Off the Cuff with Sarah Glaser

Between helping her fiancé track wolves around Healy for three months last winter toward his PhD in spatial ecology and their trip this summer, spending a week or two at Ruth Gorge in the Alaska Range, Sarah Glaser experienced a burst of creativity. In addition to designing the cover for this issue of Alaska Business, she spent six weeks in Nashville building a soccer stadium.

Art is her life, and welding is her trade. After growing up in Moose Pass, Glaser learned to weld at the state technical school down the road in Seward. For the last six or seven years, she’s mixed construction with illustration. Her website sarahkglaser.be offers her full-color drawings of wildlife, backcountry sports, and aerial landscapes as prints, stickers, and apparel. She says she takes enjoyment from surprising her audience with details hidden in an image. Among her next projects is a harvest handbook for St. Paul Island.

One other note: her name is pronounced “glasser,” no matter how it’s spelled. “I’ll answer to ‘glacier,’” she says. “I’ve always wished it was Glacier rather than Glaser.”

Alaska Business: What book is currently on your nightstand?

Sarah Glaser: American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon by Steven Rinella.

AB: What charity or cause are you passionate about?

Glaser: Alaska Public Media. Food Bank of Alaska [which is receiving proceeds from the sale of Alaska Business merchandise featuring Glaser’s art].

AB: What do you do in your free time?

Glaser: Backcountry snowboard. Whitewater pack rafting.

AB: What’s your favorite local restaurant?

Glaser: Rustic Goat. Don’t tell anyone, though.

AB: If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be?

Glaser: We’re adopting a retired husky from the National Park Service kennels… I think he’s a little bit wild… That’s kind of like a wild wolf.