It was a busy 2025 for Addie Studebaker.
A mom of four, Studebaker gave birth to her youngest earlier this year. She had work up in the Alaska Triennial through summer and wrapped her interactive installation, “[UN]STUCK,” at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, this fall. In between, she’s been working on installing permanent sound murals in the Valley, most recently at the Wasilla Public Library.
“I’m still wrapping my mind around having a baby in my 40s, and doing all these different things… I have had to find a way to embrace it all and just let things feed each other” Studebaker said.
The multidisciplinary artist — who also teaches English and writing classes at the University of Alaska campus in the Mat-Su — is already looking ahead at another sculpture project in January.
Studebaker moved to Alaska in 2015. Growing up in rural Ohio, anything artistic felt “sort of utilitarian”, like it should be practical, she said. Anything else, she kept to herself.
“Things kind of changed a few years after our first kids came along, and I was noticing that all of my creative drive was following this pattern of going towards teaching and caregiving,” she said. “And there’s a place for that. But I was also really needing new ways to communicate, process and interact with the world to just function. So I started creating space for that.”
Following the death of her grandmother, Studebaker says she also felt compelled to share her work.
“When she passed, I just had this really strong feeling of, ‘I want to do what she didn’t get to do or didn’t let herself do,’ which is just indulge in something fun and let myself have a creative voice in the world, grow skills, fail, be loud, be weird…be kind of exploratory and useless sometimes. I wanted my kids to see this as normal and a part of being human,” she said. “There’s also a cross-pollination in sharing that I wanted to engage in to grow as an artist. Growth is the reward in the risk!”
In 2022, Studebaker received a grant to build and install Palmer’s Tiny Art Gallery. She built it herself with repurposed wood, metal, glass, and plexiglass. She will be partnering with the Alaska Woodworkers Guild to build an upgraded version, she says, and is leading a team to install a Wasilla Tiny Gallery this winter.
“It was something I had seen in other states. It’s the same idea as a free little library — just with art,”she said. “I want to facilitate that free sense of play, curiosity, and sharing…offline. I want to keep making space for that.”
Studebaker was recently named one of Rasmuson Foundation’s Individual Artist Award recipients for 2025. She will be working in cooperation with the National Park Service in the new year, where she will create a series of sculptures that translate recorded soundscapes.
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.
