Community Calendar

Come play duplicate bridge with local bridge players. This is an ACBL event. All are welcome. Call or email for more information.

APPLICATIONS OPEN for the Ron Senungetuk Summer Youth Scholarship! Homer-area students currently enrolled in grades 6 through 11 are invited to apply for summer arts scholarships!

Due by 5:00pm on April 30, 2025, applications available online at homerart.org/event/2026-jubilee-youth-performing-arts-show/ and in the HCOA office.

**Students must complete the application themselves, but are welcome to stop by the HCOA office for help with the application Mon-Sat from 1-5pm. If Students need help photographing their work for submission we are happy to assist with photography and editing through April 25th.

The Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network will be partnering with the Semester by the Bay Program to host an evening focused on marine science in Kachemak Bay. The evening will kick off with a poster session highlighting Semester by the Bay students work in our area focused on sea otters. It will then be followed by a presentation and Q&A session with experts discussing the harmful algal bloom events of last season and what to expect this upcoming summer. For more information please read below. If you have any questions reach out to Rosie Masui at rmmasui@alaska.edu.
Join Semester by the Bay students for an engaging hour-long showcase of sea otter research! Discover what students and research affiliates have been investigating about Kachemak Bay's sea otter population. This casual poster session will feature data spanning decades, along with highlights of new and exciting projects, including diet analysis, detection of abnormal spraint, microbiome analysis of the otter gut, and studies of sea otter and human interaction in the Homer harbor. Come connect, learn, and share in the latest sea otter science! April 28th, 4:30-5:30pm.
Starting at 5:30pm, hear from the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network's team about recent seabird and marine mammal mortality events and toxic shellfish. The team will start the session with a brief presentation introducing harmful algal blooms (HABs) and a recap of the observations and events of the 2025 season. After the presentation, a panel of HAB experts will discuss and field community questions about seabirds, marine mammals, phytoplankton, toxin testing, and human health in Alaska. Participants will have the opportunity to talk to experts about specific impacts that HABs may have in their communities.
Expert Panelists:
Brie Drummond, Wildlife Biologist, Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge
Deborah Tobin, Professor of Biology, UAA-KPC-Kachemak Bay Campus
Emily Sears, Public Health Nurse, State of Alaska Department of Health
Kim Schuster, Phytoplankton Monitoring Program Lead, Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve
Thomas Farrugia, Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network Coordinator, Alaska Ocean Observing System

Reach out to Rosie Masui at rmmasui@alaska.edu with any questions.

Come hear from the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network's team about recent seabird and marine mammal mortality events and toxic shellfish.

Join us at the library to hear poems from "Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War" read by featured authors as well as other local voices including: Anne Coray (co-editor), Nancy Lord, Tom Kizzia, Gretchen Diemer, Michael Lemay, and Samantha Cunningham.

"Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War" offers a groundbreaking and vital perspective on war’s destruction of the natural world—the creatures, plants, soil, water, and atmosphere of Earth. In poems and contextual comments, 61 contemporary poets focus on military damages to the ecosystems on six continents and the moon.

Check out this Book Review: "Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War" from the Homer Independent Press: https://homerindependentpress.com/2026/04/16/book-review-convergence-poetry-on-environmental-impacts-of-war/

Learn more at: https://www.cityofhomer-ak.gov/library/convergence-poetry-environmental-impacts-war

APPLICATIONS OPEN for the Ron Senungetuk Summer Youth Scholarship! Homer-area students currently enrolled in grades 6 through 11 are invited to apply for summer arts scholarships!

Due by 5:00pm on April 30, 2025, applications available online at homerart.org/event/2026-jubilee-youth-performing-arts-show/ and in the HCOA office.

**Students must complete the application themselves, but are welcome to stop by the HCOA office for help with the application Mon-Sat from 1-5pm. If Students need help photographing their work for submission we are happy to assist with photography and editing through April 25th.

A FREE offering from the KBFPC Teen Health team! Once a week Life Lab after school for 5th & 6th grade empowers students with information about their changing bodies. Utilizing the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District-approved curriculum “The Great Body Shop” students will participate in activities, art projects, and discussions about puberty, emotions, and more! Drop ins welcome, learn more and sign up at: https://kbfpc-teenhealth.org/life-lab/

Join us for Pre-K Puffins, a monthly early learning program. Event is designed for children ages 2-5 and focuses on marine science. This program includes story time, crafts, and early learning centered activities. There are two sessions each day on the last Thursday of each month. Sessions will take place 10am - 11am AND 12pm - 1pm at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 95 Sterling Hwy Homer, AK 99603.

Each month will have its own theme:
- February: Sperm Whales
- March: Colors of the Ocean
- April: Pipers and Plovers
- May: Dolphins and Porpoises

Homer, Alaska – Homer painter Oceans Wills exhibits “What Color Blue” at Bunnell Street Arts Center May 1 – June 2, 2026. The exhibit opens on First Friday, May 1, from 5-7pm with an artist talk at 6pm.

Artist Statement

This body of work takes place locally in the landscapes of the Kachemak Bay area, among the plants and animals we share space with. It contains many of the ideas and themes I continue to explore in my art: Relationships to nature, community, and self, appreciation of the ordinary and the beauty found anywhere, acknowledgment of anxieties, sorrows, and unknowns, expressions of holding and being held. Also included is playfulness and curiosity as I followed what most excited me creatively. I let myself embrace eclectic concepts and imagery with trust that the work would fit together through pattern, color, and possibility of evocation. I often approach painting like collage, pulling observational and imagined images together with the question of how they relate. This exhibit offers a question that comes to mind almost daily–what color blue–on horizon, on cloud bottom, on coffee mug, water jug, on the palette. Blue is open to interpretation, an invitation to notice.

Biography:

Oceana has long been inspired by the ocean and spent many summers on it as a deckhand in the commercial salmon fisheries. Her earlier work centers women in the fishing industry and imagines mermaid life parallel to life on land. She spends summer on land these days and her art is inspired by the animals, rocks, plants, people, and landscapes of her hometown, Homer. Oceana’s primary medium is gouache paint on clay board panels (a smooth archival surface) or on paper. She also works in acrylic, pen, and embroidery and is learning how to sew.

First Friday at the PRATT: Last Chance for 50 Years of Limited Entry

Friday, May 1 | 4-6pm

Last chance to come see our seasonal Special Exhibition before it departs in just a few short weeks!

Join us Friday May 1 from 4-6pm to see the exhibit and enjoy some light refreshments.

50 Years of Limited Entry opened at the start of the year in the Main Gallery and will be on display through mid May. It examines the origins and effects of the Limited Entry Program in Alaska. In addition to the 50 Years of Limited Entry exhibit panels, this exhibition features art, photographs, and materials from the Pratt Museum’s permanent collection.

No charge for admission.