The Making Of: Tia’s First Public Art Piece

When we set out to commission Tia’s first-ever public art piece, it was in the spirit of collaboration. First, collaboration with our new community in Los Angeles, whom we want to listen and learn from. Also, collaboration with a local artist, a proud LA resident who shares our values and wants to be part of our mission to help our communities heal after the traumatic events of the past 15 months. So, in classic Tia fashion, we went to our community to help find the best person for the job — we put out calls online, on Instagram, and by word of mouth, asking folks to nominate their friends or artists that inspired them. That’s how we found Ashley Lukashevsky AKA Ash Luka!

Ash Luka is a self-identifed mixed, queer LA-based illustrator and visual artist who uses her mediums as a tool to strengthen social movements including racial justice, immigrant justice, climate justice, mental health and LGBTQIA+ liberation. Her artist bio states, “In order to tear down harmful systems, we need to be able to envision a world without them. I’m trying to draw what that world looks like.” Knowing the power of building what you imagine firsthand, when we read that, we knew we wanted Ash to be the artist behind our healing mural.

Aside from the wall dimensions, we wanted Ash to bring her signature touch to the mural — a calm & colorful celebration of nature and identity meant to mirror the emotional experience of receiving care at Tia — while also honoring the vibrancy of the greater LA community. We turned once more to our online followers to ask, “What does healing mean to you?” We heard things like, “Taking time to breathe,” “a hard morning hike,” “trusting it will be okay.” To inspire and guide Ash’s vision, we shared these responses, and from the resilience of our community came a gorgeous art piece that we hope will bring lightness and inspiration to the streets of LA for many years to come!

Read on to peek behind the scenes at Ash’s process of making the mural, what she hopes people will take away from it, and her hopes for the future.

What’s your superpower?

Empathy. I think sometimes it can make things more difficult because I feel so much, but it allows me to create work that connects with people. At the end of the day, it’s all about expressing my feelings and hoping others can resonate with that.

This series is called “The Making Of.” We’d love to know what does ‘making’ mean to you and how do you define it through art?

There are so many ways to express yourself through creation. For me, that has always been through visual art. Lately I have been trying to be more playful with my approach and switch things up which has been so fun to do with Tia since I had so much creative freedom in what I was able to create. Especially if you have been an illustrator for a long time, people expect you to make the same style of work and it can be so limiting and sad.

“Making” to me is pushing yourself to try new things, even if it's a different medium or different approach, different color scheme, different texture, or perspective. Getting to be playful!

Can you give us a window into your process? What’s your starting point and what are some of the steps you take to bring your vision to life?

I always start with pencil and paper. Even though I am a digital artist, it feels so much better to put pencil to paper and feel the texture and be able to create lines that aren’t going to necessarily always turn into something. So I always start with pencil and paper before moving things onto my iPad, where I will start to finalize pieces and play with different colors. I look at a lot of inspiration, especially in nature. I sometimes make up my own flowers or plants but I really like to save nature pictures from around Hawaii or LA or even on Pinterest for different flowers and foliage that I find to be inspiring. I just play with different orientations of how to move them around the canvas.

We’ve commissioned you to help us bring our first public artwork to life. Can you talk about what you’re thinking for the Tia Silver Lake mural?

For me personally, LA can be a beautiful place but also can be a place that makes you feel really constricted. Especially with all the traffic and businesses, it can feel like a really hectic place. I wanted this piece to act as a reminder for people to take a breath, stay connected to nature, and make sure they are taking care of themselves. Those things are really easy to forget when living here in this fast-paced life, so I wanted the mural to offer people a space to just breathe and check in with themselves.

Through this mural, our hope is to create a piece that helps LA heal from the events of the past year. We’d love to know: what does healing mean to you? Is your art a part of that process?

My art is definitely a part of my healing process because I am able to express myself through my art so much more than other methods of expression. Even if I’m not feeling happy or at peace, if I can draw that image, it can be a guiding light for me to feel that way or a way for me to express how I want to feel, even if I am not there yet. That’s the thing about healing — there is no set destination, a lot of it’s about working through trauma exactly where you are. It’s not always going to be coming to a place where you can say “I am finally healed,” because that’s not always possible. But to continue to engage in that self is so important. It’s what I try to inspire people to do and inspire myself.

Community is core to us at Tia and part of the reason we’re making this mural. Are there local artists who inspire you?

I am always inspired by other artists! One of my best friends is so inspiring to me, their name is Loveis Wise. We became friends on Instagram years ago and they ended up living around the block from me and we became best friends in real life! They are my person who I go to when I'm feeling stuck and we can share our artistic processes with each other and bounce ideas off one another. I’m definitely so inspired by their work, they are such a wonderful artist.

LA is full of art and creativity. Where do you go to get inspired? And how have you stayed creative in the past year?

I honestly don’t think I have been that creative in the past year, and that’s ok! I think it’s important to be honest about that because oftentimes, even during this wild past year and dual pandemics of racial violence and Coronavirus, people are expected to use this ‘free time’ productively, and sometimes you just are in pain! And you don't feel good. And you don't create stuff. That's where I’ve been in the past year. As things are opening back up and I am able to connect with my community again, I am starting to be back in a place where I can be creative. But to be honest, I don’t think this year has been particularly creative for me. Though I did start making halos for fun! And rugs. I needed a creative outlet that wasn’t so connected to my usual work.

In LA to get inspired I go to Angeles National Forest or Elysian Park and take a hike. I love to go to the beach in Malibu. Anywhere in nature is where I feel most inspired and connected.

What do you hope people take away from your mural?

I hope that they see it and think, ‘Wow this artist is so talented!’ Kidding aside, I do hope that people see it and are reminded to take a deep breath, take care of themselves, feel inspired in some way, and that it's a breath of fresh air from the other ugly corporate murals nearby [laughs].

What are you excited about in the next year?

I am moving back home to Hawaii at the end of this year! I’m really excited about that because I have an opportunity to build a new queer comunity for myself there and also figure out what it means to be an artist back home which I haven’t experienced yet. SO there’s a lot of unknowns coming up but that’s so exciting to me. As much as I love LA I know I’ll be back to visit often.

Want to see Ash’s finished piece up close and personal? Visit the Tia clinic at 3921 Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles, CA.