San Francisco through Evil Mizu's Loving And Humorous Perspective
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Time to read 1 min
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Time to read 1 min
Hello! My name's Michelle Ip. I am a 2nd generation Chinese-American illustrator based in San Francisco and the artist behind my brand, Evil Mizu. I'm not REALLY evil. That was just a nickname my dad gave me when I was little (aren't all little kids a little evil?). A fun fact is that I used to be a vegan food scientist before doing art as my job!
I like to think of my art as a fun lens to highlight the different aspects of the Bay Area and more specifically San Francisco community which make it so unique and wonderful! This matters to me because I want to show and share my appreciation for the community I call home!
I'm not from the Bay Area, but when I moved here 5 years ago I remember being so amazed and enchanted about so many things about the city: the parks, transit, beauty of the architecture, the culture of the Bay, etc! Thus I started making art that reflected how I felt about all these things. Also I really love making people laugh. So if I can combine art and humor to make funny art, that's the dream!
Growing up Chinese-American, there was always some appreciation of art ingrained in my cultural experience. But my biggest influence within that was definitely my grandmother. She has been doing Chinese brush painting for over 40 years. Her art is hung up all over our house, she used to teach me Chinese brush painting, and we would often go to her exhibits and see her art.
I think that really instilled in me the idea that art is something valued in our culture, worthy of hardwork, and could amount to something so great and beautiful! In this way I feel like it informed my creativity mainly in the practice of creativity itself. I know it is a practice and one that can connect me to her and my culture, even though my art is very different from Chinese brush painting.
"My proudest moment so far was when my grandma saw one of my posters on the Chinese news! "
Professionally I'm excited that I'm entering this stage in my art career where I get to work with a bunch of cool people and organizations! Last year it was mainly just me! Personally, I am excited to become an aunt soon!
