It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon, but the curtains are all pulled down at the Bunnell Street Arts Center in Old Town Homer. Visitors trickle in and browse artwork while artist Abigail Kokai works with gallery coordinator Brianna Lee to install her exhibit.
On one end of the gallery is a massive, boxy puppet wrapped in droopy fabric. And on another, a pulley system is being drilled into a wall so that people can move the puppet from afar.
It’s not Kokai’s first exhibit in Homer. She received recognition from the state’s Arts Council earlier this year as a Connie Boochever fellow for her muppet-like creations. And she’s specifically drawn to building wild, expansive exhibits with textiles.
“If our entire universe, our real universe, is made of carbon, as, like, the, the main building block. I think of my universe as being textiles. So these weird conformities, or these weird, like, tumorous blobs of fabric, which is the building block for all this is,” Kokai said.
This is her upcoming show, which dives into the fantastical space adventures of 97-year-old Ray Charles Eppsaelon Brown, or Aelon Funk, as he explores new galaxies and searches for the fountain of youth. That’s a character from “Panda Mick’s RV Park,” an exhibit Kokai created back in 2022.
“He fits within my family of characters. It's funny, like, even during the show, a lot of kids were like, ‘Oh man, like that one's my favorite, like that guy,’” Kokai said, “And, you know, he's, he's a funky old dude with floppy little legs. And, just fun. So he, in my mind, had the most potential.”
While she usually works in textiles, Kokai said this show combines a mix of different mediums. The result is a whimsical explosion of scenes and creatures from the universe she’s created.
On one side of the gallery are paintings and fabric backdrops of scenes from Funk’s adventures.
On the other is an eclectic mix of fluffy, teardrop-shaped aliens — what she calls “wallflurps” — suspended from the gallery’s ceiling alongside dolls and dioramas.
Kokai also hung nets with all sorts of noodly fabric dangling from it that depicts the sky Funk flew through on his spaceship.
She said it was difficult to plan out the installations from her small apartment, but she was prepared for obstacles to come her way.
“To quote Beyonce, ‘I'm a professional,’” Kokai said, “So I definitely am feeling like, I'm a professional. Like, I've got everything, have a plan together for everything, backups for everything, an idea of how to do all these things.”
Kokai said this exhibit is years in the making. She took several years developing some characters. Other individual pieces took months to put together. Kokai says she hopes to inspire children through all of the work she’s poured into the exhibit.
“That's what this is, reminding us that we are the magic in the universe. It's us. We build it, we create it, we are it, and hopefully people of all ages take that little piece away from it all,” she said.
Kokai’s exhibit will run for the rest of the year.
