper­fec­tions, fault lines that she trans­forms into art that cel­e­brates the strength of sur­vival and the pow­er of certainty.

Ander­son has been carv­ing mar­ble and traver­tine and onyx from Car­rara, Italy for over 30 years. When cool­er weath­er moves into her stu­dio in Ore­gon, she trav­els to the coastal com­mu­ni­ty known for its translu­cent and pris­tine stone. There she gets dusty slic­ing and carv­ing some of the most beau­ti­ful mar­ble in the world. When it’s time to move back, she ships her works in progress to Ore­gon where she sands and pol­ish­es each piece, bring­ing light and pur­pose to each one.

The stone sculp­tor describes her­self as an artist deal­ing with per­son­al, social and polit­i­cal themes who carves stone because she feels it is the least arti­fi­cial of art forms and the most endur­ing to our human­i­ty. Con­tin­ue Reading

Joe Juntila and Josh Jensen — Contributed photo

Island Air Ambu­lance shares news about two of their San Juan Island-based team members.

Last month, Fri­day Har­bor-based Island Air Ambu­lance was invit­ed to com­pete in the Sim­u­la­tion Cup Com­pe­ti­tion at the 2022 Air Med­ical Trans­porta­tion Con­fer­ence in Tam­pa, Florida.

Island Air’s Josh Jensen, Cer­ti­fied Flight Para­medic, and Joe Jun­ti­la, Cer­ti­fied Flight Nurse, com­pet­ed togeth­er against teams from across North Amer­i­ca in a series of high-stress sce­nar­ios designed to test the lim­its of their clin­i­cal acu­men and mul­ti-task­ing skills. The teams per­formed on stage in a sim­u­lat­ed air­craft or a crit­i­cal access hos­pi­tal, treat­ing mul­ti­ple patients at once in sim­u­lat­ed sit­u­a­tions using high-fideli­ty man­nequins and live actors under the scruti­ny of a team of judges. After two days of com­pe­ti­tion, Josh and Joe were award­ed third place for their out­stand­ing performance.

“Their com­pet­i­tive per­for­mance and achieve­ment are evi­dence of their clin­i­cal knowl­edge and tal­ent and also a tes­ta­ment to their rig­or­ous ongo­ing train­ing and ded­i­ca­tion to excel­lence,” said Dr. Jason Hein­er, Med­ical Pro­gram Direc­tor for Island Air. “This recog­ni­tion is well deserved and we are so proud of them.”

The Film Fes­ti­val shares good news about the win­ning films from their on-demand event.

Fri­day Har­bor Film Festival’s on-demand fes­ti­val win­ners, as well as the stu­dent film award win­ners and run­ners-up, are avail­able to stream free on the FHFF web­site now through Wednes­day, Nov. 30:

• Corky is the sto­ry of the world’s longest-held cap­tive orca, the chang­ing sen­ti­ment about orcas in cap­tiv­i­ty, and the rise of sea sanc­tu­ar­ies — Best Fea­ture, direc­tor Chris­tine Caruso.
• Con­trasts presents a strong argu­ment for free­dom from cap­tiv­i­ty for all marine species, reveal­ing the hor­rors of ani­mals’ lives in con­fine­ment — Best Short Film, direc­tor Vanes­sa Prigollini.
• Bird Lady explores the mys­tery sur­round­ing a stat­ue that has become known as the “Bird Lady” and has become a beloved part of neigh­bor­hood folk­lore — Best Stu­dent Film Ages 13–17, direc­tor Carter Rostron.
• Below the Rise fol­lows the filmmaker’s jour­neys to Cos­ta Rica to uncov­er the sever­i­ty of the sea lev­el rise, which is sig­nif­i­cant­ly worse than orig­i­nal­ly pre­sumed — Run­ner-up Stu­dent Film Ages 13–17, direc­tor Mas­si­mo Soto.
• O’o: The Last Voice of Kauai is an envi­ron­men­tal film about human-caused extinc­tion fea­tur­ing a bird known as the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, which was once endem­ic to the Hawai­ian island of Kaua’i — Best Stu­dent Film Ages 18–26, direc­tor Hanah Cincotta.
• An Urban Herd explores Street Goat, a farm­ing coop­er­a­tive which rais­es goats on dis­used city land. Aspir­ing farmer Fern must learn to milk the goats entire­ly by her­self, dis­cov­er­ing it isn’t easy to become an urban goat farmer — Run­ner-up Stu­dent Film Ages 18–26, direc­tor Lizzie Coney.

FHF­F’s Best of the Fest will begin in Jan­u­ary, offer­ing free month­ly screen­ings of many Audi­ence Choice Award win­ners and run­ners-up from the 2022 in-the­atre festival.

APS-FH shares some kind words about their vol­un­teers of the month.

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety — Fri­day Har­bor is pleased to announce Kat­lyn and Pax­son as the APS-FH Vol­un­teers of the Month for Novem­ber. Kat­lyn and Pax­son came to vol­un­teer for APS-FH in June of this year.

We chose this mom and son duo as vol­un­teers of the month because of their ded­i­ca­tion to the shel­ter cats. Unable to have a cat of their own, they have done the next best thing – vol­un­teer­ing to spend time with shel­ter cats. Each week, they come to the shel­ter ready to give their love and atten­tion to the res­i­dent felines of the shelter.

When asked which is his favorite cat in the shel­ter, Pax­son did not hes­i­tate. “I love Goose,” he replied. Goose is a young kit­ten found as a stray on San Juan Island that has since been adopt­ed. It can be bit­ter­sweet when your favorite shel­ter ani­mal gets adopt­ed, but we are always hap­py when the ani­mals find their for­ev­er homes. As for Pax­son, we are pret­ty sure he will soon find anoth­er for­tu­nate favorite cat to show­er with affection.

Thank you, Kat­lyn and Pax­son, for vol­un­teer­ing to spend time with shel­ter cats so they can have the love and atten­tion they need and deserve until they too get to go home.

APS-FH has numer­ous vol­un­teer­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. If you are inter­est­ed in help­ing, vis­it our web­site to learn more about our vol­un­teer pro­gram.

With sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant elec­tions and propo­si­tions on the Nov. 8 gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot, San Juan Coun­ty vot­ers made sure to have their voic­es heard. 77.6 per­cent of eli­gi­ble vot­ers returned their bal­lots by last Tues­day’s dead­line, accord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by the Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State.

San Juan Coun­ty’s vot­er turnout rate was sec­ond in the state only to Garfield Coun­ty, where 78.7 per­cent of eli­gi­ble vot­ers took part in the elec­tion. San Juan has more than eight times as many reg­is­tered vot­ers (14,635) as Garfield (1,687).

The San Juan Coun­ty Elec­tions Office esti­mates that only 50 bal­lots are left to count for the Nov. 8 elec­tion. The Coun­ty Can­vass­ing Board will review the elec­tion results on Mon­day, Nov. 28 and will cer­ti­fy the results on Tues­day, Nov. 29.

On Sacred Ground’s Leave No Trace Speak­er Series starts tomor­row night at 5 p.m. in the San Juan Island Library Con­fer­ence Room.

Titled Leave No Trace and the Island Mar­ble But­ter­fly, atten­dees will learn about the endan­gered island mar­ble but­ter­fly (Euchloe ausonides insu­lanus), how it copes with win­ter storms, and the sim­ple things we can do to best its chances of sur­viv­ing anoth­er year.

Wildlife Biol­o­gist Jen­ny Shrum, for­mer­ly of the Nation­al Park Ser­vice and cur­rent­ly On Sacred Ground’s Island Mar­ble But­ter­fly Pro­gram Direc­tor, will share high­lights of her nine sea­sons study­ing this quirky crit­ter and what LNT prac­tices on the prairie will do to sup­port the island mar­ble butterfly.

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety of Fri­day Har­bor shares a look at the adopt­able ani­mal of the week — Baby Stripey, a ten-year-old domes­tic long hair and brown tab­by who came to San Juan Island from Flori­da due to the effects of Hur­ri­cane Ian.

Oh hi there, I’m Baby Stripey! It’s been three-and-a-half weeks since I arrived at APS-FH all the way from Flori­da. I came with six oth­ers like me — all cats, all leav­ing Trea­sure Coast for San Juan Island, get­ting out before the storm blew in. In those weeks, two of us got adopt­ed, while four still remain. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, I’m one of the four still here at the shel­ter, wait­ing for my fam­i­ly to come find me.

Here’s the thing about find­ing me though. It’s gonna take a real­ly spe­cial per­son. Why, you ask? Well, because I’m not one of those prance‑y cats. I’m not the type to jump down from my ledge as soon as the door to our room opens. I don’t rush to the hands of humans. Instead you can find me in one of my two favorite spots:

1. On the cat tow­er by the door that leads out­side — and when they drape a blan­ket over the tow­er, then I lay between blan­ket and tow­er for opti­mal coziness.
2. On the high­est ledge in our room, just above the door. Look all the way up to the tip­py top, and there you’ll find me nes­tled in my cat bed

But here is the oth­er thing — if you’re up to spend­ing the extra time to come and meet me at my com­fort lev­el, then you’ll actu­al­ly find that I’m known to warm up quite quick­ly. Once I get into my for­ev­er home, I know I’ll feel even more ready to come out of my shell and show you my per­son­al­i­ty. I’m a spe­cial kind of cat who is look­ing for a spe­cial kind of per­son. Are you them? If so, you can find me at the shel­ter with the oth­er shy boys in the Shy Boy Room — also known as Com­mu­ni­ty Cat Room #3. Once you’re there, now you know what to do!

Con­tact APS to learn more about Baby Stripey.