ADN: “Making it work: Anchorage Makerspace creates a hub for Alaska DIYers”

On a recent evening in a workshop in Anchorage’s Spenard neigborhood, a group of people gathered around a laser cutter to chart the machine’s progress engraving a chunk of wood. 

With some assistance from instructor Jess Austin, Andrew Cater pulled up his design on a nearby computer and went through a checklist: Check the water. Turn on the water pump and the air. Check the laser cutter bed for obstructions. Eventually, the device noisily went to work.

The finished product was a coffee tap handle with the logo of the cold-brew business Cater is working to get off the ground. It was made as part of a grant-funded laser-cutting class at Anchorage MakerSpace.

Anchorage MakerSpace instructor Jess Austin, center, talks with Andrew Cater about operating the laser cutter on April 6. Cater came to MakerSpace to make a tap handle for his cold-brew coffee business. (Marc Lester / Alaska Dispatch News)

Anchorage MakerSpace, a hub for do-it-yourself-minded Alaskans, is a roughly 3,600-square-foot shop next door to Tap Root Public House in Spenard. It’s a product of the “maker” movement in the U.S. — comprising people who come together to create things. Those things can be anything from robots to costumes to furniture to promotional material for a small business. Makerspaces have grown in popularity in the last decade and are all over the country, though they range in size and scope.

Diamond Redmond, one of Anchorage’s MakerSpace’s co-founders, said the maker movement in the state’s largest city grew out of Alaskans’ desire to share their knowledge with others and learn new things, but also to express themselves.

“Its roots come out of the fact that I don’t think people get to create anymore,” said Redmond, 36, whose projects include custom leather binding. “I believe that all humans have a natural desire to create and make. It’s part of what makes us unique as a species. And modern society has become so efficient at meeting all of our needs and making everything that we could possibly want, and a lot of things that we would never possibly want; we all miss out on that expression.”