Drawing of the Kenai bluff by James Evenson

Welcome to the Kenai Community Library

163 Main Street Loop, Kenai AK 99611
Telephone 907-283-4378 Fax 907-283-2266

    Bishop Lake Studio
Mile 5 Holt-Lamplight
P.O. Box 324
Kenai, Alaska 99611

Telephone (907) 776-8060
email: blstudiojne@worldnet.att.net

James Evenson has received many honors for his art.  Five purchase Awards are in the Alaska Contemporary Art Bank.  His work has been exhibited widely, not only in Alaska but also in the Midwest, Spain, Canada and Russia. James Evenson's  works are owned by Grinnell College, The University of Iowa, Alaska State Museum, The Anchorage Historical and Fine Arts Museum, plus many private collections. An article, "In Touch With the Real James Evenson" by Molly Jones was published in THE ALASKA JOURNAL, Autumn 1982. Commissions by the Alaska State Council on the Arts include mural size acrylic paintings at Old Harbor and Port Lions, Kodiak Island, and the Kenai Peninsula  College.

    Jim was born in Chicago and graduated from Oak Park High School in 1945. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he majored in Art at Grinnell College, earned an M.A. degree in Art and an M.F.A. in Painting at the University of Iowa. Jim taught Art at Ames, Iowa; Cornell College in Mt. Vernon Iowa ; Anchorage High School (now West High); Kenai Central High School, and Kenai Peninsula College over a span of 25 years, retiring from teaching in 1975.

    Living in Malaga, Spain, while on sabbatical from Kenai Central High School, 1969-70, Jim experienced a new medium in art, stone lithography. He has installed his own press and does all of his own printmaking.  Lithography, a fine art printing technique, involves drawing on special limestone or plates, chemically processing the stones, and printing small editions by hand.  Each print in the edition is considered on original work.

Jim, his wife Nedra and son Thor came to Alaska in 1955 and homesteaded in North Kenai on Bishop Lake where their present home and studio are situated. Jim has been a  commercial fisherman in Cook Inlet for over 40 years, a teacher for 25 years, and an artist since childhood.

Gallery of Jim Evenson Lithographs