Soldotna artist Lester Nelson-Gacal was recently named one of 50 Alaskan artists to receive a $10,000 grant through the Rasmuson Foundation, a private family foundation based in Anchorage. According to a press release from the foundation, Rasmuson has invested over $6.5 million in supporting artists’ career development each year since 2003.
The grant will support the creation of a handmade illustrated book telling the story of Nelson-Gacal’s father’s final year. In May 2024, Jerald Nelson fell down a flight of stairs three days after receiving heart surgery. He suffered a head injury and memory problems from the fall, and Nelson-Gacal was his primary caregiver until Nelson passed away this April.
“He thought it was the 1980s, and he thought we were still living in Washington — so that meant that I had to come out of the closet multiple times a day to him,” Nelson-Gacal said. “He was a farm-bred, mechanic, man’s man who thought it was the ’80s, but he accepted me every time.”
Nelson-Gacal’s family moved to Soldotna when he was three years old. Growing up, he was constantly drawing, sketching characters from cartoons on TV and ’80s hot rod characters. He said his parents always encouraged his artistic endeavors.
“I can’t ever remember not being an artist,” he said.
After graduating from Nikiski High School, Nelson-Gacal studied multimedia at the Art Institute of Portland. He then traveled to the Philippines to work on a documentary, but when that project fell through, he stayed in Manila to run the Ferdinand Center for the Creative, a nonprofit organization teaching graphic design to artists who couldn’t afford to attend college.
Nelson-Gacal met his husband, Jessie, in the Philippines, and the two were married in Seldovia in 2016. They moved to Soldotna two years later to care for Nelson-Gacal’s parents, who were facing health issues. Nelson-Gacal then started a graphic design business called Further Studios, which he said evolved into Lesterco, the company he owns and operates today.
Although he knew of the Rasmuson Foundation, Nelson-Gacal said applying for a grant had never occurred to him until his friends encouraged him to do so.
The foundation alternates annually between offering fellowship awards and Individual Artist Awards like the one Nelson-Gacal won. Last year was his first time applying for the grant. He received the email saying he was selected to receive the award on Oct. 17 — his birthday.
According to Gary Scott, director of communications at the Rasmuson Foundation, Nelson-Gacal was one of 247 applicants.
“Panelists shared that Lester had a compelling story, expressed an intention to move into a more personal artistic practice, and that his project would expand his creative expertise,” Scott wrote in an email to the Clarion. “Lester’s plans to experiment with production techniques that include printing on wood, silkscreened pages, and even incorporating materials into bindings, are exciting and a great example of artistic growth potential.”
Nelson-Gacal said he hopes to complete the book, which he calls “a love story between a son who happens to be gay and his dad who loves him” by the end of 2026. Although much of his professional work focuses on graphic design, branding and illustration, Nelson-Gacal enjoys writing and has published short stories before.
Although Nelson-Gacal said he hasn’t yet identified the book’s main themes because it’s still early in the creative process, he said the book will explore themes of acceptance and the reversal of roles as the parented to the caregiver.
“When he had his catastrophic accident, I was suddenly thrust into the position of parenting him, and all the exhaustion, worry, self-doubt and depression that involves,” he wrote in an email to the Clarion. “You worry that you’re not doing enough, that ‘doing enough’ is an impossible task, but his survival depends on you doing enough, so you keep on pushing yourself. You start telling yourself, ‘I’ll mow the lawn later,’ and the next thing you know, it’s snowing and you’ve only mowed the lawn once all summer. You’re thankful for the snow covering up your terrible lawn, making it look spotless and brand new, and sort of wish it would snow in your bedroom.”
According to the press release, Individual Artist Awards are meant to provide Alaskan artists with the time to reflect and immerse themselves in their creative processes. Nelson-Gacal said he looks forward to focusing on the book’s creation rather than trying to fundraise for its publication on top of working full time.
Nelson-Gacal’s advice to young artists is to always stand up for their worth, and “don’t let past failures keep you from trying to succeed.”
“We all put countless hours into projects that we think are worth getting far more attention than they receive, and it’s very easy to say to yourself, ‘success just isn’t in the cards for me,’ when your projects don’t receive that expected level of attention,” he said. “But you’ll never succeed if you let your failures calcify into a fear of success, so keep putting yourself out there, and don’t lose the belief that what you do is valuable.”
According to the foundation’s website, applications for fellowships will open in 2026. Project awards won’t reopen until 2027.
To learn more about the Rasmuson Foundation and their grant programs, visit rasmuson.org.
Photo courtesy of Lester Nelson-Gacal A design by Lester Nelson-Gacal of his husband, Jessie Gacal-Nelson, is pictured. The two met in the Philippines in 2015 and were married in Seldovia a year later.
Photo courtesy of Lester Nelson-Gacal A design by Lester Nelson-Gacal of a three-year-old named Tariq is pictured. Tariq, the nephew of Nelson-Gacal’s best friend, was killed by a tank in Gaza in 2023.
