“I am drawn to aesthetics that are classic, wild, odd, dirty, scary, dainty, clashy, D.I.Y. (do it yourself), punk, and mix it all together in my own style.” —Sara Jean van Ingen, founder of Wolfmother Workshop. (Featured photo is van Ingen on the trails in Kodiak sporting an outfit made by @tildenshop dress, a designer in Montana.)
Wolfmother Workshop, Native woman-owned and family-operated business based in Redmond, WA, brings exciting creativity to the trail running awards, medals, designs and art scene. Wolfmother Workshop clients include the Seattle Running Club (Gretchen Walla), Northwest Trail Runs, Yeti Trail Runners (Jason Green), We Out Here Trail Fest (Alison Desir), Northwest Rally Association, PNW Youth Trail Project Series (Joe McConaughy), Black Wolf Endurance (Heidi Quinn), and Wanderlust Running (New Mexico). Founder Sara Jean van Ingen shares the inspiring story of founding Wolfmother Workshop, following her passions, working with her family and providing an essential service for the trail running community.
van Ingen pictured with her son Cameron at Big Bear.
Kodiak, no going back
van Ingen grew up in Minnesota, inspired or brainwashed to run by her father by ten years old, “My dad was an Indian boarding school survivor and dealt with different kinds of trauma. He always wanted to be an athlete but just didn’t have the opportunity to do that, so he was always pushing for us to take on some of his dreams.”
In spite of an early start to running, van Ingen’s true passion for running came later in life when she began working with one of California’s premiere ultrarunning competitions, The Kodiak Ultras situated in the mountains around Big Bear Lake. van Ingen ran the race for the first time in 2015, after becoming friends with the runners and becoming a volunteer employee. The experience left her hooked on not just the event itself, but trail running as a whole. She felt right at home with the community she became a part of at Big Bear, “I appreciated the community because it has been one of the only places I really feel like I have fit in,” said van Ingen, who described herself growing up as an, “outsider, S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering, and math) kid, and book nerd.”
She discovered that the Kodiak community attracted other outsiders similar to herself. The kinds of experiences she had growing up attracted her to Kodiak and more generally the challenges of trail racing, “Suffering, isolation, being uncomfortable, impulse control, risk assessment, surviving, feeling small, noticing the small things, and just plain doing hard things after being told you can’t (challenging authority and norms) is what it’s all about.”
Near the start/finish line at Kodiak.
Garage dreamshop
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many took up side hobbies and projects. For van Ingen, however, it was the opposite, “I had a corporate job in COVID related work which made me the busiest I’d ever been in my entire life. While everyone else was experimenting with sourdough bread and doing cute TikToks, I was hopping on zoom calls and had exemption letters to be flying all across the country to do work in hospitals and labs.”
After four years of this lifestyle, van Ingen was ready for a change, “I was so very, very burnt out after this work…because of the financial security I ended up staying in this field for a long time, but I could see how my stress levels were increasing and health was deteriorating. I knew I needed to do something to save myself.”
Wolfmother Workshop became the change van Ingen needed to restore her health and refocus her life. The shed in her backyard became home to her 3D printers, large saws, tabletop lasers, welding equipment, screen printers and a garage filled with equipment. In 2022, van Ingen began making small items for friends and family which eventually led to a business in 2024 (formerly called Otterpawz Lazer). van Ingen describes the current satisfaction in her work/life balance and the creation of Wolfmother Workshop, “All I can say about that is being able to have your dogs and a coffee within reach while working is a dream come true. I also love night, so if I feel like working at night or on a Sunday instead of Monday morning at 7 a.m. I have that freedom. I want to be with my dogs and my kids, so that is the biggest motivator to have this business.”
van Ingen shares shop update plans for 2026 and beyond, “We plan on adding embroidery, more work with vegan and real leather, metal forging for buckles, and machining equipment for larger cuts than the laser can handle. With this we will have more offerings.”
Wolf of mouth
From the beginning of Wolfmother Workshop, van Ingen wanted to keep the business small and avoid the stress of worrying too much about sales. van Ingen explains how the brand has grown organically, “We have still not reached the spot where we are reaching out to people or cold calling. Everything has been word of mouth.”
Wolfmother Workshop clients discover the brand by others recommending it, or by searching on the web (visit the Wolfmother Workshop website here). van Ingen describes the natural progression of the brand, “At the very beginning, projects were mostly through people I already knew in the community. The only strategy was, ‘let’s work with friends!’ Then it was a friend of a friend, a contact from a social media connection, etc. I met a lot of people back in the high of social media brand ambassadors and online running teams. I was a brand ambassador for two major brands, where I also have brought in business from those connections.”
van Ingen plans to increase community engagement in 2026, which will help spread the word about Wolfmother Workshop. van Ingen has connected with founders and race directors of the The Trail Running Film Festival (TRFF), Dirt Circus, TrailCon and other major brands and organizations in the trail running industry. With this growth, van Ingen aims to keep the word of mouth ethos for the brand’s next evolution, “The strategy moving forward will remain making race art that people cherish and not as much about transactions.”
Sampling of awards from Wolfmother Workshop.
van Ingen describes in more detail her engagement in the trail running community for 2026, “I am on the film selection team for Trail Running Film Festival 2026 …I will be volunteering more at the Northwest Trail Run/Seattle Running Club events that are here locally on the ‘East Side’ of the Seattle area. My friend Heidi Quinn from Black Wolf Endurance has some great races she directs in Alaska that I am planning on being at. I might also be at St. Croix Ultra in Minnesota volunteering and heading back to MN where my running started in the snow and making some connections there. I will also be running Capitan Mountain 34-hour in New Mexico and Sedona Canyons 125 in Arizona, so I will also be out there suffering. We do a lot of work with Yeti Trail Runners and have been friends with Jason Green for a decade now. Our brands work well together.”
Odd and old
“I am most comfortable in a subculture or counterculture.”
van Ingen grew up with little, and had an appreciation for the old and odd. She reflects on this time, “I had no running gear and just made it work. I finally got a pair of running shoes, not cleats, in Junior High (middle school) just in time to break all the girls track records, even the long jump! For real, but that still makes me laugh.”
van Ingen worked at a thrift store in high school, where her affinity for vintage continued to grow, “I love old things. I love oddities. I love thrifting and yard sales…My design work still starts with paper and pencil or iPad and pencil. I work on a vintage drafting table with vintage drafting lamps. I use materials from my yard because I want to.”
van Ingen reflects on her appreciation of these old objects and how it connects to her father’s artistic work, “I like giving old things a new life. These things have stories before me and they remind me of my dad. He was a professional sign painter. That used to be a job and that fascinates and saddens me how we have lost so many cool things to push push push and grow grow grow and make more more more. WolfMother has felt like naturally pulling back and holding on to stories and gifts from my elders and being more me.”
Custom awards from Wolfmother Workshop.
Custom creativity
Wolfmother Workshop works closely with each of their partners, focusing on the individual needs of each client. “Almost always, clients come to us with their own ideas or some sort of graphic they would like us to work with,” van Ingen says. “There is no template and that is how we want it. We want to be custom, not just a transactional business pumping out quantities that all look the same.”
van Ingen explains the brand’s continued focus on creativity, “Creativity right now usually comes in by adding texture, color, depth, layers or materials that they have not previously thought of. Making something that is a different kind of wearable than a medal. Making something that has a next life or story after being a race medal or award…tying back to a mindset of thrifting, regifting, and reuse. Those are areas of focus for 2026.”
In Temecula, CA.
Family future
“I feel the proudest in my life of the bond I have with my kids. I have started this for them to work on projects as they want to and be involved as much as they want.”
WolfMother might be a champion of counterculture, but at its core it’s also a heartwarming family business. van Ingen appreciates being a lone wolf, though admits that wolf mother is her most accurate title. She describes in detail her family relationship to wolves and the inspiration behind the brand name, “WolfMother as a name and a business is about building something for my little community, which is for my kids. They are the welding and machining part of the wolf pack. Wolves are a recurring thing in my life. My dad used to tell me I was like a wolf and he gave me a real wolf face that I was terrified to even touch. In my Ojibwe culture, a wolf (Ma’iingan) is a partner or sibling to humans. Wolves are just a big deal in Minnesota and places in the north (I am also Norwegian and Swedish), so they have always been there in my life.”
Follow WolfMother Workshop on Instagram here.
