Sarah K. Glaser.

• Position: OFF THE CUFF - Alaskan artist, Sarah K. Glaser Illustration

Between helping her fiance track wolves around Healy for three months last winter while working on 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's the first thing you do when you get home after a long day at work?

Sarah Glaser: When I'm doing art and I've been inside all day, I get outside after work and ski and bike and hike and run.

AB: What's your greatest extravagance?

Glaser: I'm 32 and I'm still collecting toys. I have surfboards and pack rafts. I just got a Whitewater hard shell kayak... Big kid toys for playing outside.

AB: What's the most daring thing you've ever done?

Glaser: We do a lot of big Alaska trips. We were super fortunate, my partner and I, to go from Arctic Village to Kaktovik a couple of years ago... Last summer (or the summer before), I had a knee injury and we paddled from Whittier to Cordova. That was really cool.

AB: Is there anything you're superstitious about?

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