THE HIDDEN ARTIST

A.K.A. "THE HIDDEN TREASURE"

Andrea Monroe in front of her "LA Series" Paintings

I'm a busy gal. If I'm not working in the wardrobe department of a TV show, I've no doubt created some other lengthy project to keep me active. Presently, I'm in the middle of an extremely S-L-O-W bathroom remodel. I've waited eons for that room to mutate into the beautiful spa I imagined and now it's happening! Or not. At least that what it feels like when my contractor vanishes for hours and sometimes a day at a time. But like I said, I'm a busy gal and I'm making do with all the semi-construction around me because I'm getting ready to exhibit in The Beverly Hills Art Show! 

Whoopee! (Insert sound of whoopee cushion here)

"So, hey busy gal. Why aren't you excited then?" you ask. Well, I am. And I ain't. I'm just ambivalent, I guess. That pretty much has all to do with why I ended up calling my blog "The Hidden Artist." And no, I don't mean hidden as in "I'm hiding my ass, now come and find me." I mean hidden—like a treasure waiting, hoping, praying, affirming, and exercising extreme patience to finally be found, appreciated, sought after, and financially supported by people who want my art. With that being said, I do have to admit that I'm not a full time artist. That dream slowed down almost in synchronicity with my damn bathroom because of a little sidetrack issue called having to work for a living—you know, the kind that funds the DWP and all the other bozos I have to pay out there. Alas, I really do TRY to be an artist—I do, I do, I do, I do (she said as she mangled her tail). I paint in between my paying jobs. When I have the time to search and prepare, I enter juried competitions and maintain some kind of gallery presence, although much too little to be the discovered artist I would like to be. I'm fairly good with social networking, but have to admit I haven't quite gotten onto the Instagram wagon (YET) out of just plain stubbornness. I also have a metaphysical approach to art in general. I strongly believe that "what you give is what you get." I support other artists whenever possible. I BUY art. I started this blog specifically to celebrate other artist's "hidden" talents. And recently, I joined the board of 11:11 ACC, one of the most up and coming art organizations in the valley, well—just because.

So back to this Beverly Hills thingy. I have to admit, I personally never went to one of their shows. (Insert sound of whoopee cushion here...silent "pft" will do) I'm a bit daft sometimes and often "miss the boat" for one reason or the other. But a dear friend talked me into entering the exhibit, so I did and I got accepted. Getting accepted is a big deal. And yes, in the back of my mind, I'm truly hoping this might be my crowd—that audience with not only appreciation for my and other's works, but the kind with some pockets too. You have to admit that artists cannot live on words alone. To hear someone say that you have talent or are gifted or that they love your work does not a breakfast burrito buy. 

"Little Lovelies" Series by Andrea Monroe

Anyway, I'm preparing for the show. I paid my entrance fee, got my temporary seller's permit, ordered my Square, rented my canopy, and borrowed some display stands. I'm also painting smaller treasures to tie in the larger ones so my work will appeal to pockets big and small. Based on a series I recently began called "The Harlots," I will also have "Little Lovelies" or tinier versions of historic sluts that encompass the style I used in my LA Series. I call this preparation methodical madness. And while doing all of this, I keep flashing on my bathroom—the long wait, all the planning, and the investment. Will it finally pay off in the end? I think so. I can already envision myself, the "Artist Found," seated on the toilet of my shiny new mini spa while I post Instagram photos of my current works. And I think, "Life sure is grand." (Insert sound of whoopee cushion here...long and winded)



Visit Andrea Monroe's website: http://andreamonroe.com
Follow Andrea Monroe on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndreaMonroeART

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Andrea Monroe

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Writes "The Hidden Artist" for the NOHO Arts District website

MEDIUMS: acrylic and mixed media on canvas

WEBSITE: http://andreamonroe.com/

I’ve often wondered how I’d respond if I were interviewed by someone like me for a blog such as this. I have to admit, when I agreed to contribute a visual arts article to the NOHO Arts District website, I didn’t know the first thing about peeling away the layers of a complete stranger to find a story. So I Googled “an idiot’s guide to artist interviews” or something to that affect and printed a wallet-sized guide to help me along. I’ve never referred to it once––not with my first interviewed artist, Nicole Palmquist (aka Booleep) all the way to my most recent, Jennifer Gunlock, thus creating the “wing it” approach, which has basically been narrowed down to this: GOD, HELP ME WRITE THIS F**KING ARTICLE!! And here I am again in the same conundrum, only a trifle more difficult because I’ve decided to interview the most hidden artist I know––me, Andrea Monroe.

When I first met Andrea, she was a shy and insecure child who often spent time by

My Bumble Bee with sisters, Susan (far left), Frances (middle),
and me (far right)

herself contemplating the creation of life. With this curiosity, she investigated all forms of plants and animals; purchasing snails and newts from the Ben Franklin store or observing the delicate wingspan of katydids and cicadas in the springtime. By third grade, she wrote a short story about an imagined princess among fanciful creatures in the forest (inspired by a classical piece of music she’d never heard before; Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major) and was published in the local newspaper. And she 

drew. A lot. So much so that at age nine, her mother scraped up enough money to send her to the Art Institute of Chicago for one semester. Andrea has always joked about the polka-dot Bumble Bee she’d made with those greasy oil pastels and the fact that it won an honorable mention from the school and toured the world––while she never had.

Flash forward through Andrea’s life. She graduates from high school (but bypasses college) to work hard, quit, or get fired from positions in the commodities field, advertising, photography, modeling, and retail fashion. Her motto is “experience everything through living life” so she plays hard too and while doing so, she creates things; clothing, jewelry, poetry, a beautiful home, and art, always hearing the distant echo of her family telling her  how “talented” she is (while she secretly wishes someone, ANYBODY, would tell her what she’s really talented at). Then she meets her future husband, moves to LA, has a son, and is eventually inducted into the film industry as a costumer which spans into a twenty year career (and counting) and with a pension to boot (the kind her father always advised her to work for, but she defied). FINALLY, in 2003, she begins to paint, showing an innate ability to exercise her creative right side of the brain while continuing to support her family with the logical left, all the while listening to another conflicting echo. Like a bad seed planted in her mind, she remembers the words of the only psychic she ever visited back in 1990 who told her, “the artist in you struggles to get out and be recognized.” And so it was for half of her life and still is. 

"Jesus" from the "Byzantine Pop Art" series by Andrea Monroe

The title for my blog, The Hidden Artist, literally came from the fact that my own work hides in two closets and on several walls of my house. Back in 2003, when I began to paint on canvas for the first time in my life, I did a series called “Byzantine Pop Art,” inspired by my religious belief that I (we) are all an expression(s) of a higher being and I (we) have the capability of expressing it in my (our) own unique way. In these paintings of Jesus, Mary, Buddha, Elvis Presley, and my rendition of the Last Supper, I crossed religious figures from my Catholic upbringing with a modernistic touch by replacing natural skin tones with unexpected colors and depicting facial shadows as shapes. One gallery looked at this body of work and referred to it as “paint by number” technique, and although they liked it, they did not represent me. About a year later, another gallery actually sold one of these paintings to an actor from Desperate Housewives for way less than I should’ve priced it with a discount on top of that, teaching me a big lesson about time and worth. This ultimately sent that first series into the depths of my closets for an unlimited sentence (although giclee copies of them can be viewed at the North Hollywood Church of Religious Science). Point blank, if I did not know my artwork’s worth, it was either priceless––or worthless––or somewhere in-between. Purgatory.

 

"Sirf and Turf" from the "Raw" series by Andrea Monroe

Luckily, that experience taught me a huge lesson and was the beginning of my introspection of my own self-worth. It was only later, after I painted whenever I could (in between film jobs and raising my son), the mourning of my parents’ deaths, and the realization that my marriage had increasingly become an unhappy place to be that I began to write. For one and a half years I wrote a memoir by which became the exercise and means to write a novel––a pretty funny chick lit novel called the Devil and Me that lives in a different type of closet on my computer desktop (more about that when I write a new blog called The Hidden Writer, ha ha). Later still, I finally got divorced. I’m a rare bird. I’ve used conflict all my life to create things in my life, whether it was a new job, a new living situation, or a means in which to express myself, and my divorce was no different. This is when I painted the series I call “Raw,” a symbolic almost Aboriginal-style of intense pattern and color that represented my emotional state at the time.  And just as intense are the poems I wrote to “illustrate” these paintings. And where are they, you ask? You guessed it. In the closet…and on the desktop.

"Will Rogers: I Never Met a Woman I Didn't Like" from
"The LA Series" by Andrea Monroe

That brings me to my present day endeavor that I’m just in the midst of painting. I call it “The LA Series.” Inspired by a “call to artists” to paint something about Northridge. It was then I came across a style that incorporated so much of what I love; pattern, color, history, portrait, textile, and my unique tongue in cheek expression. So far, I’ve completed biographical paintings of Doheny, Wilshire, Mulholland, Pico, and Will Rogers who all happily reside––where else? In my closet (except for "The Halversons Were Here,” the Northridge piece, because it currently hangs in The Museum of San Fernando Valley in Northridge).

In the end, you might wonder, what is she waiting for? Why doesn’t she just get it out there? Well, like the paintings were created in the first place, it was the right time for them to happen. And I guess there will be a right time for them to be seen too. My dream is for them to be viewed together because in my experience of seeing how artists display a painting here or there just doesn’t cut the cake unless its a well curated show. That type of limited exposure never seems to represent the work properly or have the public or exhibitor take the artist seriously. I also think that kind of representation gives some viewers a chance to devalue your art. My day will come. In the meantime, I write a blog about those hidden artists who might be in a similar boat as me. I feel your pain and you deserve the recognition. More than that, you need to be respected and paid what you are worth. In my case, I might have to become a “dead artist” and my work discovered and deemed a treasure trove when it's found in my closet, but in my heart, I already know how valuable it is.

Andrea Monroe has been a member of the San Fernando Arts Council, the Public Art Initiative (through the Museum of the San Fernando Valley), and has showed at several 11:11 A Creative Collection themed shows in Tarzana. And if you you look hard enough, her custom painted clogs will be seen on Lily Tomlin's feet on Netflix's new show Grace and Frankie airing sometime in 2015.  You can follow Andrea Monroe ART on Facebook.  

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Erin Stone

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Her former "office" was at Republic of Pie and she has facilitated the creation of murals in and around NOHO 

MEDIUM: Photography 

WEBSITE: http://www.erin-stone.com/

That “place on the other side of the hill,” otherwise known as the San Fernando Valley, has always held a stigma of being uncool or, at worse, the land where porn was born. Thanks to Erin Stone and the rest of her comrades at 11:11, 818 might very well become the new 213 when it comes to the Los Angeles art scene.

So, who is Erin Stone? Her person is often times synonymous with 11:11, a grassroots nonprofit organization she co-founded to focus on San Fernando Valley’s creative community. Even I had trouble pulling her out of that mix so I could explain what makes her tick. Erin is a photographer and a great one at that. Her portfolio runs the gamut; commercial work, family portraits, events, headshots, and album covers, but personally, I think her conceptual art is her core. That’s because Erin is a true artist and visionary––someone who dreams. But compared to ordinary people, her dreams come to life, whether it’s a 2-D photograph or a 3-D organization that's gonna change the Valley’s reputation forever.

At the time of our interview, we talked at length about her thought-provoking piece called “Teeth: A Reoccurring Dream” which hung at 11:11’s semi-permanent pop-up gallery on the corner of Yolanda and Ventura. I hadn’t known, until Erin filled me in, that dreams of losing one’s teeth are quite common, and Erin had been having that same dream for a long time. Anybody can Google “dreams of losing teeth,” which I did, but somebody like Erin decided to make a photographic story of her experience instead. I guess you can say she sorta faced her demons by doing so and made an effort to understand why she kept having that dream. My Google search told me why or at least it gave a general answer. Losing teeth in a dream is a common symbol of anxiety. Teeth represent power and losing them, according to what I found, is attune to having a sense of powerlessness. I can’t say what goes on in Erin Stone’s head, but I can say there aren’t many of us who can do what she is doing for the Valley and not have some kind of anxiety about it. But, if you take a good look at the series of photographs that make up “Teeth,” I betcha you’ll find the answer.

Pictured first a woman holds several oversized teeth in her muddy hands. By the smudges on her cheeks and the disheveled clothes, she appears to have been run through the mill. The look on her face is one of terror, maybe even panic.  As Erin explained to me, the model is emoting embarrassment for the loss––as if she’s involuntarily lost control of a situation. 
In the next photo, the teeth are in the process of being buried by her. At first glance, you think she’s ridding herself of the evidence when in actuality she’s planted them. This is symbolically illustrated in the last photograph. A tooth, once hosted by a living soul, has been reborn––rooted in the mouth of Mother Earth where a new life has been generated.

 

There is no getting around the fact that Erin’s conceptual photography is indeed exploratory. Her artist statement reads that her goal is “to share her understanding of experiences and questions around intimacy, sexuality, insecurity, loss, and personal growth.” It’s a known fact that anxiety tends to come up during times of transition and often points to concerns experienced by the dreamer in waking life. Perhaps with Erin Stone, she has had some anxious moments in her life. I’m sure her thoughts and ideas have been entertained and discarded, they’ve come alive and died––birthed and rebirthed. Whatever the process is, I’m sure glad Erin Stone is dreaming because we are about to have one rockin’ art scene and it’s going to begin with the area code 818!

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Nicole Palmquist aka BOOLEEP

MEDIUMS: Acrylic Ink, charcoal, body paint

NOHO CONNECTION: Sales at Harman press in NOHO

I met Nicole Palmquist at a Starbucks across the street from 11:11’s semi-permanent pop-up gallery on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana. She’d just picked up the artwork she contributed to one of their latest themed shows about street art in Los Angeles. As a matter of fact, Nicole enlightened me as to how she operates in this oftentimes-nocturnal Robinhood world of city painters.

First of all, Nicole’s street name is Booleep. When asked how she came to call herself and her abstracted anatomy animations this, she said, “The name came from a sound. The guy I dated was a gamer. For me, it became the sound and action of the moment when people meet or overlap. You know, the moment you meet and connect with someone.”

But back to the street thang. Although, I’m a huge fan of street art, I haven’t the faintest idea what goes on out there or how art like Booleep’s gets on the sides of buildings, garage doors, and dumpsters. I came to find out that stealthily gratifying an otherwise vacant wall space with one’s vision is pretty much standard– you slip out of the car, usually under the cover of night, and quickly spray paint against a stencil or do it freely by hand. But letting the public know you just participated in the public art movement is altogether something of a different animal. And Nicole runs her secret operation with a criterion unlike other street artists. For instance, she doesn’t instantaneously advertise her work out into the viral stream of Instagram because, true to her belief that art should be absorbed on an individualized basis, she prefers to let her images make an organic connection with the people who happen upon them, like she did in places along the Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset junction. 

That pretty much explained this sense I got from Nicole who definitely has a personal process and seems to channel her E.T. or anatomical-inspired images from “somewhere else.” And once created, she has these long-necked guys tell her who they are –– like Holeheads, Smoking Guys, Neckholes, or Toothheads. Better yet, her biggest thrill is what her viewers think these characters are emanating to them –– the intimate relationship between the viewer and viewee, especially in the case of probably one of her most popular characters named Eyehead, an eye who has been equated with several emotions from paint dripping sadness to all-out curiosity.

Overall, I think the biggest aspect of Nicole’s work is seeing Booleep come to life right in front of your eyes––line by methodically drawn black line. She’s participated in a number of live art shows in and around Los Angeles (this is how I originally met her)––drawing or painting on medium-sized to huge pieces of paper, canvas, plywood, and bodies. Yes, bodies, giving the term “live art” its true meaning as she beautifully did at a recent Ego Fine Art Gallery group show event.

Finally, every artist has a dream; a goal they wish to attain during their career. Nicole’s amounts to a three to ten seconds of airtime in an aim “to take back (advertising) space,” similar to taking back physical advertising space in the streets, with the “ultimate goal of maintaining public art––keeping it quick, simple, and accessible.” Bravo Nicole! A blip, or should I say, Booleep on the screen!

You can see Booleep come alive at Evolve, a benefit art show on July 10th. And remember, all her work is for sale and commissionable…except for the bodies of course.