“Sitka Wild” | A Brave Heart Volunteers Auction buoy
The last couple years I’ve watched as artists in Sitka painted these hard plastic buoys that get auctioned off every September to support Brave Heart Volunteers, a nonprofit organization offering free social, emotional, and educational support services in Sitka, Alaska. Their mission is to provide compassionate care, companionship, respite, and education to those facing illness, isolation, end of life, and grief. Both of my grandparents spent the last few years of their lives at the Pioneer Home in Sitka so their mission is important to me, and beyond that, I wanted to make sure I was giving back to the community that I was invited into as an artist in residence. So before I flew up to Sitka in early June I messaged them and asked if I could paint a buoy for the fundraiser this year and they said yes!
For my buoy I decided to celebrate some of my favorite flora and fauna in the Sitka area. On one side of the buoy there are undersea creatures and plant life, and on the other side are topside creatures and plants. These buoys aren’t the soft, inflatable kind you’re probably more familiar with. This is made of hard, hollow plastic so they’re easy to paint on but relatively lightweight.
For the undersea side I included salmon, kelp, a seal, sea star, and an otter mama and baby.
For the land side I painted a slug, ermine, mussels (which count as undersea, but they’re topside for low tide!), salmonberry, ravens, lupine, and a bald eagle.
The buoys are hung outside downtown over the summer and then they’ll be auctioned off in September! Typically they’re auctioned online in a silent auction but this year there’s going to be a live auction event as well.
It was incredibly fun to be able to paint a buoy this year and I would 100% do it again. It was a cool design challenge to paint on a sphere and I actually finally started using Posca pens for some of the detail work and definitely understand the hype.
If you’re in Sitka, keep an eye out downtown for it to get hung from one of the light poles!
