What do you do when you when you don’t like to go out and rather stay home? Well, if your Gwen Rosewater, you paint! Velvet paintings to be exact. Gwen’s velvet paintings are truly amazing and if you’re interested in buying one of your own, you can find her as Velvetiki on Esty. Here is Gwen’s story…
What is the tiki scene like where you live?
Gwen- I live in Sonoma County up north from San Francisco, and of course there is a VERY vibrant tiki scene down in the city and in the East Bay. There is Trader Vic’s, The Tonga Room, Smuggler’s Cove and Forbidden Island and others.
But perhaps the embarrassing truth is that I hate to drive and am obsessive about painting and crafting, so even though all of those riches are close by, I am kind of a hermit. I schmooze with people on online forums and work on making my own little environment here at home. I paint pretty much all the time.
What brought you into the ‘Tiki lifestyle” and how long has it been part of your life?
Gwen- Well, I have loved this stuff all of my life. I remember staying in a tiki themed motel when I was six or seven, and although I am sure it was actually rather rinky dink, I was deeply enchanted with the sloping roof lines and the tropical plantings. As long as I was within the perimeters of that cheesy little motel, I felt like I was in another place… something midway between heaven and earth, really! The other obvious big influence was the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum in San Francisco. I went there over and over again as a kid. The lighting was low, and you would enter a room and there was a lighted display case with real shrunken heads and one of the Fee Gee mermaids that were kicking around in the nineteenth century, as well as many other fascinating oddities. All of these objects evoked a world already long gone by the time I was growing up in the sixties and seventies. A world in which the other side of the globe represented a journey of months rather than hours, with the real possibility of encountering people and things that were entirely unfamiliar and sometimes dangerous but utterly fascinating.
I am an extremely nostalgic person and I find enormous comfort and joy in old things that evoke memories of childhood. It took me a long time to wake up and realize that, hey! I could make our own house into a little mid-century tiki lounge flavored retreat! I could LIVE my nostalgia! I started about 11 years ago. Since I don’t have a big budget to work with, I am always looking for ways to do things for myself. I wanted a Witco Fire Dancers, so I made one for myself. Likewise with the big Witco style fountain and our living room, which I carved. The actual bar is not tiki styled…. I was deeply torn between doing something tiki or going for a Dean Martin in Vegas kind of mood, and I opted for the latter. I think in the context of the room it still plays as tiki modern.
I went to school at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and met my husband there. We both studied to be portrait artists (he’s a much better painter than I am). I wound up doing pet portraits for many years, which was a good match for me as an animal lover. But I itched to do something of my own that was more creative. I adore Mark Ryden and am strongly attracted to Pop Surrealism and have done quite a few paintings in that genre. But that kind of work is terribly time consuming, and the only way to get decently paid for your time is to become a big wheel in a good gallery. I am an old punk rock working class kind of gal, and really what I wanted was some form of art that would allow me to do a painting in a few days rather than weeks or months so I could sell at prices that average people can afford.
And then a great thing happened- I stumbled onto velvet painting. I did my first one strictly for myself because I wanted a big reclining nude to hang behind my bar- I had no intention of taking it up beyond that. But it is a compelling medium, with very different rules both visually and technically from conventional painting, and I got hooked on the challenge. Every decent velvet painting is sort of like a miniature tiki bar onto itself, with the bright areas playing on that deep, deep black to create that transporting MOOD of beauty and mystery. So I am trying to be as good a velvet painter as I possibly can. It’s a damned shame that the medium should be almost entirely associated with crude craftsmanship. My great idol in this little world is Robb Hamel, who worked for Disney, and turned his attention to tiki themed velvets for awhile. I don’t know that anyone will ever be as good at this as he is. But I will keep aspiring.
How would you describe your style?
Gwen- Velvet is all about the drama of light and shadow. My style is built around doing everything I can to understand and play up that drama as much as I possibly can. You have to figure out what NOT to paint, what to leave unsaid… that’s always the bottom line no matter what I am painting. But my subject material is all over the place. I do tikis, portraits of people and of dogs, Universal monsters, nudes, skulls, mermaids, giant eyeballs– even my old Zenith TV. The variety keeps it fresh for me. Whatever I paint, it is all about the LIGHTING!
What is your favorite tiki drink?
Gwen- I am crazy for Saturns and Zombies. But my favorite tiki drink is not officially part of the cannon, although I think it should be. No, it’s not rum based, but it is wonderfully complex- spicey and fruity and herbal. It’s the Charteuse Swizzle. But my friend and I do a variation in which the drink is shaken rather than made with crushed ice in a blender as in a swizzle. You can really taste the booze that way, and I like the flavor of alcohol. We call this variation the Charteuse Marlette, after my ’63 Marlette trailer that I am converting into another tiki environment- this time a really immersive bar. I encourage those reading to try this one.
What does the future hold for you and your velvet paintings?
Gwen- I hope to keep building an audience for what I do. I want to keep working and sharpening my skills until my expiration date, and so long as people buy them, I can keep on doing that. In a perfect world, I would really love to see my work in some public tiki bars. The Golden Tiki in Vegas recently commissioned a big sexy mermaid – very sixties Playboy. That was a gas. I would love to do more in that spirit.
Folks can find me on Etsy. If you look under ‘sales’ on the lower left side of the screen you can see past paintings I’ve done. I’m happy to reproduce velvets for people, and to take commissions.
