Sky Alsgaard discovered the Grateful Dead in 1987, while living in a small town in Minnesota. She still vividly remembers the moment her friends Che and Lorne played her the song “Alligator” off the album Anthem of the Sun. She was instantly hooked.

Around the same time she discovered photography and began taking photos of her Deadhead friends. Her first Grateful Dead concert was at Red Rocks in 1987 and two years later Sky moved to Colorado where she found a rich Deadhead scene. Soon after, she traveled to London and lived in a squat for much of 1990. When she returned back to the States, she hit the road for Dead tour. 

While traveling around this amazing country as a Deadhead, Sky made her living by selling homemade hats, often referred to as “Sky Hats” on tour. She traveled with both the Abby Van and the Greenhouse Bus, mostly on the West Coast . Her fellow bus mates made jewelry, sewed clothing, and made food to sell. In between Dead tours they would travel to small festivals and Rainbow Gatherings and spent a lot of time in the woods creating art. The living was hard at times, and they would often have to rely on the kindness of strangers to help them get gas and food. It made for many interesting and wild stories.

After coming off the road and starting college, Sky would still spend her summers on tour or traveling the country. She settled in San Francisco in 1996 and eventually received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Master of Fine Arts in Web Design and New Media from the Academy of Art University. She is currently Senior Manager, Brand Design at San Francisco Ballet and you can see her work at www.skyalsgaard.com.