Gallery owner to read from her novel, "Right of Way"

When you step into Cha for the Finest art gallery on Hood Avenue, it's like stepping into the past ... 20,000 years into the past. You immediately become immersed in a wonderland of what life might have been like back in pre-historic times as told by modern-day artisans and crafters.

Cha is an artisan and author. She is inviting the public to the gallery on Saturday, February 21, at 10 a.m. to listen to a reading from her novel "Right of Way."

"Right of Way" is the first in a series of books she has been writing about the ancients, and how they survived and adapted to the climate changes in the Alaskan territories where there had been a land bridge of ice.

In 1974, Cha moved from New Mexico to Alaska where she learned to create gold-nugget jewelry, but moved on to carving after she found a wealth of raw materials available all around her. She became an ivory carver and specialized in fossilized walrus tusks, teeth, and prehistoric bones from extinct animals including wooly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, cave bears and bison.

As she carved, she developed a deep connection to the spirits of the people who had collected the fossils, as they told her their life stories.

Cha used her family members as the characters in the book, which she wrote with a great deal of help from her late mother. She renamed some of her favorite face carvings to portray the characters. She brings these ancient people back to life to tell their stories of love and hardship, feast and famine, as they struggled through their short lives.

Book 11 is in progress, and four books are currently in print. Cha used a Shingledecker print for each book cover and, inside, readers will find color photos of the hand-carved artifacts named for the characters.

"If you love the first book, 'Right of Way,' you'll want to read the rest of the series, buy a carving of your favorite character, and have a print of your favorite cover to hang in your reading room," she said.

If a reader helps her get more of the series published, she will let them name a character in the series.

Cha for the Finest is located at 183 E. Hood Ave. For information, call 541-549-1140.