May 29, 2022
Meet Alaskan laser artist Gale Glenn who has resided in the Mat-Su Valley since 1979 with her husband Dave. Like many Alaskans, Gale and Dave wore several other hats on their way to their current passion project that included long careers in accounting and working on the North Slope. After they were married in '94, they even ran a successful Air Taxi service in the Valley from 1994-2019.
Six years ago, they bought their first laser cutter and have never looked back. They started out by creating a wide variety of unique etched products whether it involved custom trophies, colorful wooden plaques, or even sleek aviation instrument panels. Driven to continuously challenge herself and her mastery of the laser medium, she "just kept cruising for stuff, just looking for stuff that’s different… Something that somebody else isn’t doing." Which has led her to where we find her today. With her persistence and love of Alaska and of all things laser, she has developed the series of beautiful Alaskan inspired pieces featured in our Gallery that are so fresh and unique. We are so proud to be able to share them with you.
*Can you tell us about your process?
Working with a laser is pretty straightforward - cut, paint, glue! But there are always new processes for improving quality, efficiency and design.
What is your favorite Medium?
Photography, watercolor.
When did you first start creating?
My mother was a seamstress, so I picked up some sewing skills when I was young - made clothes for my Barbie! As I got older, I did quite a bit of embroidery, continued with sewing clothes and crafts.
What inspires you to create?
A lot of my inspiration comes from talking with folks about ideas that they have. Makes me think about how I would go about creating that idea.
What’s your favorite thing to see/do in Alaska
We have a cabin that we like to spend time at during the summer. We esdepcially love the trout fishing at the lake. But my absolute favorite thing about this state is it's beauty. I remind myself every day to take time to look around. Whether it's a cool piece of driftwood on the beach or at Pioneer Peak - there is always something beautiful to see.
What advice do you have for aspiring artists?
I was hesitant to try something new - puzzled over what colors to use. You know what? - It doesn't matter, just do it. You'll learn a lot from trial and error!
Thank you to Gale Glenn for interviewing with us and taking us through her artistic journey. We are grateful to carry such incredible works from her and so many other artists here at Forests,Tides & Treasures. It is our continued goal at FTT to bridge the gap between artist and guests so that we may all embrace the humanity that we all share more easily. After all, we are better together.
February 08, 2022
Cindy is a versatile visual artist who works professionally as a corporate marketing and communications manager and for more than 25 years the principal of Cindy Shake Design. She has taught sculptural welding at the University of Alaska Anchorage and her welded steel sculptures include public art installations in Anchorage, Alaska. As a published author and illustrator, her popular children's book The Alaska Animal Alphabet is in its 7th printing. Fabrics designed by Cindy are available at fabric stores and through her online shop at Spoonflower. The inspired idea to create a cool, water-resistant growler bag after a wet & snowy walk home from a Girdwood spirits shop, grew to become the pop-up and online shop Crow Creek Coolture.
Crow Creek Cool was formed with her daughter and son as a fun brand of Cindy Shake Design offering one-of-a-kind and hand-crafted provisions that are designed as they say for "Originality & Cooltility." Crow Creek Cool creates, produces, and wholesales, garden flags, bags, stickers, niche art quilt patterns, textiles, downloadable patterns & templates, and fabrics. (Additional designs by Cindy Shake are made available at the Crow Creek Coolture Society6 POD shop.)
Assemblage, a three-dimensional visual art form, most often using everyday found objects. Because I have limited workspace in our cabin, I don’t work in this medium as much as I would like to. The medium requires collecting and keeping a LOT of (cool) “stuff.” My assemblage “Shrine-a-rellas” are created from found objects and are given new life in the form of altars and shrines. The materials I am attracted to and use most often tend to be vintage ephemera, mechanical utilitarian components, and thrift store multiples of cheaply mass-produced consumer flotsam.
In 2nd grade, after my teacher Mrs. Wilson posted on the class bulletin board a watercolor I painted on yellow construction paper of a friend I admired, who had long, brown braids.
Don’t be afraid to keep your day job, art supplies are expensive. The internet has transformed the art world. Social mobility, technology, and the number of new mediums now creating art is amazing. Artists used to be dependent on gallery sales but through online platforms artists can connect directly to potential buyers on a global scale. Digital spaces are redefining those sales and definitions of art. Consider experimenting with POD (print on demand) sites such as Spoonflower and Society6 to affordably explore short runs, limited editions and various mediums of your artwork and designs, it can be inspiring.
We are grateful to carry such incredible work from artists with big hearts and burning passions here at Forests, Tides & Treasures, and consider many of them family. Thank you to Cindy Shake for sharing with us more about her creative processes, and reinforcing what we know: Alaska is where we want to be. It is our goal at FTT to bridge the gap between our vendors and consumers and embrace the humanity that we all share. After all, we are better together.
December 02, 2021
I am an art therapist by training, artist by nature and general Jane of all trades by luck and circumstance. Returning to my childhood hometown of Juneau, Alaska as an adult was never the plan, and it has been a delight-filled surprise, bringing with it new exploits in the realms of art, adventure and love... and often all three at once. I live a sweet life in Juneau with my adventurous husband, Craig, brand new daughter, Wilder, and ball-crazed brown dog, Huckleberry, all in a house that I helped my dad build... yet another set of unexpected delights I never could have predicted.
I established Elevate in 2018 in Juneau, Alaska as a platform to share my art and to extend my reach as an artist, art therapist and community member wanting to affect positive change in a world that can feel disconnected.
If it’s a piece that will have some form of writing in it (all of my original pieces, minus most commissions unless the person wants something specific, have some sort of message written into them), I let the image tell me what it needs to say, perhaps play with the wording a bit, and then work the final phrase into the drawing.
Of note, almost all of the phrases found in my art are active. It’s important to me that when viewing the art, there’s a sense of active participation. The phrase is there to bring the viewer into the art, into that moment, and into their body, where they know that place that’s captured not only by the imagery, but by the words as well.
Once I’m happy with that, I go over everything with ink (microns of various sizes) and go back through to erase all the pencil marks. Next I go in with liquid watercolor. Liquid watercolors are different from the dry palettes most people think of when talking about watercolor. (I’ll explain that below.)
I try to prep the watercolors a good number of days ahead of when I’ll need them. They’re water based and the way I like to use them is by squeezing them into the dips of a round palette, then allowing the water to evaporate over a number of days until all that’s left is the concentrated pigment, which ends up a little sticky. This allows me to get incredibly vibrant, saturated colors out of them, while controlling how much water and dilution I want.
I try to be patient with my painting process and allow separate sections to dry before moving on (e.g. paint the water, let it dry, then paint the adjoining shoreline, let it dry, then paint the adjoining mountains, etc.) in order to at least attempt to give things definition and stop everything from running together. My patience doesn’t always win, however, and sometimes this results in a lot of flowing colors that I have to keep reworking, other times it results in some beautiful mistakes. The last step is to go back over all the inked lines with the microns once again over the top of the watercolor, providing more significant definition.
What is your favorite Medium?
There’s a combination of inspirations at play – obviously the magic and beauty of the natural world inspires the imagery I create, but there’s an important additional component inspired by growth, learning more about ourselves in order to live our best lives, and the knowledge that we are complete while also constantly in a state of becoming, which all finds its way in through the words and phrases in my work.
I love getting out into the wilderness, away from the sounds, energy and reminders of humans, and spending time with Craig, Huckleberry, and now Wilder.
Another place that holds that kind of magic for me is Cooper Landing, on the Kenai Peninsula. I’m a sucker for glowing water.
Advice to Aspiring Artists & Creative Minds
Just create. Get your thinking and critical mind out of your way and just create. You can share your work or not, but make it. Create it for you. Allow space for evolution, growth, and the simple knowledge that sometimes it’s the finished product that holds the most significance, but just as often, it’s the process itself that matters most.
We are grateful to carry such incredible work from artists with big hearts and burning passions here at Forests, Tides & Treasures, and consider many of them family. Thank you to Kelsey Fagan for interviewing with us and bringing us through her artistic journey. It is our goal at FTT to bridge the gap between artist and consumer and embrace the humanity that we all share. After all, we are better together.
November 04, 2021
Get to know Meg through our interview with her, below:
As a passionate outdoor explorer and athlete with professional training in design, my work combines an eye for style with a tangible feeling of being in wild places. I strive to convert the inspiration I receive from deep snow, flowing water and the natural world surrounding me into every piece. I began as a realism artist, achieved a BFA in graphic design and immersed myself in commercial graphic design for the last ten years. These elements continue to influence my fine art. I love to challenge myself by blending the conceptual with the realistic in my work.I am a professional fine artist and graphic designer based in Alaska’s Chugach Mountains. When I am not creating, you can find me journeying through the mountains, exploring the ocean or flying around the sky.
What is your favorite Medium?
When did you take the leap to make art & design your main endeavor?
We are grateful to carry such incredible work from artists with big hearts and burning passions here at Forests, Tides & Treasures, and consider many of them family. Thank you to Meg Smith for interviewing with us and bringing us through her Alaskan journey. It is our goal at FTT to bridge the gap between artist and consumer and embrace the humanity that we all share. After all, we are better together.
Meg Smith's artwork is currently featured on the AlaskaUSA Visa Credit Card!
Learn more about Meg & her collaboration with them by clicking here.
March 01, 2021