We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Danielle O’Malley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Danielle, thank you so much for making time for us. We’ve always admired your ability to take risks and so maybe we can kick things off with a discussion around how you developed your ability to take and bear risk?
About 12 years ago, I was living in a tiny room in Oakland, CA. I had made so much art and I had nowhere to put it. I hated the idea of paintings just sitting in my room. It made me sad, like why do I create if I can’t show them to anyone? I wasn’t so interested in the insular world of art galleries, I wanted to connect with everyday people. So inspired by the DIY spirit of the Bay Area, I just started putting my art up around town. I would create these big collages and paper cuts out of found materials and wheat paste them on street corners. I would ask businesses or collectives if I could paint murals on their walls. I’d hang art in every weird space, from libraries to liquor stores to landfills, trying to branch out of the exclusive art world, and into the real world to interact with regular people.
I started traveling around the US and then the world. I first went to Europe on a successful kickstarter campaign, then hitchhiked around, painting anything I could find. Skateramps, public bathrooms, Turkish bakeries. It didn’t matter where, as long as people could see it, enjoy it and I could keep myself busy. Throughout my 20’s, I traveled and made art on the road. I created installations in abandoned houses, painted old furniture and trash cans around cities, sold my art on street corners for daily funds.
I really didn’t think much of it at the time I was doing it. I simultaneously love to travel and love to create, so it was just a lifestyle that made me happy. But over time I started to get feedback. These actions create these amazing ripple effects in my life. All of this experience of risk taking for fun got me to start taking more career oriented actions as I got older. I did that trade show, even though I was way in over my head. I messaged that art director, even though I didn’t know what exactly to say. I knocked on doors, and advocated for myself.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m an artist, painter and designer, originally from Metro Detroit, now based between LA and the Bay Area. Inspired by folklore, 90’s cartoons, femininity and the supernatural, my work weaves camp sensibilities, sugarcoated kitsch, and the odd & surreal into a weird and whimsical world of pastels, smut, fairytales and otherworldly creatures.
In the past my work has been all over the place, though now I am focusing on a series of gouache paintings and designing products for my small business. When I was in my 20’s and traveling non stop, I had built renegade playhouses in California state parks, created art installations on abandoned houses in Detroit, painted everything from Turkish Bakeries to public restrooms in Berlin, put up stickers and wheatpastes from Chicago, to New Orleans to Mexico City. Designed pop up books for an occult bookshop in the midwest. I just loved to move, meet people and go beyond the art world into the whole world.
Now I’m in my 30’s and have settled down in LA, where I started a small illustration and design business. I work commercially, taking on clients for Illustrative work, such as the Oakland A’s. I also have turned my surface pattern designs and illustrations into a series of products that I sell through retail, wholesale and on ecommerce websites. These products include everything from home decor, canvas wall art, children’s toys, fashion accessories and clothing.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
One of the hardest parts of being an artist is just putting your work out there. Any road to success is paved with hundreds of failures. When we look at someone else’s career, we only see the success, and with social media, there is an urge to compare yourself to someone else’s false reality. Every artist, no matter how successful, has failed. They just don’t give up and they have the courage to take risks. Once I realized that, I got over a lot of my hesitation and insecurity. I didn’t take failure so personally. Life is short, time is short and sometimes you only have a small window of opportunity.
My best advice would be to just go for it. The world is your oyster, (or your canvas), and everything is possible. You just have to start, and don’t be afraid to forge your own path.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
I would ditch all of my stability and hit the road till I was dead. I’d leave behind everything and slowly travel the world. Not jet setting across the globe, but really travel it. Start on one side then figure out slow ways to get to the other. And of course I’d leave lots of art behind like a trail of breadcrumbs.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.danielleardenomalley.net
- Instagram: danielleomalleeey
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-o-malley-629246243/
