Projects
Sharon Birzer is a visual artist and Natural Science Illustrator. Her artwork is inspired by organisms and diverse ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest. In her work, Sharon employs close observation and utilizes traditional media as well as digital tools. She shows her art work nationally and internationally. She has created illustration work for exhibits and publications for places such as the Seattle Art Museum and The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. In 2015-16 Sharon collaborated with The Alaska Whale Foundation (AWF) and Juneau Lighthouse Association, working under a grant from the State of Alaska she developed a series of Interpretive Panels installed at a Historical Lighthouse and Research Facility in S.E. Alaska. As a 2017 Civita Institute Fellow Sharon documented her observations of the natural world in a remote hill town and surrounding canyon in Italy. In 2018 Sharon documented botany with special attention to lichens in the Tebenkof Wilderness Area with a US Forest Service team in SW Alaska as part of an Artist in Wilderness Residency.
A recent illustration project, as part of a larger project was finally realized in a published book; Yungcautnguuq Nunam Qainga Tamarmi/All the Land’s Surface is Medicine, Edible and Medicinal Plants of Southwest Alaska, By Ann Fienup-Riordan, Alice Rearden, Marie Meade, Jacqueline Cleveland, Sharon Birzer, Richard W. Tyler.