JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - It’s been a good month for Fairbanks writer Frank Soos and his wife, visual artist Margo Klass.
First, Soos found out in a phone call that he’d been named the new Alaska State Writer Laureate as part of the Governors Awards for the Arts for 2015. Seconds later, he learned that his wife would also be receiving an award, as the state’s Individual Artist honoree for 2015.
Reached at home in Fairbanks Wednesday, Klass said though she was in the room when her husband got the call from arts council chairman Ben Brown, Soos didn’t tell her what had been said before handing her the phone, and she was completely taken by surprise.
“Frank said, ’That’s wonderful news,’ and then ’Oh, she’s right here,’ and he just handed the phone to me, he didn’t tell me anything,” Klass said with a laugh. “That’s Frank, he’s not effusive.”
“It was a huge surprise and a huge honor, for sure.”
The news was made public by the Alaska State Council on the Arts.
The awards will be officially bestowed during the Governor’s Awards for the Arts and Humanities award ceremony to be held in Juneau on Jan. 29.
Soos, professor emeritus of English at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, has published several works of fiction, including the short story collections “Early Yet” (1998) and “Unified Field Theory,” (1998) and a book of essays “Bamboo Fly Rod Suite: Reflections on Fishing and the Geography of Grace,” (1999), illustrated by Alaska artist Kesler Woodward. “Unified Field Theory” earned him the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction in 1997. He is also co-editor with Woodward of “Under Northern Lights: Artists and Writers on the Alaskan Landscape,” (2000).
In a release about Soos’ nomination, artist Woodward praised Soos’ skills as a mentor as well as a writer.
“Frank is not only one of the best writers, but is the best teacher and mentor of writers I have ever known,” Woodword wrote in the release. “He is the most dedicated nurturer of students and writers at all levels, and perhaps the most flexible and broadly scholarly thinker with whom I have ever worked.”
Klass is a visual artist who shares her husband’s passion for books and the literary arts. Her work includes artist books and modified forms of artist books which she calls box constructions and altar pieces. These mixed media pieces feature found and natural objects meticulously arranged to create evocative visual landscapes.
Klass has works in the permanent collections of the Anchorage Museum and the Museum of the North, and has exhibited her work all over the country, including in Juneau. In 2012, she exhibited work in two shows at the Alaska State Museum, a solo show, “An Alaskan Book of Hours,” and a three-way exhibit, “Boreal Birch,” that also featured Woodward and Barry McWayne. She has also exhibited as part of the Earth Fire and Fibre statewide exhibit.
One of the exciting things about being named together, Klass said, is the potential for collaboration, something the couple is already known for.
Since 2004, they’ve exhibited their work in joint shows that pair Klass’ box constructions and altar pieces with textual responses in the form of short prose pieces written by Soos. Their joint work was first exhibited in Juneau in May 2010 at the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council. A more extensive collection was also published in their joint book. “Double Moon: Constructions and Conversations” published by Boreal Books.
With the announcement Tuesday, Klass and Soos have already been talking about how to make the most of their artistic partnership and shared focus.
“We are talking about how the writer duties are going to play out and how we can participate together in that,” she said. “My interest is in the book arts and so my hope is that it might provide some opportunity for me to spread the news about book arts and what it means and how it is a wonderful collaboration with literacy and the literary arts.”
The Alaska State Writer Laureate Program was created in the early 1960s to honor Alaskan poets and has since evolved into a broader program that honors all genres of writing — the only program in the U.S. to do so. A new Writer Laureate is named every two years. The position was most recently held by Juneau writer Nora Marks Dauenhauer, who stepped down last month (Read more here: https://juneauempire.com/art/2014-11-20/sharing-her-point-view)
Like Soos and Klass, Dauenhauer and her husband, Richard, were unique in having both held the title of Alaska Writer Laureate. Soos and Klass are believed to be the only couple to be honored at the same time in different disciplines.
___
Online:
Read more about Soos and Klass at www.margoklass.com/ and at www.borealbooks.org/catalog/MargoKlass/DoubleMoon/
___
Information from: Juneau (Alaska) Empire, https://www.juneauempire.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.