We were lucky to catch up with Miz Chaos recently and have shared our conversation below.
Miz , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I think in the end I had to get resilience from my inner self. The world can try and knock you down – but will you let it? People will be sour and mean spirited – will you allow them to dim your fire? I’ve had a domino of impossibly hard challenges (mental hurdles, life situations out of my control etc)… but really in the end – my whole hearted drive is to be a painter and bring joy and imagination into this world. Seeing hatred in the world and towards me personally has just inspired me to go more neon with my art, go bigger and try to more even more love onto this planet.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My dream is to create my whole other “Miz Chaos” art world. I would like to go bigger with colorful immersive spaces and installation art. My “bread and butter” is acrylic painting which has bleed into my current obsession of street art. I currently reside in Portland OR where I teach adult painting classes at multiple paint and sip companies, after school kids art programs and am hostess to Portlands “Neon Brush Experience” (large scale blacklight paint parties).
Two years ago I was nominated in Portlands newspaper The Portland Mercury in the “top 5 visual artists” of the city. This year I’ve had art shown in multiple galleries such as Brassworks Gallery in Portland, Jamm Gallery in New Jersey, Hometeam Gallery in Seattle and Spectra Art Space in Denver. I had one design of mine get printed on fabric for a local underwear company called “Hot Mango Undies”. I also had multiple online merch launches with my street art mentor, RX Skulls.
I want to bring more joy in the world and take people away from their everyday burdens, depression and worries. If my whimsical, colorful art in the streets can make people smile for just one moment then it’s all worth it to me. I hope to make art accessible to everyone – no matter what their backgrounds, social or economical statuses – everyone should have access to beautiful things.
You can find my street art around Portland on electrical boxes, on wooden poles and hundreds of stickers up throughout the city.
I currently have art for sale at PDX Change, Potland and a 30 painting art show at Sam Bonds in Eugene.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
If I were to give advice to someone I would say – Don’t give up. Don’t let the haters dim your light. If you want something – you have to put in the work. Reach out to others to learn new skills, ask questions, look for art calls, try and network and connect with others.
I personally really love drawing and painting portraits – I would say going to semi regular life drawing classes were helpful to me. I also did two month long art residencies in two different states (lookout arts quarry in Bellingham, wa and the Fiasco Art Center in Pittsburgh, PA) – and that time to paint and make art all day everyday was a helpful time of growth for me.
I would also say – try new things. Don’t be afraid of trying new mediums, lean into the unknown… (video editing used to be very daunting to me and once I put in work to learn it wasn’t that bad).
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I’ve done some painting Collabs and a few sticker Collabs. I would be interested in doing large scale paste ups with others, working more with metal or sculpture and more video or photography art. I would like to be connected to gallery shows in other cities and to get connected with street art and sticker artists to go out with in those places. Feel free to check out my instagram @mizchaos and see if any projects seem like a good fit. 🙂
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Mizchaos
- Facebook: Miz Chaos
Image Credits
Photo of old building taken by CatsCult
