Duke Russell: "What I do is everything."

Duke Russell is a self-taught, lifelong Alaska artist whose iconic illustrations and paintings offer a visual running commentary on Alaska life — and how it could be better. He imagines a city of bicycles, not cars; a playground with a reading room; an elevated place in the world for his beloved Spenard neighborhood. When hundreds of unsheltered individuals ended up at Anchorage’s Centennial Park, he began cooking and delivering home-cooked meals on his mobile scooter kitchen. He listened to their stories and realized how food, as he puts it, is a “conduit for change.” His art and his acts of service came together in 2022 when he received special recognition from Rasmuson Foundation.