August in Anchorage was sad this summer…..our downtown lost the most beloved historic icon in the city! 

The 4th Ave. Theater Marquee was the facade of a beautiful theater created in 1919 by Cap Lathrop. He invested $1.2million (in today’s dollars) to beautify downtown anchorage with an extravagant building housing the 4th Avenue Theater. So many of my friends and myself enjoyed it’s luxury. We attended weddings, events, movies… and we worked there.  It was always a wonderful experience. So gorgeous. And now it is gone…  I don’t want to dwell on how that occurred, but it is a huge loss to downtown Anchorage.

 For those of us who grew up in Anchorage and even those of us who came later, it is a beautiful historic building and a remarkable piece of artwork. There have been many groups that attempted to stop the destruction of this marquee. Unfortunately, everything failed.

I did a First Friday downtown at Side Street Espresso. This is one block away from the fourth Avenue theater. When it was slow at my First Friday I would walk to the corner and watch them remove the letters from the marquee… They started with the “E’s”…Heartbreaking. 

Seven years ago, I started a iconic series of paintings of historic iconic Anchorage buildings. Downtown, of course, had the most options. 4th Ave., Club Paris, the Anchorage Convention & Visitor Center, the Captain Cook Monument overlooking Resolution Bay. 

Then I worked my way through the rest of the city. Because we are such a young city…. (by the way did you know that I was the first girl born (unofficially, which is how I like to role),  when the state of Alaska declared statehood in 1958????  That’s what I mean about young....another blog for another time. 

There are not a lot of icons in this town but Spenard offered up several options because it’s an older part of town… Chilkoot Charlie’s, La Mex, Lake Hood, and many, many small independent businesses and neighborhoods. 

In collaboration with my iconic series, the Wendy’s Alaskan franchise, owned by a long-time by Alaskan family has commissioned me to create iconic paintings of the neighborhoods surrounding their restaurant’s locations. This has turned out to be such a great addition to my iconic series.

I created two images of Spenard one is “Sleazy” and the other is “Sunny Spenard”. The HUGE originals are hanging in the Wendy’s in Spenard. So many of those little, tiny places are depicted in these two paintings. The hardest part was deciding who to include. It was hard… I had to include my dad‘s race car Number 11 that was sponsored by Spenard Auto Supply back in the 70s. (Spenard Auto supply was located on 34th and Spenard. )

There are lots of great Spenard icons in these two paintings. They are on display at Wendy’s in Spenard. Wendys has commissioned me to create iconic images in immediate locations around their existing stores. The Wendy’s franchise is owned by a local Alaskan family second generation… And they love the thought of preserving Anchorage icons. I need to create a complete category for them on my website… As I write this blog. I need to add that to my list of things to do. and then on to other parts of town. This is where it started to be a challenge to discover iconic images… Heading south out of town is diamond Jim’s, which has always been there, and heading north to Eagle Rivers is Jitters. For Muldoon, I still have not really come up with an option… Cabin tavern is on the list. 

If you go to my website and click on the category of iconic images of Alaska… It also includes Fairbanks and North Pole.