The art of brewing beer

 Michael Penn / Juneau Empire

Brewer Tyler Lindquist, left, and Quality Assurance Analyst Darin Jensen pose in an older brewing tank that is being decommissioned at the Alaskan Brewing Company.

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

This weekend, brewers and beer lovers from all over Alaska will converge at the annual Great Alaska Craft Beer and Home-Brew Festival held in Dalton City at the Southeast Alaska State Fairgrounds in Haines. Brew Fest, as it’s informally called, celebrates the art of making — and drinking — beer, and recognizes the work of those who’ve dedicated themselves to perfecting the craft.
In Juneau many of those craftsmen can be found at the Alaskan Brewing Co. Though the company now ships its beer to 10 states, it continues to celebrate the art of small-batch beer and the creative innovation of its employees, especially through its Rough Draft program. In this the business stays true to its roots: Alaskan Amber, the company’s flagship beer, started out as an experimental home-brew based on a Gold Rush-era beer brewed by the Douglas City Brewing Company, open from 1902 to 1907. While doing research on breweries in 1986, Alaskan Brewing co-owner Marcy Larson came across some old shipping records from the Douglas brewery that included beer ingredients, and an article describing brewing techniques. Her husband Geoff, a home-brewer, brewed up a batch and was so impressed he made several more, tweaking the balance until he came up with something he thought was similar to what the miners were drinking.  
“Gold Rush miners in Juneau were a hard working bunch who seemed to appreciate full flavored beers,” Geoff Larson said. “The rich, yet smooth, attributes of this particular brew is what caught me, and it appears the mining crews drank quite a lot of it in those days.”
Since that first batch of home-brew 25 years ago, Alaskan Brewing Co. has been growing and thriving, attracting a staff that includes beer lovers and home-brewers alike. Some have stuck around to become experts in the field — such as employees Darin Jensen and Tyler Lindquist, who together have invested a combined 33 years with the company.
Road to brewing
Darin Jensen has worked his way up through the ranks for the past 18 years to hold a position coveted by many as Quality Assurance Analyst. He gets paid to drink beer.
Darin moved to Juneau in 1993 from Minnesota and really wanted to work at the brewery. He got his first chance on “volunteer day,” an annual event where the brewery would shut down all brewing operations and take outside volunteers to bottle the beer.
“You’d get paid with rejects and a free lunch,” Jensen said. He then started refurbishing kegs for them and as the company expanded he landed a part-time position.
“I became fascinated by the process of making beer, I was ambitious and I was able to work my way up,” Jensen said. He moved from keg cleaning to tank cleaning to warehouse work, then managed a crew on the weekends and eventually moved into a brewing position just as they scaled up from the 10-barrel system to the 100-barrel.
It was this transition to creating something tangible like Alaskan Amber that gave Jensen the most work pride.
“It was a six-month learning curve to learn the process, but it was the start of a lifetime journey of creating beers and learning the art of brewing,” Jensen said.
He said the brewery’s Rough Draft program, in which small batches of brewers’ specialty beers are released on draft within the state, has allowed him to spread his wings.
“You might be inspired by a different style that’s out there, or you want to clone a beer that you’ve had,” said Jensen, who created a Rough Draft with a particular hop called Simcoe.
Fellow employee, former home-brewer and beer craftsman Tyler Lindquist says he arrived at the Alaskan Brewing Co. fresh from Eugene Ore., where he’d lived with a hop grower and become a home brewer in the middle of a micro brewery explosion in the early 1990s.
“I took a tour of the brewery about five times in a row, then they asked me if I wanted to fill out an application and about two or three weeks after that I got a call to interview, I got the job and it’s been 15 years,” Lindquist said. The first beer he had scaled up was the Alaskan Heritage Coffee beer he made after being approached by Heritage Coffee employees.
“We home-brewed at my house, they really liked the recipe I somewhat developed and we scaled it up at the brewery and from there it took off,” he said.
He added that the brewery’s ESB was the brewer’s beer of choice and noted his displeasure when it was discontinued.
Brewing is a complex process. Beer has so many different factors there is virtually an endless amount of combinations. Beer elements include appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, gravity and alcohol concentration, yeast, grains, hops, fruits, spices, water. Within these categories are even more complexities. Different hops for example have floral, fruit, earth, herb, pine and spicy characteristics.
Beer is also affected by production methods - like aging beer in bourbon barrels, and recipe, history, origin, and seasonal considerations can all influence the overall beer experience.
Music: beer’s unseen force
Along his journey Jensen’s come to believe that music and beer are a circular dynamic — continually inspiring and propelling each other forward.
Lindquist agrees, saying many brewers loosen up by listening to music, which prompts inspired beer discussions and new recipes. Music is also played in all phases of production and throughout the whole brewery.
“It’s neat to walk around the brewery and hear all the different kinds of music being played in the different areas,” said Marcy Larson.
In some cases, it’s live music. Once in a while someone will grab an instrument and rock out in a decommissioned lauter tank because of the good acoustics.
It was a shared love of music and beer that brought together the band Brown Haven, a band that includes both Jensen and Lindquist. The name of the band has a double meaning: it’s the leftover yeast scum on the top of a tank, and refers to the early band’s early jam sessions in their “haven,” a brown storage unit in the Mendenhall Valley.
Brown Haven blended the musical styles of Jensen, a self-proclaimed “metal head” from Minnesota; Lindquist, a surf punk from California; and Damian Horvath, a reggae musician from St. Croix, who also worked at the brewery. The band has broken up but will reunite for a private party this summer.
Jensen has just released an original song he wrote called “Soul Surfer,” which is being played on KRNN on Wednesdays.
Jensen and Lindquist are just two of the many brewers who have passed through or grown roots at the brewery, empowered and encouraged by the Larson’s artist space.
Courtney Nelson can be reached at roughhouseboxing@gmail.com.

Lucky We: Newlyweds thrive in reclusive artists retreat

By Courtney Nelson

FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Juneau’s Kent Crabtree is a Renaissance man. The second time I met him, he brought me in his skiff out to an artist retreat he built himself, pulled a live crab from a pot on the way and then served it to me for lunch on one of the best salads I’ve ever had.
After spending the afternoon with Kent and his wife Julie Crabtree, I came to understand why they named the waterfront home Lucky We.
Before meeting Julie, Kent bought a piece of land on Douglas Island, south of the area known as Lucky Me, a roadless community accessible by a long walk or a short boat ride. He built a small waterfront cabin on his property and, eventually, a main house with the help of his friends.
With Lucky We, Kent got what he wanted: to live remotely and have a career. Now, with a house in town and one off the grid, he and his wife Julie have the best of both worlds.
Kent designed the timber-frame home himself, although his occupation as a fisheries biologist didn’t train him for architecture design. He said he taught himself the necessary skills by reading books in the library.
“I basically winged it,” he said.
The main house, built in two summers, has large skylights and strategically placed windows that open to allow rising heat from the main floor to warm the loft bedroom. The house is filled with paintings and art supplies, and there are inspiring nature scenes out every window. Kent even made his own stained glass light fixtures out of beach glass he collected.
Kent and Julie use the house as an artists’ retreat when they aren’t living in their downtown house. They paint out on the beach for hours or take up other bright nooks in the house. They say the remoteness of the space helps them create.
“Just the fact that we are off the grid with no distractions — we never know what time it is — that helps the art,” Kent said.
Kent and Julie, who initially met through mutual friends at the Alaska’s Folk Festival, were acquaintances for many years, unaware that the other was an artist until they stumbled upon each other’s exhibits. They eventually began dating.
They got married in January of this year in a surprise wedding ceremony at their Lucky We home. They currently have a joint art show hanging through the end of May at the Heritage Second Street Café downtown.
Kent
Kent, originally from Eugene, Ore., began painting after doing research on how to make stained glass windows for his house. He’d always liked Henry Matisse, and thought Matisse’s colorful cut-outs would lend themselves well to stained glass. He began thumbing through art books and, after immersing himself on the floor of the University of Alaska Southeast Egan Library for hours, he became inspired.
“I got so excited, I thought, ‘Screw windows, I want to paint,’” Kent said with a laugh. He immediately went out and got some discount, off-color paints at the paint store and a piece of plywood, then went back to his cabin and started to paint. He eventually took some art classes with John Fehringer at UAS.
In addition to being a biologist, a painter and a carpenter, Kent is a rhythm guitar player for the Chillkats and is the only founding member left in town. He has also dabbled in jewelry-making and even designed the couple’s wedding rings.
Julie
Julie realized she had a talent for drawing in high school after taking a couple of art classes, and she majored in art for a year at Ball State University in Indiana. Her favorite painter is Georgia O’Keefe.
“I guess I had a natural knack for drawing, it was my first awareness. I didn’t actually know I could draw up to that point,” Julie said, adding that she eventually changed her major.
Julie arrived in Kodiak in 1993 as a Coast Guard firefighter and eventually found her way to Juneau in 2000. While she was in Kodiak she used her drawing talents to paint names on boats, restaurant signs and even took jobs painting houses.
In addition to painting, she also loves photography, beading and necklace-making, juggling those artistic pursuits with her job as a bodywork specialist and her role as a mother of two children.
Julie has done bodywork for 13 years, and for the last six she has specialized in structural integration at her company Deep River Body Work in the Valentine Building.
“We basically reorganize the basic tissue in the human body, make people feel better, stand up straighter, walk better,” Julie said.
After having her first child nine years ago, she decided she wanted to do art again, and set a goal to have a show. She began doing art alone in the middle of the night. But this all changed when she started creating art with Kent and collaborating with him.
Union
“I’d never done art with anyone before, that sounded really weird,” said Julie, who has since changed her mind.
“I had these preconceived ideas that I only do art alone, in the middle of the night, hunched over the table — I had these ideas that that was the only way I could produce art.”
Kent thought she looked uncomfortable.
“She had a wonderful art show and all of the pieces had at least 20-50 hours put into them, but she’d be sitting in a chair all balled up in the fetal position and she’d talk about how exhausting that work was and how her body was so sore,” Kent said. “it was a foreign idea to her — painting together. She wouldn’t talk about anything, she was used to being completely alone in her own world.”
He built her a fully adjustable beach easel.
“It got her standing up and stretching out and painting like a human being, in the middle of the day,” said Kent laughing.
Julie went from drawing realistic, identifiable things to more abstract paintings.
“By painting together, it (the art) started to develop a life of it’s own,” she said. “We paint together and listen to music and laugh and sing or are quiet for a long time. I started loosening up — now I dance when I paint and do heel clicks and we talk.”
To sell or not to sell
The couple has differing ideas about the fate of their paintings; Kent wants to keep them, Julie wants to let them go.
Kent has had two art shows but this is the first show in which he’s been willing to sell any of his work. Consequently he has hundreds of paintings in storage. His art is personal to him. He only sold one piece of art in the fourth grade and sees mixing money and art as somehow taking away the purity of the art. He has started to change his mind about this however.
“Why not sell them if someone wants to buy it and put it on their wall?” Julie said.
Advice for beginning artists
Both Julie and Kent think art should be accessible to everyone. They make their own canvases using plywood and Kilz paint. They use brushes but also use sticks and twigs and other organic materials to paint. They use materials found on the beach.
“I’m totally into cheap materials,” said Kent, “I’m all about that.”
Their art can be seen at the Heritage Second Street Cafe downtown through the end of May.
• Courtney Nelson can be reached at nelsonfamily@acsalaska.net

San Diego - a city with sol

Photos by Courtney Nelson

Article by Courtney Nelson
San Diego is my birthplace. With such beautiful weather, the city has adopted the motto “City of Sol.” It’s also home to over 3 million and is the eighth largest city in the United States.
San Diego proper and North County are all accessible from the main artery the Interstate 5 freeway and the beaches can be accessed from Highway 101. Some of my family still lives nearby in Cardiff, so I asked my cousin and her daughter to share favorite local hot spots for all ages.
Susie Nancarrow, 47, San
Diego picks in North County
• For families traveling with babies and toddlers, Susie recommends LEGOLAND in Carlsbad.
• Powerhouse Park in nearby Del Mar offers a full playground on the water and is within walking distance to a great indoor and outdoor dining and shopping area at the Del Mar Plaza.
• Susie thinks families, especially with elementary age kids and tweens, will enjoy low tide at Swamis Beach in North County, Encinitas. It’s also a huge surfing spot and Swamis is just west of Interstate 5.
• Hiking at Torrey Pines State Beach offers trails down to the shore.
• Walk around downtown Encinitas and visit two cool stores, Flashbacks and Home.
• Water parks are in Vista and San Diego.
• Families with teens might visit San Diego State University and California State University San Marcos if they are looking for colleges.
• VG’s Donuts at Cardiff by the Sea is worth a visit, and Good Morning is a funky store in the same shopping center.
• Active families with teens should visit Yoga Tropics, a hot yoga studio in Encinitas, or Haute Yoga in Solana Beach. There are also surfing schools in the area; Susie recommends Kahuna Bob’s in Encinitas.
• Families, teens and couples should enjoy La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas, an old theater built in the 1920s that features small movies and a funky environment.
• There’s a flea market in downtown Encinitas on Saturdays and Sundays and there are great restaurants all along Highway 101 in Encinitas.
• Susie shared a local secret, a gourmet “snack shack” called Bull Taco, located in the San Elijo Campground in Cardiff by the Sea offering great food, a casual environment, reasonable prices and proximity to the ocean.
• Couples on date night should visit The Belly Up, a great music venue on Cedros Avenue in Solana Beach. Cedros Avenue also has great boutiques on one long block. Other notable shopping areas are the Del Mar Plaza in Del Mar, Carlsbad Outlets and downtown Carlsbad.
Hannah Nancarrow, 22, local recommendations
• Hannah, a student at San Diego State, says she loves the Self Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens because they’re so beautiful and calm. “Koi ponds and flora for days,” and a wandering path leads to a breathtaking ocean overlook.
• Pacific Beach is a young, fun beach community with tons of bars and restaurants. Hannah thinks Crystal Pier and the small breakfast place right next to it, Kono’s, are the hottest spots. She says Kono’s is “inexpensive and has amazing omelets and oceanfront seating.”
• The Cardiff Kook is a statue in Cardiff, formally named “the magic carpet ride,” and it’s been the target of practical jokes and costumes almost daily becoming a local symbol of surf culture.
• “I love Mission Bay,” says Hannah. Bike, skate, roller blade or walk the path that traces the coast of the bay. It’s usually un-crowded and it goes for miles with views of sailboats and the ocean. The bay has no big waves so it’s “perfect for kids because it has a big park and play structures along the beach.”
• Hannah also recommends The Black, a famous smoke shop “that smells like hemp and patchouli from 200 yards away,” she says. The shop features “amazing tapestries, handmade greeting cards and candles by local artists, plus funky jewelry. It’s walking distance to the local pier and an assortment of bars.”
Courtney Nelson’s picks
I need to add the following more mainstream attractions:
• The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park are legendary and great for kids. You can also get lost in nearby Balboa Park for days, as well as the San Diego’s Museum of Natural History.
• Old Town, located in downtown San Diego, is great for feeling like you have stepped into Mexico. You can also drive an hour south on Interstate 5 and visit Tijuana, if you dare. Prepare for a long wait getting back across the border.
• The Hotel del Coronado on Coronado Island is another fancy spot across the bridge out of downtown San Diego. The room rates are really steep; consider getting an inexpensive room nearby and then strolling the hotel grounds with an umbrella drink and an attitude.
• La Jolla is another must-see in my opinion, but this is where I was born so I am a little biased. I spent most of childhood summers swimming and snorkeling in the La Jolla cove, a small sand beach protected by a low crescent-shaped cliff. If you are a strong ocean swimmer you can swim out to the buoys that are placed at a quarter mile and half-mile distances. Kelp beds will get thick there and brushing kelp leaves might spook swimmers afraid of sharks. The last great white shark attack off the San Diego coast happened in April 2008.
• My advice is to find a place to stay that’s within walking distance to the beach so you don’t have to drive as much. When you do drive, allow time to find parking and fight traffic along the coast. Most importantly, enjoy the sun.
• Courtney Nelson is a frequent traveler with small children and can be reached at nelsonfamily@acsalaska.net.

Fighting under a supermoon

 

By Courtney Nelson | FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Roughhouse boxing at Marlintini’s Lounge Friday night occurred while the supermoon was rising, possibly influencing the large number of TKO’s.
Kole Skaflestad, 18, of Hoonah defeated Brett Van Alen, 25, in the MMA main event. After an even first round grappling on the mat, Skaflestad threw Van Alen to the mat in round two, injuring his shoulder and forcing his retirement.
In one of two MMA bouts, Hoonah’s Mitchel Zarazua, 21, 3-1-0, defeated first-time fighter Joshua White, 23, in a bout that was even after round one when the two traded power positions on the mat. In round two, Zarazua landed more blows and was dominating the third round when he delivered multiple face blows that forced White to retire.
In the only female fight of the night, student and first-time fighter Samantha Coronell, 19, defeated Shannon “Fighting Irish” Williams, 28, in a surprising bout. Coronell was trained by her uncle Al Valentine, saying, “Boxing is in our family.” Williams, a Marlintini’s bartender, 1-0-0, agreed at the last minute to give Coronell a bout and stopped pouring drinks to put on some boxing gloves.
Coronell proved to be too much for Williams who retired after taking a right hook to the temple that sent her to the mat in the second round.
First-time fighter Erick Scholl, 25, defeated fellow newbie Regal Hudson, 18, a fisherman hailing from Prince of Wales. An adrenaline-filled first round had them both sucking air early in the second. Scholl was knocked down by Hudson at the end of round two, but he came back to tag Hudson hard in the third.
Ray Coronell, 19, with a record of 0-1-0, defeated first-time fighter Michael “Papa Smurf” Williams, 27, to grab his first win by decision after a close match.
Charlie “Vicious” Gallant, 21, defeated Dominick Sedano, 24, by TKO in a match that stayed even through round two. Sedano poured it on in the third but Gallant answered with a series of headshots sending Sedano to the mat.
Royal “Crown Royal” Hudson, 20, a fisherman hailing from Prince of Wales with a record of 6-5-0, defeated IT programmer Ryan Wong, 34, 7-2-0, after Hudson tagged Wong in the temple, issuing him a standing eight count early in round one. They were pretty even in round two, but Hudson stunned Wong with another head shot. In round three, both boxers were gassed, but Hudson took Wong down with a right haymaker to the head.
The next Roughhouse Boxing will be April 15 and will feature Edna Abbott coming out of retirement to fight another mom who couldn’t find anyone to take her on in the main event.

His and her artists spaces

artists' spaces

By Courtney Nelson | FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

The Bentwood and Bead gallery, in the big yellow building on Third Street between Starr Hill and the Historic downtown district, is a dream artists’ space that’s been a long time coming.
Jim and Salty Hanes created this his-and-her artist’s paradise, where they have space to create art as well as a gallery to show and sell it in, and no commute to get there — they live upstairs.
When their gallery is open, they don’t carry mass-produced tourist gifts, but rather offer one-of-a-kind items for locals and tourists, featuring their own work as well as that of other artists.
The space
Visitors enter the Bentwood and Bead gallery on the ground floor gallery space, which features Jim’s engravings, Salty’s beadwork and two different guest artists every year. They like to carry diverse artists and mediums such as painters and potters to balance their engraving and beadwork. But after decades of running public shops, the most important criteria in considering guest artists is “ease of doing business with,” said Jim.
Also on the ground floor are two studios. One is Jim’s, with violins and engravings, and the other is Salty’s, with bead-working materials.
Over the last 28 years, Jim and Salty have had many different business arrangements and many different careers.
Salty had Taku Tailor in the Emporium Mall downtown and also Spirit Beads on Fifth Street, while Jim had his String Shop in a couple locations.
After being too big, too small, or too spread out, they now say they’ve got it right. The couple can work on projects separately but meet in the gallery to collaborate.
This ability to share ideas has led to inspired pieces. For example, Jim exhausted an engraving he was never quite happy with and he showed it to Salty, who beaded the image into an octopus purse.
Mr. Valentine
During the Gold Rush days, Emery Valentine, Juneau’s sixth mayor, owned the building where Bentwood and Bead is located.
Valentine became a little cash poor in 1901, so the then 43-year-old jeweler gave the building to his business manager as payment for a year’s work. Valentine went on to build the Valentine Building and the Seward Building in 1913, which border the downtown historic district.
In 1997, Salty and Jim were simplifying and consolidating their lives so they formed a plan and bought the house. It was run-down, so they stripped it to the studs for a custom renovation, completed in 1999.
Now they arrange their gallery schedule around their travel plans, doing what they love.
Jim
Jim, originally from Seattle, graduated with a degree in marine biology from Western Washington University and worked at the Navy’s arctic research lab in Barrow on contract. When he found he couldn’t move further up without getting another degree, he looked around or a career change. He liked working with wood and wanted to learn how to fiddle so he put them together.
“I found out violins were all carved and not bent into the shape they are in. That just seemed fascinating to me so I sent letters off all around the country to see if I could get an apprenticeship, and I got one, on the East Coast.”
The apprenticeship, based in Washington, D.C., spanned two years. When he wasn’t making and repairing violins, Jim worked for the Smithsonian identifying arctic artifacts, and sometimes commuted back up north for periods to work. He returned to Juneau and opened a string shop in 1983, the same year he met his partner, Salty.
Things didn’t go exactly as planned. Instead of making violins as he had intended, he ended up providing instrument rentals and repairs for 18 years. So he closed his string shop in 2005, and started making violins again. Now he only repairs instruments in January and February.
After Jim closed his string shop, he had time to try new things so he took a few classes at UAS with Alice Tersteeg, a renowned printmaker. Engraving and printmaking have now become a passion.
“(Tersteeg) has taught so many famous Southeast Alaska artists over the years in printmaking. She’s an unsung hero as far as her contribution to artists,” Jim said.
Jim was also inspired by woodblock print artist and engraver Dale DeArmond, who passed away in 2006. Jim uses her old press for his art. He creates his images on finely polished blocks of wood using little chisel tools. Each piece is very labor intensive; a polished block of wood can take 50 to 60 hours alone to make because it has to be perfectly smooth.
He also does relief and reduction prints, wood boxes with carved lids and wood sculptures.
Salty
Salty, named after an adored aunt, was born on the East Coast. She grew up in a large family in which everyone worked with their hands. She started beading at an early age, went to school in Colorado focusing on sculpture and moved to Juneau in 1976.
She’s worked in Juneau as a carpenter, house painter and ski-patroller, among other things, and was very handy repairing outdoors equipment, which prompted the opening of her business, Taku Tailors.
After meeting Jim in 1983, she started her beading store, Spirit Beads. Like Jim, she got so caught up in running a business, teaching and doing workshops, she was unable to work on her own things.
Salty said her interest in beads stems partly from her belief that they tie us together; she uses and carries many vintage and antique beads, and is interested in their history through the bead trade routes that passed through Alaska.
Salty has kept her finger on the pulse of the beading community in Juneau over the years, holding beading circles at Spirit Beads, working with youth and teaching in schools in Alaska, the Yukon and British Columbia. She has also had exhibits of her beadwork at the Juneau Douglas City Museum.
Future plans
Jim and Salty have found a balance of work and play that works for them. Their philosophy is to try to live simply and not plan too far ahead.
“You don’t know what the future holds so stop dinking around with 10-year plans and just take it day by day,” Jim said.
“It’s a really great life and we are grateful,” Salty said.
Bentwood and Bead is open in the winter by appointment, and will resume its regular hours in the spring.

Former Juneau jeweler returns for show

 

By Courtney Nelson | FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Jewelry artist and former Juneau resident Leah Sturgis lives in Alexandria, Va., but her ties to Alaska are still strong. She’ll be back in town this week to show her latest jewelry designs at Annie Kaills as their featured First Friday artist.
Sturgis, a jewelry artist, lived in Juneau for more than 10 years before moving east in 2003 to accompany her husband, musician Frank Solivan. Solivan had managed to do the almost unthinkable: earn a stable income with benefits for his family as a bluegrass musician. He did it by taking a position with the U.S. Navy’s official bluegrass and country band, Country Current, an honor for a musician and one which took the couple to Washington, D.C.
“He got the job and we moved to D.C., next thing you know I was a Navy wife,” she said.
While in Juneau, Sturgis had begun designing and selling her own line of jewelry through Rock, Paper, Scissors, a store she co-owned in Juneau with partners Lindsay Campbell and Amy Fletcher. At that time her jewelry business, though very popular, was more of a hobby than a profession. Once in D.C., however, Sturgis had more time to devote to perfecting and expanding her designs. She learned about wholesale jewelry and her business expanded from availability in five stores to 100 stores from Chicken, Alaska to New York City.
“I think what’s unusual about my jewelry is the design,” she said. “I don’t use unusual materials, I don’t use unusual techniques — I have an architectural, Asian aesthetic. And I love natural materials.”
Porcupine quills and caribou antlers are among the elements she uses, pieces that have long been popular, but that she includes in unsual ways.
“I want to combine it in a way that looks really fresh, clean and contemporary.”
Creative journey
Sturgis credits most of her creativity to the Waldorf School she attended her first three years of formal education. She said they taught her to clean and spin wool, make her own bread and soup, and explore other languages.
“I think it shaped my creativity really early,” she said. “I learned you can make anything from anything.”
She took her first basic jewelry-making class while working in a new age bookstore as a teen in Chicago, and that was virtually all the training she needed.
“I learned the basics and didn’t feel the need to master it,” she said. “I just ran with that because my techniques are pretty basic.”
Part of her design influence was Native American jewelry; as a kid she attended powwows in North Dakota with her family, and that is where she first saw animal quills used.
“My best selling piece of jewelry is the abacus with a Juneau porcupine quill in it. I get the quills from my mom.”
Sturgis’ mom, Mary, still lives in town.
Ties to Juneau
Sturgis moved to Juneau soon after high school because she had a beloved aunt, Grace Elliott, also known as the “Blues Goddess” on KTOO, who lived here.
When Elliott left Chicago for Juneau, she blazed the trail not only for Sturgis, but for six of her siblings to make the move eventually.
As an eight-year-old Sturgis said she was particularly crushed when her aunt moved.
“She lived with us when she was 18 and she was like another parent to me — she was like my fairy godmother — and she went to visit her friend in Juneau and was so captivated she never came back. It pretty much broke my heart.”
Sturgis was 10 when her mother Mary brought her to Juneau to visit Elliott. During her trip she experienced the Alaska Folk Festival and fell in love with Alaska.
“I was 19 and following my spirit of adventure, but I was also following my aunties who were replanting themselves in Juneau from Chicago.”
Many years later, she met her husband Frank at the Folk Festival when he was visiting from Anchorage. He eventually moved to Juneau to join her, but soon after the couple began discussing other options.
“Juneau is a really difficult place to be a professional musician,” Sturgis said, adding that this spurred his move into the Navy.
She said it was really hard to leave her Juneau friends and still maintains strong connections in Alaska. Despite her distance, she’s been showing her jewelry at the Eastern Market and says she always has someone from Alaska stop by.
“Every single weekend I see somebody from Alaska at the market.”
Generous philosophy
After six years of creativity and hard work, income from Sturgis’s jewelry sales now support the couple. Solivan recently left the Navy to pursue his career as a musician.
“For the last two years he has been with his own band, the Dirty Kitchen Band. They just got hired by the Anchorage Folk Festival,” Sturgis said. She’d like to show her jewelry at all his stops.
“We have been kind of been trying to combine our two creative worlds — which is hard — but easier in Alaska,” said Sturgis.
Sturgis credits her success with the generosity of successful people in her craft who were willing to openly share their experience.
“I feel like generosity of spirit is key,” she said.
For more on Sturgis, visit www.leahsturgis.com. For more on Solivan, visit www.dirtykitchenband.com.

Lucid Reverie: An artists' space mixing business with pleasure

By Courtney Nelson | FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Patrick Race and Aaron Suring founded Lucid Reverie LLC in 2002 in Race’s grandmother’s basement. Originally established to create websites and commercials for Juneau companies, the business has grown into a force in Juneau’s film community, and was one of the major players in the creation of the Juneau Underground Motion Picture Society (JUMP). The winter JUMP film festival begins tonight at 7 p.m. at the Gold Town Nickelodeon.
Soon after starting up their business, Race and Suring moved from grandma’s basement into a space downtown in the Emporium Mall. They’ve been there for more than nine years.
Part of history
The Emporium Mall, which stretches from Franklin Street to Shattuck Way, was built in 1901 on pilings, because at the time it was waterfront. Suring said sometimes at high tide he sees water under his desk beneath the floorboards.
The building was originally the old Alaska Steam and Laundry, one of the oldest and longest-running Alaska businesses, built by Ernest Jaeger. Jaeger added to his wealth with gold from miner’s pockets that stuck in his drain traps.
“Where we’re located was a wood shed to store fuel for the boiler,” said Race.
The space has hosted many other businesses in addition to the laundry. It was a blacksmith for knife-making and horse-shoeing, a tattoo parlor, a café, an outdoor gear swap meet and is rumored to have been a donut shop.
Lucid Reverie, meaning “clear daydream,” is located on the first floor of the historic building, and is divided into three rooms.
The Ruby Room, their storefront, was the latest addition to their space when they punched a hole through from their offices. It has rich colors and a playful feel with comic books, cards, humorous T-shirts, and their latest passion — graphic novels.
Race and Suring have desks in the adjoining room, as does Lou Logan, who joined the company a few years after it started. Suring thinks the lack of walls and vaulted ceilings create an open feeling good for project collaborations.
The third and innermost room is used for gear and general storage.
While the three don’t see themselves in this space forever — they would ultimately like a window with a view — they are grateful for it, said Race.
“It’s comfortable, it’s working and I’m glad to have it.”
Finding balance
After four years of offering commercial services such as website design and video production, Race and Suring realized they weren’t having any fun. Ironically, Race made a short film in college titled Lucid Reverie about an Orwellian cubicle drone escaping her dreary life.
In 2006, they decided to reject commercial work and focus on comics and short films. They had fun but eventually found personal projects alone couldn’t support them.
“After about a year of this we were almost out of money, so we decided to start taking commercial work again,” said Race with a chuckle. “The business has always been really good to us, depending on how much we want to work.”
With the creation of their film company, Alaska Robotics, which falls under the Lucid Reverie umbrella, they attempt to balance commercial and creative endeavors — and it seems to be working.
“We’ve been doing this for nine years now, so at this point I guess you can call us successful. It’s not a fluke that we are still here. And it’s not like I have income from somewhere else, so it must be supporting us,” said Race, who admits that he doesn’t need much.
“I never raised my standard of living after I got out of college so that helps.”
Finding each other
Race and Suring met while in school at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. They met through the honors program and were both computer science majors, filmmakers and soccer players; they’d lived in Juneau before but never crossed paths.
Suring and Race also met Logan at UAF. Logan was majoring in natural resource management at the time but found science wasn’t his passion, and decided to join Lucid Reverie.
“Aaron and I met Lou when we were doing film festivals in Fairbanks, and he was submitting films to them and doing really cool work, and he took over the film club once his thing ended,” said Race adding that he was a welcome addition to their company.
“He’s really technically proficient. He’s kind of a genius when it comes to details, and he has a really good eye for detail and obsesses over it. He holds a strict standard but it’s really helpful when we are working on big projects.”
Logan is also a founding member of the UAF Film Club and the JUMP Society.
Sarah Asper-Smith is also a part of the creative team, but is currently away at school for museum exhibit design. She recently published a vibrant kids book “Have You Ever Seen a Smack of Jellyish?” through Sasquatch Books.
Inspiration
When it comes to tapping into creativity, Race says he has more ideas than he will ever be able to produce.
“I’m working on a script adaptation, a script for a graphic novel, several short films, several comics, then I have a list of other stuff I want to do. I’ll never do it all but it keeps me busy.”
Suring agreed, saying “Pat’s a wonderfully creative guy with lots of ideas that just keep coming.”
The jobs haven’t all been fun and light-hearted; the team has taken on some challenging projects dealing with heavier topics.
“We have recently finished the Taylor White film for the Taylor White Foundation, and we are working on a film for the University about Native students from rural areas attending UAS and some of the challenges they face,” said Race.
Suring says his favorite challenge was the Science on a Sphere project they created for the Alaska State Museum.
“There were a lot of technical things that were completely different,” he said.
The trio also love to bring up artists from the comic community to Juneau. Race, who created comics for JDHS’s school paper when he was a student, says the community is really tight.
“There’s this group of people doing things together and talking about story and art, and it’s more of a community than I’ve ever run into than anything else. Everyone keeps in touch, comments on each others work, and it’s nice to see that and be on the edge of a community like that.”
After the success of bringing up a well-known comic artist from Japan, Race is working with the library to bring up professional storyboard artists Chris Appelhans and John Clauson this spring.
“These guys are incredibly talented,” said Race.
Suring, Race and Logan don’t have plans to slow down any time soon. As for his inspiration, Race says it’s everywhere.
“It’s an appropriation of culture, you just live your life, see what’s around you and then try to tell your story.”
If that doesn’t work, maybe they can find gold under the floorboards.
• Courtney Nelson can be reached at nelsonfamily@acsalaska.net