My Inspiration for the Art, Victoria Greenwood
Why monsters? For the most part people tend to be very taken aback when I tell them I enjoy drawing monsters. This has been an ongoing reaction since I was a kid. Things with a morbid or dark edge speak to me. I account most of my taste to be based off of how I was raised. I grew up in show business, around rock/country stars and glamorous women. There was a glam and a grunge aspect that sung to me about this scene. This translated into my first crush, that being Beetlejuice and then evolving into my obsession with David Bowie. His way of creating and not taking himself seriously, I attribute to my own sense of humor and attitude towards life.
The old haunting poems of Poe, Wilde's possessed, evil painting, the girl's green ribbon, and many a Scary Story to Tell in the Dark, all tickled my mind in my childhood. In elementary school, I found myself during lunch, running to the library to read these stories over and over again. There was something about them that entranced me. Something I related to.
Fast-forward to my young adult years, and just trying to get out how I felt on paper. Drawing was as important to me as words. I felt alone and confused about a lot in life. I was bullied by peers and experiencing my own personal chaos. No matter what though, I always had my drawing. I would make comics to cope in class and get some laughs from friends. I loved seeing the reactions people had to the things I would come up with. My imagination was beaming. Creatures were my favorite, strange but cute. Usually paired with some sardonic feeling or sentiment. They became a consistent go-to for me. Finding a creative home in the works of Tim Burton and Jim Henson was also a beacon of comfort, that I wasn't alone in my cute, weird, and dark world.
Fast-forward even further to my adult years. There is a lot that comes with a life pursuit in the entertainment industry, which family members warned me about. Acting is a tough business, even if you're born into it. There have been a lot of sacrifices and emotional hurdles to jump through. Working a serving job, while trying to get any kind of break, can whittle down your soul. That's where drawing comes in for me. No matter what, I could always make the other servers laugh or draw something for a customer on a receipt and get a smile. My little monsters were always a reflex. One day, bored out of my mind of drawing the same things over and over again, I had an idea. I took a white disposable coaster and kissed it. I had lipstick on. My lip blot was the perfect thing to draw a monster around. Shortly after that, I got my friends at work to do the same thing. I would draw monsters around their own lip blots. Thus Lip Monsters was born.
Lip Monsters were still a casual and not fully formed idea. Until one day at my serving job, Brian and Greg inquired to see my drawings after a conversation about them at their table. I showed them a variety of things and then they saw what was to become Lip Monsters. Things took off in the best, warm, loving, and most inspiring way. Later, we added Cynthia to the team and totally filled out the world of Lip Monsters. I couldn't be more grateful for my team. Not only did their support and belief give me the legs to walk on as an artist, but also their insight and knowledge helped transform this idea into a tangible universe.