A Canadian born in the Yukon Territory, SHARON SVENSON’s family settled in Haines when she was seven years old. Her roots are solidly placed in the Mud Bay neighborhood where she and her husband John share a spacious artist studio, own Extreme Dreams Gallery, and tend a bountiful kitchen garden, a peaceful haven, from which they travel the world as adventurers and art collectors. She draws inspiration from the rich ethnic art, vibrant and colorful cultures they visited in the Americas and Africa that is expressed in her mosaics, and in earlier years, in the rugs and tapestries she created.
Sharon is renowned for her custom stained-glass mosaic installations in public institutions across Alaska. Her decades of weaving experience translated seamlessly to the qualities of glass mosaics. “Unlike blending in painting, with mosaic, colors are stacked or placed next to each other to create images. Stained glass has much depth of color and reflective qualities, similar to the intensity of wool fiber in the weaving process.”