Phyllis Fast was born in 1946 and raised in Anchorage. Her mother, Elsie Harper Fast (born in 1912 in Rampart, a Koyukon Athabascan) was an artist as well. Phyllis learned to paint and draw on her own and later through formal training at the University of Alaska. Art became a therapeutic device during the years shortly before her mother’s death in 1982. Since then Phyllis has used painting and drawing to help herself understand her inner thoughts, emotions, and spiritual experiences. She has a BA in English from UAF (1968), an interdisciplinary MA from UAA (1990), and a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard (1998). Phyllis taught Alaska Native Studies at UAF from 1995 to 2004. Phyllis has taught Anthropology at UAA since 2004. In 2007 Phyllis received a CAPS Initiative grant from the Alaska Native Arts Foundation to buy supplies for painting and framing. She states: “I try to bring my Athabascan heritage into my thoughts, work and art.”
PROFESSIONAL CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
Visual artist working primarily in two dimensional media, including oil, acrylic, watercolor, collage. Works have been acquired for both private and public collections, and fund-raising efforts, including:
Alaska Native Arts Foundation CAPS Initiative grant, 2007
Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cook Inlet Region, Inc, ANCSA Alaska Native for-profit corporation in Anchorage, Alaska
CIRI Foundation, ANCSA Alaska Native not-for-profit corporation in Anchorage, Alaska
Cook Inlet Tribal Council, ANCSA Alaska Native not-for-profit corporation in Anchorage, Alaska
Doyon, Inc., ANCSA Alaska Native for-profit corporation in Fairbanks, Alaska
Koahnic Broadcasting Corporation art auction 2003 and 2004, and 2005, 2007
Exhibits
Native Art Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, traveling exhibit of “Alaska 2005: Native Arts Now” displayed for the 39th annual AFN Conference
Alaska 2005: Native Arts Now invitational exhibit, curator, Ron Senungetuk, Kenai, Alaska
North Central Missouri College one-woman show, March 2004
Koahnic Broadcasting tee shirt featuring “Athabascan Country Conversations,” May 2004
Wells Street Gallery invitational show, Fairbanks, Alaska, June 2003
“Undercurrents,” Morris-Decker Gallery, Anchorage Alaska, March 2003
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. Four paintings selected from the Second Annual All Alaska Native Juried Art show for a traveling exhibit to open November, 2001
“Ceremony of Healing: A visual arts exhibit and reading by Alaska Native Women” at Alaska Pacific University, June 2001. Six paintings and collages.
“Threads of Gold,” guest curator for UA Museum project for segment on Athabascan women, June 1997
“Tinmiagpuk, Tilila Koyona, Aquila chrysactos: Iñupiaq and Koyukon interpretations of the Golden Eagle,” Kolstad Gallery in Anchorage Alaska, July 1997. Two-woman visual art show
“Kwanetun, a Story of Survival and Revenge,” exhibit, Window Gallery, Anchorage, Alaska, April, 1988. Eleven illustrations in mixed media of a Gwich’in Athabascan traditional tale, Ko’ehdah, sacred principles involved in storytelling; in conjunction with my 1990 Master’s Thesis entitled Naatsilanei and Ko’ehdan: a Semiotic Analysis of Two Alaska Native Myths
Selected Juried Art Exhibits
2002 Third Annual All Alaska Native Juried Art Show. Two paintings. Alaska Native Heritage Center
2001 “Sixth Taos National Exhibition of American Watercolor.” Taos, NM, July 2001
2001 “Second Annual All Alaska Native Juried Art Show.” Four paintings accepted. Honorable mention for “Athabascan Country Conversations.” Alaska Native Heritage Center (March 2001)
2000 Doyon Building, four watercolor paintings selected by jury
1993 “Arts in the Arctic” Invitational show organized by the Institute of Alaska Native Arts, Inc. with the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Selected piece on loan in Greenland, 1993-2001,
1990 All Alaska Juried Art Exhibition, Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Juror: James Demetrion
Thirteenth Annual Alaska Juried Watercolor Show, Anchorage, Anchorage Museum of History and Art; Juror: William Gorman
Midwest Watercolor Society Tenth Annual, Wisonsin, Jurors: Edward Betts; Lee Weiss
1986 Twelfth Annual Alaska Juried Watercolor Show, Anchorage, Alaska; Juror: Diana Kan
1985 Eleventh Annual Alaska Juried Watercolor Show, Anchorage, AK; Juror: Charles Reid
1984 Tenth Annual Alaska Juried Watercolor Show, Anchorage, Alaska; Juror: Judi Betts
1980 Louisana Watercolor Society 11th Annual Int’l Exhibit, Baton Rouge, Juror: Al Brouillette
