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Kasilof artist's designs are a hit at Salmonfest

Amy Kruse with a design she made specially for Salmonfest.
Sabine Poux
/
KDLL
Amy Kruse with a design she made specially for Salmonfest.

The main attraction of the annual Salmonfest in Ninilchik is the music.

But fashion has become a highlight of the three-day festival, too. And Alaska apparel made by Kasilof artist Amy Kruse has become a Salmonfest staple.

The clothes she makes for her business, Love from Alaska, come adorned in a plethora of patterns — from psychedelic rainbow t-shirts to salmon-spotted bucket hats.

And at Salmonfest this weekend, her hard-to-miss designs were everywhere.

“It is very fulfilling and it’s very confidence boosting," she said from her booth at the festival Saturday. "And it’s like having a tribe, a little bit.”

Kruse paints her nature-themed designs by hand and prints them on stickers, leggings and sweatshirts. She has an online store and sells her work in some Kenai Peninsula shops, including The Goods in Soldotna and The Peddler in Ninilchik.

This was her fifth year selling at Salmonfest. She said her booth gets a lot of traffic at the festival.

“I plan products and design them around Salmonfest, like specifically geared toward SalmonFest," she said.

She’s accumulated work over the years that she’ll edit in Photoshop, layering paintings on one another and adding in special touches for the festival, like bright colors and trippy patterns.

And she adds new items into her collection, like this year’s trendy bucket hats and adult onesies.

“People love the onesies," she said. "I sold out of onesies today.”

For this year’s Salmonfest, she designed a shirt that’s covered with painted red and green sockeye salmon, each surrounded by a rainbow of trippy stripes.

One very special guest took notice. During his set Friday, headlining musician Shakey Graves ripped open his sweatshirt to show the shirt underneath.

“I was so pumped up," she said. "I had no idea. I wasn’t in the booth when he bought it, ’cause I would’ve known who he was. My niece was in here and she told me that a musician bought it. And my sister was like, ‘Oh, maybe it was Shakey Graves.’ And I was like, ‘Stop.’ I was geeking out, just a little bit.”

Kruse is from Ninilchik. She said it’s been fun to see how the festival has inflated the town of 900 each year for the last decade — drawing in crowds of vendors, musicians and fans to the fairgrounds there.

“And it’s so crazy to have such a big festival," Kruse said. "I remember coming here for the fair when I was a little kid, and it’s the middle of nowhere, and you go aspire to do all these big things. And to have it here in this little town here is really really cool.”

She said it’s hard to describe what it feels like to be part of it all. But, she said, that’s OK — she expresses herself better with paint, anyhow.

Sabine Poux is a producer and reporter for the Brave Little State podcast of Vermont Public. She was formerly news director and evening news host at KDLL in Kenai.

Originally from New York, Sabine has lived and reported in Argentina and Vermont and Kenai.
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