Bret Connor says that creating gear for himself goes all the way back to high school, where he was “always out” snowboarding with buddies.
“We were do-it-ourself-ers,” Connor said, the owner of Hulin Alaskan Design, a print shop and store featuring pieces made by and designed by Connor. “I got into making patterns, sewing, and trying to get better and better at it. We got pretty good at making full waterproof gore tex and liners. I always really liked that type of stuff.”
Hulin Alaskan Design is named after Connor, whose middle name is Hulin. He opened the Spenard storefront in 2015, but has been making art for decades with an entrepreneurial drive — like selling friends’ pieces in high school in the 90s, he says.
“I didn’t really pursue [art] in any sort of educational sense, which in some ways, I think it’s a mistake, and other times, I think ‘Well, it’s cool that it takes its own path,’” Connor said. “So I did some restaurant work, and went to college, I got a random degree that wasn’t that. I always wanted to do [art] again and started sewing.”
He says that sewing eventually turned into screen printing; he realized he could produce faster, and filled his time with creating graphics to put on pieces.
“I did less of the sewing and more of the printing,” he said. “That lended itself more to, ‘Well, I need something to print, let me look into the graphic-end of things.”
Connor says his work is a mix of personal projects and print projects for small businesses including Skinny Raven, Pizza Man, La Bodega and Kaladi Brothers Coffee.
He has some exciting things he is working on this summer, one of which is a mural on the outside of his shop on the corner of Fireweed and Spenard Road. The scene is sketched roughly on the outside of the building, which Connor did in January in 2-degree weather using his personal projector.
The scene is from the perspective of someone sitting on chair one, looking out to Turnagain Arm, he says, and plans on building a bench at the bottom to depict chair one.
“This was another fun, experimental thing for me,” he said. “There’s probably a setout method to doing murals, I would imagine… Chair one [at Alyeska] was my favorite chair. The first old, single chair lift is old and super bouncy, and more of an experience.”
Sam Davenport is a writer residing in Anchorage. She's a leo and a plant-person, and loves spending quality time with her dog, Aspen. She is a Real Housewives fan and has been called a Bravo historian.
