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Graffiti Park Radio! 🎨🎧 Where creativity knows no bounds.
Listen to Graffiti Park Radio were we’ll tap in with artists, our proud partners, and community stakeholders who believe in empowering the next generation of art visionaries and the valuable teaching moments that come from living, breathing art.
Announcer
0:00:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program.
Wesley Knight
0:00:04
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Music
0:00:15
Let's get scratchin'.
Anika Jones
0:00:18
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the vibrant world of Graffiti Park Radio, where creativity knows no bound. We'll tap in with artists, educators, our proud partners, and community stakeholders who believe in empowering the next generation of visionaries. Beyond the hidden alleyways, abandoned warehouses, and local city transits, where artists are known to leave their mark, Graffiti Park Foundation has redefined and reimagined the persona of
Anika Jones
0:00:41
a street museum.
Dan Moloney
0:00:44
Good morning, or afternoon, or evening.
Aleksandra
0:00:48
Morning.
Dan Moloney
0:00:49
Good drive. Good evening, good drive, whatever you're at doing right now. We're back with another episode of Graffiti Park Radio, our last of the year, actually. Yay, we're excited. So, you've got Dan and Dan and Miss Anika here, your hosts, as always. Good to be with you all today.
Aleksandra
0:01:10
And today we're joined by another very special guest, Miss Alex. How's it going? Hey guys, how are you? I'm doing great.
Dan Bulgatz
0:01:17
What are you nervous about?
Dan Moloney
0:01:19
We're just sitting around the kidney beam, amoeba table thing, so we're okay. We're just hanging out, we're talking.
Dan Moloney
0:01:28
So, Alex, where are you from?
Aleksandra
0:01:31
So, my name is Alexandra. I just turned 24 last month.
Dan Bulgatz
0:01:37
Happy birthday. Thank you.
Aleksandra
0:01:39
Thank you, thank you. I'm originally from Bulgaria, a very beautiful country. I moved in the States in May of 2022 and I've been living of the end of 2022 in Vegas now. So two years and a couple months in the States in total.
Dan Moloney
0:01:57
Wow! Where did you, before Vegas, where were you at?
Aleksandra
0:02:03
So me and my husband first went to Massachusetts. We were there for a couple months to work on the Cape Cod. And I worked in hospitality actually there. Okay.
Dan Moloney
0:02:16
And what was it like out in Massachusetts? How did you get there first from Bulgaria?
Aleksandra
0:02:21
That was my very first going out of the country and I went straight to the US. So it was like a very big moment for me. I haven't even traveled with a plane before that. That was like super big change in my life. And the first moment I'll never forget when I landed in America,
Aleksandra
0:02:43
I was like, damn, this is so different. I mean, I can, this feeling of like seeing another world and the whole culture it was totally different and Massachusetts is a very beautiful state and My first day I was actually Sleeping with a bunch of Russian girls
Aleksandra
0:03:03
Because we were in a thing like a camp. Okay, basically and we were working students for this hotel there. And it was just like a bomb of emotions and like culture hit. It was really interesting.
Dan Moloney
0:03:20
Would you say, were you all kind of experiencing
Dan Moloney
0:03:22
that together in different ways?
Aleksandra
0:03:24
Yeah, so basically we were people from different countries like Russia, Serbia, Montenegro, like all around the world, even from the Dominican Republic. So we were basically students from different parts of the world coming to the US experiencing things like that for the first time and
Aleksandra
0:03:42
Encountering the world of the USA and also like trying to speak English Which is not our mother language Yeah But it was a really nice thing to do because you get out of your comfort zone And then you actually grow so much as a person this way.
Aleksandra
0:04:03
Yep.
Dan Moloney
0:04:04
Do you remember the first time you met someone from Boston?
Aleksandra
0:04:08
From Boston?
Dan Moloney
0:04:09
Yes.
Aleksandra
0:04:09
Probably in the hotel, yeah. Because there's a lot of people from New York and Boston that come to Cape Cod.
Dan Moloney
0:04:15
I can imagine that throwing your English off.
Anika Jones
0:04:18
Exactly.
Aleksandra
0:04:19
I was a little bit confused.
Dan Moloney
0:04:21
Yeah, yeah.
Anika Jones
0:04:22
I can imagine, but hospitality I'm sure helped you just deal with how we function here in the country. I mean, customer service, language, of course, and then just how people function. How did you decide to come to Las Vegas with that?
Aleksandra
0:04:36
Was that part of your move? So me and my husband were thinking of like actually settling in the U.S., but we weren't sure if we wanted to stay in Massachusetts, because Massachusetts is beautiful, but I felt like it wasn't the place for me to grow as an artist because this is the thing I Want to do for a living? Yeah, and we were thinking one night and we're like, okay Eastside we went to New York. New York is crazy. It's very cool, but it's crazy and crazy expensive So we're like what else we can do where we can go and my husband his name is Antonio
Aleksandra
0:05:12
He was like, you know what, I was 2019 in Las Vegas because he went to work before me in the same program years before and he was with friends in Vegas for like 10 days and he's like, you're gonna love Vegas. Vegas is the place for us. We're like artistic people, we like entertainment, we like to be out and over And over one night we decided to move. We packed our four suitcases and everything.
Aleksandra
0:05:44
We didn't know anyone. And we basically did this decision and we got the plane ticket without knowing where we're going to sleep, what we're going to do. We just did it. And basically on the plane we met with this girl online, which she was Bulgarian. She helped us find a place to stay okay for the first days
Aleksandra
0:06:04
And we started from there basically from the zero. Yeah
Dan Moloney
0:06:08
So your your art was always the impetus that was like your your your how you find your place in the world And how you wanted to to go out and yes
Aleksandra
0:06:17
I can say for sure my identity is an artist and has it been that way for you your entire life? Yes. That's amazing. Yes. Art has been in all the moments in my life with me, in the hardest, in the most beautiful, and since I can hold a brush basically, I do art, so it's a part of me for sure. That's amazing. So how did you get started? What
Dan Moloney
0:06:40
was your first medium, and can you tell us about how you got started into art? I can
Aleksandra
0:06:46
tell you my first memory with actually starting as an artist, I was in kindergarten. And it was a very vivid memory of me sitting on the little chair there, and we had a little class and the teacher wanted us to make some kind of fruits, basically. And she didn't say how or she didn't say do this or that, and I just remember putting paints on my fingers and just starting doing rapes. And from this moment, I was like, I actually love doing that. And since since then, I've been
Aleksandra
0:07:20
doing art. And I love doing it. I love the feeling that it gives me the meditative process of it and everything around it.
Anika Jones
0:07:30
I love that we are in the process of trying to instill that in students in the Clark County School District here and even beyond. So that's great to hear that that's where you started. How do you channel your art now? What are some things that you're into now?
Aleksandra
0:07:43
I'm really into spirituality and wellness and also like esoteric stuff. So my art is basically connected with this, with these topics. And I just like to read. I like to enrich my mentality and learn about new stuff. That's how I channel my energy. Basically I find new stuff about me every day. I try to meditate, do yoga, do different stuff for me to become a better version of myself. That's my mantra.
Aleksandra
0:08:23
With doing that, I also encounter new styles in art. I become more creative and I Feel like this is the biggest channel that it gives me like the esoteric stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I love that
Dan Bulgatz
0:08:36
Well, so as as you've started to lean into that
Dan Moloney
0:08:39
Have you noticed that your art has started to form a little bit more towards some of those beliefs or towards some of those? Feelings. Yeah for sure.
Aleksandra
0:08:49
Especially like my color palettes. Right now, as of now, I feel like my main arts that I do for paintings is, I can say it's psychedelic. I love the neon palettes. I love the colors, mixing, drawing stuff that are kind of surrealistic.
Aleksandra
0:09:10
And yeah, also my trademark is the eyes that I do in my characters. So yeah, I can say that for sure.
Anika Jones
0:09:19
I absolutely noticed that. Just the depth in those eyes and just the realness and the emotion that you see in those characters. Were you doing a little bit of that artwork on the East Coast and did you see that change moving to the West Coast and seeing how people's personalities were a little bit different?
Aleksandra
0:09:35
I've encountered a lot of people on the East Coast since I was working in the hospitality. Art is very praised on both sides for sure, because New York side and the East side in general with the West side, people appreciate art for sure. It's a little bit different on the East side.
Aleksandra
0:09:53
I didn't have a lot of time to actually practice my art there, but I was doing tattoos at home.
Anika Jones
0:10:02
Okay, wow.
Aleksandra
0:10:03
So I was doing tattoos on all the students and that's how I actually started practicing on real skin before even starting as an apprentice somewhere.
Dan Bulgatz
0:10:12
Wow, that's incredible.
Dan Moloney
0:10:14
So can you run us through the progression? So it started obviously like pencil and graphite, then did you eventually get into oils or like acrylic painting before you got into tattoos?
Aleksandra
0:10:22
I've never gotten into oils, but if we need to do it linear, so I started with paint. Paint has always been with me, acrylics and watercolor. Watercolor I did as a kid, but now I'm not doing watercolor. I mainly do acrylics. And when I graduated school, that's the time when I actually started working. So I had more income and this way I was buying like spray paint and that's how I got more into spray paint and like graffiti and going out doing like street art. Yeah, and
Aleksandra
0:10:57
I've always done like digital work, too. So I'm like a versatile artist I can call myself and After the digital work and graffiti era I I was one day at the office because I was working in an office back in Bulgaria and I was thinking Okay, how can I monetize my skills in the best way and what came to my mind was being a tattoo artist?
Aleksandra
0:11:20
and I was thinking how to actually find like a place to start an apprenticeship and I eventually bought my own gear and started learning from YouTube I did some work at home back in Bulgaria, like home tattoos, and it was like a couple months I was doing that, and that's the moment when we moved to the US.
Aleksandra
0:11:35
Wow.
Aleksandra
0:11:36
And so the materials that you bought, did you buy them on Amazon out there? How did you get your hands on them out in Bulgaria? I was buying from other tattoo artists online. I was trying to find the best places to buy it, because basically it's super hard to actually order stuff that are based in US, most of them. And it was from person to person, buying second hand,
Aleksandra
0:12:13
just like finding my own resources, websites.
Dan Moloney
0:12:17
Yeah, and so then did those materials travel with you when you came to Massachusetts?
Aleksandra
0:12:22
Yes, they were in the suitcase. I had like a half section on my suitcase just with my tattoo here. Yeah.
Dan Moloney
0:12:29
That's so awesome. So if you had to pick a favorite, whether it be acrylic paint, aerosol paint, tattooing, or doing like unique stuff, because I've also seen you do like some crafting of different sculptures and stuff like that. If you had to pick a favorite of those, what would it be?
Aleksandra
0:12:47
That's a really hard question because I love doing all of them. The beauty behind every medium is that it still gives you the same feeling of this meditative process. I cannot really say which one I love the most. When I sit down and I start doing any kind of medium, it's just the same feeling for me.
Aleksandra
0:13:08
I basically love any medium I do. If it's something that comes from my soul, then I love it.
Dan Moloney
0:13:17
So I think that's a good non-answer answer all out. But something that has always stood out to me about kind of one of your pseudonym or what you go by is Muse for the Soul. So you talked about the eyes, you just talked about what your kind of windows to the soul, as they say.
Dan Moloney
0:13:35
You just talked about if you don't really, it doesn't matter to you as long as it resonates. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you came up with that name for
Aleksandra
0:13:46
yourself? Yeah, that's a really interesting story. I was at school actually. I was in high school and I was doing poetry. I actually wrote poetry at that time. And me and my friend were talking like, okay, you need to post it. You cannot just write it and have it for yourself. And we're like, okay. And she's like, let's do an Instagram page for the poetry.
Aleksandra
0:14:12
And I was like, kinda not having it, but I was like, yeah, I'll do it, okay. And we're sitting on the bed together with my friend and she's like, you need to figure out the name. You need to have like a really interesting name for it. And I was thinking, what can I do that will resonate
Aleksandra
0:14:30
with the poetry that I do? Because the poetry that I was writing was basically from my soul. And I came up with Muse for the Soul. And if you scroll down to my Instagram page, my first posts are actually poetry posts.
Dan Moloney
0:14:44
That's awesome. Oh, that's cool.
Aleksandra
0:14:45
And then I gradually started mixing poetry with my art as social media posts. And then I just said, I pushed the poetry back, I'm not doing it anymore, but I really stayed in the Instagram field with my art only.
Aleksandra
0:15:02
That's awesome.
Dan Moloney
0:15:03
Dan and I literally refer to you as Muse. Like, we'll be like, oh yeah, Muse will be there.
Anika Jones
0:15:06
That's right.
Dan Moloney
0:15:07
So, that's cool that that's been a part of your artistic journey since the beginning. Not necessarily the finger grapes but since you since the social media age.
Anika Jones
0:15:21
Yeah. So who has been a muse for you? Who has inspired you and brought that artistic ability out?
Aleksandra
0:15:28
For sure there is like a lot a lot of good artists, incredible artists, even in Bulgaria and here. in here, but just meeting people who actually I feel like they get what I'm getting, they have the energy and they understand like how the process of art works, and me being around this art community is basically my inspiration.
Dan Moloney
0:15:58
Yeah, I love to hear that. And have you found a productive art community in Las Vegas?
Aleksandra
0:16:04
Of course I do. Graffiti Park, Las Vegas, that's the best art community here. I'm so thankful I am part of it, and those guys helped me so much since I'm in Vegas. And I had so many projects with them, and I was actually, the way I found them,
Aleksandra
0:16:25
I was looking on Instagram, I was like, is there a graffiti community here? Because some cities will have one. Even back in Bulgaria, there was one. And I was like, let me see if I can find something in Vegas. And I was basically writing Las Vegas graffiti community,
Aleksandra
0:16:42
and they came up in Instagram. And they had like a networking event, and me and my husband went to it, and that's how we met. I love it.
Dan Moloney
0:16:50
What was the first event? What was the first event that we met?
Aleksandra
0:16:54
I'm not sure if it was like an official event but I remember it was like a networking event. It was just like an event to meet artists and to see what's going on there. Like the old warehouse that we were in, right? The previous office location. Yeah, I don't think there was a class or even something else. It was just to meet each other, which was perfect.
Dan Moloney
0:17:17
Take it. So if you're an artist in Las Vegas or anywhere and you find yourself in Las Vegas,
Anika Jones
0:17:24
if you're interested. If you're so inclined, of course.
Dan Moloney
0:17:27
In hanging out. Anyways.
Dan Moloney
0:17:30
Well, I will say, Muse, you've been with us here in Las Vegas, I will say multiple staff members of Graffiti Park have tattoos from you, which is awesome. I would encourage others to scope out her work on that front as well. And I will say, you just got an award for us
Dan Moloney
0:17:53
at our most recent holiday ornament painting party that we had last night, which was the Overnight Success Award, which obviously had a stipulation in the bottom of it that there takes years to become that overnight success. And so over the course of this artistic journey, personally with Graffiti Park, all of those
Dan Moloney
0:18:11
things involved, what has been one of the most influential or one of the best pieces of advice that you could give other artists that are aspiring to get to be that overnight success that you have found here?
Aleksandra
0:18:23
Thank you.
Aleksandra
0:18:24
Thanks so much, Ferd, for the award.
Anika Jones
0:18:25
Yes, of course.
Aleksandra
0:18:26
Yes, I was really surprised, but I really appreciate it. There is no overnight success. There is no overnight success. It's a lot of effort. Me and my husband, we actually did those little steps that we're doing every day. We call it the fundamentals.
Aleksandra
0:18:45
It's basically like a list of habits that we want to incorporate and the fundamentals basically are waking up early, going to bed early, working out, doing meal prep. First it goes to health. If your health is good, then everything else will come to place. So for success in any kind, in business, art or whatever the field you are working in, I can say you first need to give attention to your health because this is your body for this life your only body only mind not sure about that
Aleksandra
0:19:20
That's not we're not sure about those. Yeah, but you only have one life So you need to feel at best in this one life and after you get that going You'll feel more energized and you'll feel more happy to do anything else And of course, there's other habits that can help you be successful, especially as an artist.
Dan Bulgatz
0:19:40
Yeah.
Aleksandra
0:19:41
Which is painting, sketching, all the necessary stuff that you need to do as effort for you to be more skillful in the field that you're working in.
Dan Moloney
0:19:51
Yeah, 100%. And I know recently you just did a, or this last year you've done a challenge, which was to draw or to create every day. Can you tell us about that challenge?
Aleksandra
0:20:01
Yes, it was actually the same month, December of last year. And I was at a moment which I felt like I wasn't doing, I wasn't achieving so much in the pace I wanted to. And I sat down and I'm always introspecting, like always in my mind, like thinking, how can I better something about myself?
Aleksandra
0:20:21
And I thought about challenging myself so I can get out of my comfort zone and doing it on social media because the pressure will be bigger this way because people are watching on the stories and I decided to do the paint everyday challenge and I wanted to see what the outcome would be after I did it and I did three paintings in that month and I was surprised how much work a person can do if he's actually like mindfully set to it.
Aleksandra
0:20:52
And it all comes up to habits. It all comes up to habits. And I don't know if you read the book Atomic Habits.
Dan Bulgatz
0:21:00
Yeah, Jane Clear. Yeah.
Aleksandra
0:21:02
The book for that.
Dan Bulgatz
0:21:03
Okay.
Aleksandra
0:21:04
Yeah, yeah. It's really necessary in life to build healthy habits in order for you to get to do the things you want to and not feel pressured actually doing them. Absolutely.
Anika Jones
0:21:14
Yeah.
Anika Jones
0:21:15
Well, what an inspiration and muse you've been to us. Are there any projects or anything that you're working on right now that you're really into that is drawing inspiration?
Aleksandra
0:21:25
Yes, I'm actually working on my very first painting collection and it's called Muse. And I'm doing pieces for it. Right now I'm working on a very, very big canvas. I've been working for months on it. And I want to finish it.
Aleksandra
0:21:42
I'm not setting a time for it, but I'm basically like, I want to do a painting a month, kind of. And once I finish it, I want to be out with the whole collection, with all the pieces.
Aleksandra
0:21:57
And it will be a world of muse. It will be a world of characters that I designed and a world that's in my head and I just put it on a canvas. Yeah.
Dan Moloney
0:22:08
Yeah. That's so amazing. So how do you draft some of these characters and some of these different...
Aleksandra
0:22:14
Alien-like?
Dan Moloney
0:22:15
I don't even know how to describe them yet. There's so many of them. If you go onto MuseForTheSoul.com and check under some digital art, you'll see I mean she has some amazing Super graphic looking cats and then a cartoon versions of herself and jackpot DJ. I mean just so many Yeah, so how do you draw inspiration for characters, and how do you Make them all different and unique
Dan Moloney
0:22:38
So I've always been very drawn to drawing characters people and faces portraits
Aleksandra
0:22:44
That's my main thing. I love doing that and I don't know what my inspiration is but I've always had this vision in my head of these characters basically. Even in school I was drawing these types of characters with the big eyes and stuff. I don't even know where they're coming from but I'm just drawing them because I've always had them in my head and I feel like that's what my soul is and I want to project that in my work. That's so awesome. I love it. I'm just
Anika Jones
0:23:24
scanning through everything. I need to update my website actually. There's a lot of old stuff there.
Dan Moloney
0:23:30
Yeah you threw out the DJ and she was like whoa. She's like the jackpot DJ. Jackpot DJ is on there still. What I was gonna say is, when you moved here, it sounds like there was some really cool inspiration and platforms like you growing up, and you've only been here for two years, so there's a whole, you know, most of your life
Dan Moloney
0:23:50
was spent in Bulgaria, as you were talking about, and obviously you had support for creating, you had those friends telling you to make that Instagram page, so what has been the biggest difference in art culture or similarity even going from a completely different country
Dan Moloney
0:24:08
and art culture to where you're at here in the US?
Aleksandra
0:24:12
Yeah, so the difference is huge. It's a huge, huge difference. And I just wanna say first, Bulgaria has amazing art, amazing artists, the field there and the level of art is like amazing. I can only say that, but unfortunately, the monetization of art struggles a little bit there.
Aleksandra
0:24:35
And America, US has a bigger field for people to be financially stable just from doing art. So that's a big, big difference there. But as for communities, again, because of people seeing that it's possible to have basically a job as an artist here, the community is also bigger this way.
Aleksandra
0:24:58
So, yeah, there is a bit of struggle back in my country for communities, projects, and stuff like that. And maybe that's why I'm growing even faster here. Yeah, I can say that. That's probably the reason why, but I know Bulgaria has a lot of potential and people are striving there for sure in the art community. So if I'm able to go back to Bulgaria, I will for sure try to help the community there as
Aleksandra
0:25:29
well as much as I can from what I learned from the U.S. and implement it there for sure.
Dan Moloney
0:25:35
So you would say that you've progressed faster as an artist in the states you think than you
Aleksandra
0:25:38
did in Bulgaria? Yes. Why so? Because finance. Yeah, for sure. I was working in an office back in Bulgaria, which I didn't like at all. I'm not an office person, and the opportunity for art projects is very, very, like, limited. And even if you go to an art school people go abroad afterwards. Yeah, it's sad, but it's the truth they go abroad they look for a bigger field either in Europe or in other continents and Yeah, I mean here with all this community with all this help with
Aleksandra
0:26:18
Even the content in YouTube like everything's in English and everything that I know about art and me developing skills is in English in my head. How many languages do you speak? Bulgarian, English, German, and yeah, Bulgarian,
Dan Moloney
0:26:43
English, German. You hit me with some German yesterday. I was
Aleksandra
0:26:46
like, whoa. I can speak German, yeah.
Dan Moloney
0:26:49
You're talking about my wiener dog.
Dan Moloney
0:26:51
She's German descent.
Dan Moloney
0:26:52
He's a dash dog.
Dan Moloney
0:26:53
Yes, he's a dachshund, that's what we call him. And then she threw some different languages at me. Anyways, Muse, so you got your series coming up. If people are interested in finding that new series or any of your other work, where can they go?
Dan Moloney
0:27:10
What's the easiest place to find you?
Aleksandra
0:27:12
So I mainly use Instagram. It's Muse for the Soul. That's my Instagram. And my website is also Muse for the Soul. I post on TikTok, but I just post the same videos from Instagram to TikTok. I don't use TikTok.
Aleksandra
0:27:31
It's not my platform for sure. But yeah, you can find me on Instagram. That's where I post everything. I post my events that are coming up on my stories. I post my tattoo work, everything, every medium I'm working on, you can see it there.
Dan Moloney
0:27:45
Awesome. Do you have, I know one of the big things, and we didn't really touch on it, and we're kind of coming towards the end here, but one of the big things that I always see you doing, especially with Antonio, is vending.
Dan Moloney
0:27:56
And at these different shows, do you have any events coming up
Dan Moloney
0:27:59
where you guys will be vending?
Aleksandra
0:28:01
Yes, actually, at the end of this month I'll be part of the live auction with the ISI. They're doing a live painting and the theme this month is money. So me and most of the artists that we all know and other awesome artists will be there live painting for the theme of money. And I'm really excited because I went to see them last time. I think the last team was villains and everything had their own perception of how a villain looks and they were doing different work.
Aleksandra
0:28:39
So that's pretty cool stuff they're doing and I'm glad to be part of it too.
Dan Bulgatz
0:28:45
Yeah, can't wait to see.
Dan Moloney
0:28:47
Well Mused, it has been an absolute pleasure. If you guys are interested in learning more about Alex,
Dan Moloney
0:28:53
see, I just called you Muse, see?
Aleksandra
0:28:55
You can call me Muse, I take it every time, yeah.
Dan Moloney
0:28:58
If you're interested in learning more, finding more about Alex, you can go to what she already mentioned. That's already, that's here if you're watching it. I'll put it right there. If you're interested in learning more about Graffiti Park
Dan Moloney
0:29:08
or the Graffiti Park Foundation, you can find us at graffitipark.org or on Instagram at graffitipark underscore LV. This is our last episode of the year. We are excited to brought you all seven episodes of Graffiti Park Radio with six very interesting, very different and unique artists.
Dan Moloney
0:29:29
And, Alex, any last words?
Aleksandra
0:29:33
I'm so thankful for this, guys. It was an awesome project. It was an awesome project. You're doing awesome stuff, and I'm with you for it. I'll be helping I'll be there for you guys. Thanks so much for having me
Transcribed with Cockatoo