2026 Alaska Folk Festival Guest Artist
Willi Carlisle
The Alaska Folk Festival is excited to welcome Willi Carlisle to Juneau as the Guest Artist for the 51st festival! Willi recently released his fourth studio album, Winged Victory, an enduring and earnest gaze at the human condition. Willi revels in compelling stories lifted up with roots music traditions that tickle the convictions and give breath to everyday contradictions.
Carlisle delivers Victory as the next chapter in his long-running direct address to the hope that by understanding our collective suffering we might be free of it. He’s intent on creating art and a well-rounded life in a broken world. The idea began with 2022’s Peculiar, Missouri when Carlisle proclaimed “your heart’s a big tent, everybody gets in.” After gathering together all the world’s weirdos and misfits under the big tent, with 2024’s Critterland, Carlisle let them loose into the world. Now, on Winged Victory, they speak for themselves, unencumbered by social expectations.
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2026 Alaska Folk Festival Guest Poster Artist
Savannah LeCornu
Savannah LeCornu is a self-taught artist from Ketchikan Alaska. She is Tsimshian, Haida, and Nimiipuu (Nez Perce). Savannah primarily draws and paints in digital and traditional formats but she also beads. She works in formline and plateau art styles and strives to create modern, accessible art that celebrates indigenous peoples.
She comes from multiple tribes and works in the art forms of both her northern coastal and plateau roots, often combining them. Through vibrant colors, humorous titles, modern elements and traditional shapes she strives to create art that reflects her unique view and invites the audience to rethink the preconceived notions they may have about Indigenous peoples and art.
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