Glo Ramirez shows off her artwork at her Juneau apartment on Monday, Dec. 31, 2018. (Michael Penn | Capital City Weekly)

Glo Ramirez shows off her artwork at her Juneau apartment on Monday, Dec. 31, 2018. (Michael Penn | Capital City Weekly)

Adorable art started to make fears manageable

Juneau monster maker anticipates busy 2019

This is already shaping up to be a monster year for Glo Ramirez.

Ramirez, a Juneau artist who’s known for cuddly and playful creature designs you may have seen on postcards at Alaska Robotics Gallery, is anticipating at least two showings of her work in 2019.

“It was a great year, and I’m looking forward to the next one,” Ramirez said. “I didn’t think I’d have any shows in 2019.”

“I’ve been trying to be more organized on the business part,” she added. “I can do the art, but honestly the business part has been quite tricky.”

Ramirez said she doesn’t have a theme picked out for the shows — she also works in ceramics and creates abstract works — but her signature-style monsters will be featured.

[Shoveling leads to snow art]

“They’re awesomely cute like a bunch of ninja kittens,” Ramirez said. “It’s basically my tagline.”

She’s also the scenic designer for Perseverance Theatre’s Young Company production of “Disco Alice: The Wonderland Remix.”

Ramirez said making a set with era-appropriate flourishes for “Alice,” which opens in March, has been a departure from her usual work.

“It has been quite a journey,” Ramirez said. “I am not from the ’70s, so I have to listen to a lot of music and get into the groove of the whole situation. It’s going to be the whole Black Box, so it should be like a full immersion.”

Fun-sized scares

The blank-eyed, fuzzy creatures Ramirez creates tend to elicit the same response as Jim Henson’s most child-pleasing Muppets.

They’re technically monsters, but they’re far from ferocious.

“I like her work, it’s sort of whimsical and funny, and it makes me smile, which I sort of appreciate in art,” Inari Kylanen, store manager for Alaska Robotics Gallery.

However, the work has its roots in feelings of frustration, sleep deprivation, anxieties and fear.

“I started with that because I couldn’t sleep,” Ramirez said. “It started that way, just trying to let go of those fears and putting it on paper.”

The monsters also owe their existence to Ramirez, who is originally from Puerto Rico, relocating to Juneau almost three years ago.

“It started when I actually decided to stay in Alaska,” Ramirez said. “It was the summer, and I went to visit some friends, and then it was a beautiful, beautiful summer. It trapped me.”

While she was enchanted enough to stay, the long daylight hours were less than ideal for Ramirez’s sleep cycle.

That bled into her artwork, and Ramirez drew a sleepy monster she dubbed Nix the Monster, Mother of the Night. She sports moose antlers and a constellation body inspired by the Alaska night sky and state flag.

Other fuzzy, masked anxieties soon followed. Visualizing worries as tiny, adorable creatures has a way of making them manageable.

“They’re cute and they’re cuddly and nice, and they’re a way of saying if my fears or this small I can hang out with them,” Ramirez said. “They have masks because you never know what’s going on behind a mask.”

[Ramirez shows kids how to make monsters]

Lifelong interest in art

While Ramirez has only been drawing her monsters for the past few years, her interest in art goes back much further.

She couldn’t paint on the walls, but Ramirez said her parents would hang up large sheets of paper that she could decorate.

“My parents were very supportive, just giving me art supplies all the time,” Ramirez said.

Despite the support, Ramirez had the idea that art was not a viable career deeply entrenched in her head.

“I tried to study other stuff, like computer programming,” Ramirez said. “One thing I kept repeating is, ‘Oh, if I have time to start drawing again.’”

Eight years ago, while still in Puerto Rico, she lost her job, and suddenly, she did have that time.

Ramirez began working on her art and went to Puerto Rican comic conventions and developed her style.

“In the beginning, even as an adult, I tried a lot of being inspired by other people’s art, but I think the great part of those little monsters, what I’ve been doing now is they’re easy to find a personality with them,” Ramirez said.


• Contact arts and culture reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com.


Glo Ramirez shows off her artwork, including these folded tiles, at her Juneau apartment on Monday, Dec. 31, 2018. (Michael Penn | Capital City Weekly)

Glo Ramirez shows off her artwork, including these folded tiles, at her Juneau apartment on Monday, Dec. 31, 2018. (Michael Penn | Capital City Weekly)

Glo Ramirez shows off her artwork, including these monster stickers, at her Juneau apartment on Monday, Dec. 31, 2018. (Michael Penn | Capital City Weekly)

Glo Ramirez shows off her artwork, including these monster stickers, at her Juneau apartment on Monday, Dec. 31, 2018. (Michael Penn | Capital City Weekly)

Glo Ramirez’s monsters tend to be more friendly than fearsome. (Courtesy Photo | Glo Ramirez)

Glo Ramirez’s monsters tend to be more friendly than fearsome. (Courtesy Photo | Glo Ramirez)

Masked monsters are a recurring theme in Glo Ramirez’s work. (Courtesy Photo | Glo Ramirez)

Masked monsters are a recurring theme in Glo Ramirez’s work. (Courtesy Photo | Glo Ramirez)

More in News

The Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Encore docks in Juneau in October, 2022. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire File)
Ships in Port for the Week of June 4

Here’s what to expect this week.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Monday, June 5, 2023

This report contains information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Water and wastewater rates in the City and Borough of Juneau will increase 2% starting July 1. (Clarise Larson/ Juneau Empire File)
Water, wastewater rates to increase starting July 1

The 2% increase is to match inflationary costs, city says.

A progress pride flag flies in the wind below an U.S. flag outside of the Hurff Ackerman Saunders Federal Building on Monday evening. Last week the flag was raised for the first time by members of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and will remain up through the month of June. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
LGBTQ+ pride flag raised at federal building sparks backlash, support

Varying reactions to the flag that was raised for the first time outside the building.

Cars and people move past the City and Borough of Juneau current City Hall downtown on Monday. The Assembly Committee of the Whole unanimously OK’d an ordinance Monday night that, if passed by the full Assembly, would again ask Juneau voters during the upcoming municipal election whether to approve $27 million in bond debt to fund the construction of a new City Hall. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
Voters could see proposal for a new City Hall back on the ballot this fall

City signals support for $27 million initiative, after $35M bond last year fails.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Sunday, June 4, 2023

This report contains information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Saturday, June 3, 2023

This report contains information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Courtesy Photo / Chris Blake
The <strong>Hōkūleʻa</strong>, a double-hulled and wind-powered traditional Polynesian voyaging canoe, navigates throughout Southeast Alaska in May. On Saturday the canoe and crew members will be welcomed to Juneau in preparation for the canoes launch days later for its four-year-long global canoe voyage called the <strong>Moananuiākea</strong>.
Celebration of four-year Polynesian canoe voyage to kick off Saturday at Auke Bay

Voyage set to circumnavigate 43,000 nautical miles of the Pacific Ocean beginning in Juneau.

Most Read