Misery, Inc.

By Eleanor Black, July 6, 2006 @ midnight

Idealog July/August 2006, page 51. Picture by Aaron K

Tanya Thompson’s transformation from ‘waif-like graffiti artist to mini-corporate’ has some predicting that it’s just a matter of time until she has her own fashion empire. Thompson—better known as Misery—is turning her cute-but-creepy creations into a global business

In the friendly, kooky world of St Kevin’s Arcade in Auckland’s Karangahape Road, something is amiss. It’s raining outside, which is hardly unusual, and fashionably dishevelled misfits in coats and scarves huddle over their coffees, recovering from the night before.

They look up curiously as a familiar, unusually pretty woman passes. Then one of the guys behind the counter at Alleluya Café exclaims with surprise. “Tanya, you look great! I almost didn’t recognise you.”

Tanya Thompson, aka street artist-cum-designer Misery, strokes her dark brown bob and asks for a soy latte. “I’m going incognito,” she explains. “My documentary’s on TV tomorrow night.”

The reason for the confusion is this: if anyone has a cohesive image, marketing strategy and burning vision for world domination it’s Ms Misery. Her fashion label, website, paintings, tattoos, street art, her forays into cosmetics, toys and animation, her business card and personal style all make the same promise. Miseryland is fun, just a little bit creepy, your parents probably wouldn’t approve, and you’ll absolutely love it.

Thompson is her own best advertisement, an impeccably groomed 50s throwback with crimson lips, liquid eyeliner and—usually—white-blonde hair the texture of spun candy. She has worked this look for years and without the va-va-voom hair she is virtually unrecognisable.

The documentary of which she speaks is ‘The Magical Misery Tour’ on TV One’s Artsville, which traces her career from nights spent spraypainting caterpillars with human faces onto city walls to her debut as a toymaker at the Taipei Toy Fair. It is an evocative, gorgeous piece of work that shamelessly presents her as the Next Big Thing. No wonder she is flushed.

Today Thompson is dressed down in grey jeans, a fluffy pink jersey with white skulls all over it and grey trainers. Her hair is swept to one side with a plastic bow-shaped clip. She looks really young, far younger than the pouty glamazon who gazes down on customers from promotional portraits at her eponymous Misery Boutique but then, despite her growing presence on the fashion scene, her status as a veteran street artist and her burgeoning empire, she is just 24.

In an almost indecent five years, Thompson has turned her subversive art into a pumping business that is expanding at a rate which “terrifies” her but remains true to its heart: a gang of lovable, damaged, cartoon-style characters who have jumped off the page to carve lives of their own.

Take, for instance, Melancholy Pie, skipping along a grassy knoll in a bonnet and pinafore. She could be on her way to grandma’s house with those cupie doll eyes and pinchable cheeks and would be unbearably cute if it weren’t for the fluffy tail and squid tentacle protruding from her just-baked pie, the blood and squid ink dripping down the side of the still hot dish. Or Chainsaw Charlie, who has sawn off the top of her own head and stands under a starry sky with a look of innocent surprise. Or Miss Muffet, who rides a one-eyed cat and has trees growing from her head.

While her label’s body-conscious polka dot blouses and gingham dresses march into fashion-forward workplaces across the country, Thompson continues to prioritise her painting, the creative driver for her business that makes everything else possible. Her art is an acquired taste, perhaps, but one that is shared by a diverse fanbase. Loyal customers range from the obligatory punk kids and “dark, cool, rock ‘n roll chicks” to “everyone, man. Older women, rich women, businesswomen. The day Viva [the New Zealand Herald’s style section] did a story on me every Remuera lady came in, all parking their BMWs outside the shop. They loved it.”

“Thompson has turned her subversive art into a pumping business that is expanding at a rate which ‘terrifies’ her but remains true to its heart: a gang of lovable, damaged, cartoon-style characters who have jumped off the page to carve lives of their own.”

It’s this crossover appeal that her admirers believe will take the Misery brand global. Producer Mark Albiston of Sticky Pictures, which made the Artsville documentary, says Thompson is “poised to become one of New Zealand’s most successful international creatives”. He followed her to the Taipei fair and said more people wanted her autograph than any other artist there, despite her stand being comparatively small.

“It’s not just her work—it’s her. She lives her work, she’s the complete marketing package. People want to interact with her.”

And her work is commercial, applicable to endless permutations such as stationery, handbags, key chains. He compares her appeal to hit TV3 cartoon Bro’Town which has spawned figurines, books, stickers and beanies, yet Misery has had nothing like the promotion.

Thompson has been a champion of the broken and sad since she was a child in Brisbane, growing up in a big old Queenslander with a wraparound verandah stocked with endless crayons, paints and paper. Thompson, content in her own company, spent many happy hours there drawing unhappy little people.

“I think it’s my sense of humour,” she cackles. “I’m shy but quite cheeky. I like finding a balance between something that’s beautiful and sweet and cute and charming but has an evil, malicious side.” Her mother, Ronelle Thompson, who designs the costumes for Auckland’s Santa parade, always knew she was different. While other girls wanted to be princesses, Thompson’s favourite accessory was a pair of her father’s underpants worn as a necklace.

The Japanese influence in her work began with the anime cartoons she and her sister Megan, who works at Misery Boutique, loved to watch (Astro Boy was a favourite). Plus, their auntie Francoise modelled in Japan and sent home clothes, shoes and postcards. “We were being force-fed all that cutesy stuff.” That’s not to say she was a dreamy child—even as a primary school pupil she was driven; she won her school art competition five years in a row.

The family moved to New Zealand when Thompson was 13 and she attended controversial independent school Auckland Metropolitan College (which closed its doors in 2001), where she spent all her time in the art room drawing unfortunate creatures with missing limbs and big sticking plasters. While her style and confidence are evolving, the Misery aesthetic can be traced back to those hours in the art room where she met her graffiti artist mates, including Elliot ‘Askew’ O’Donnell of hip-hop collective Disruptiv, organisers of the Aotearoa Hip Hop Summit. The “weird sausage dogs, squids and animals with human faces” that she creates today are direct descendents of those sad sacks of the late 90s.

Although she was a bit of a pet among the rough-and-tumble graffiti guerrillas, Thompson tired of the macho atmosphere and began rebelling in a more feminine style by leaving stickers of her characters on walls and bus shelters. She and a girlfriend would head out on ‘missions’, riding bicycles through the streets in the wee hours, taking flasks of tea to keep warm.

After high school, she briefly studied visual arts at Auckland University of Technology before returning to Brisbane for a year-long photography course. She began designing t-shirts and hoodies bearing her signature characters for Auckland-based streetwear label Illicit in 2001. They flew out the door and she was able to live off t-shirt royalties and the sale of her paintings. It was an important lesson.

“I really love what I do but I am business-minded and I like money,” she laughs. “The first time I had an exhibit of my paintings [a show at St Kevin’s Arcade that sold out in two days] it was about painting and fun but I also thought, if I finish 100 paintings and charge $100 each I’ll make quite a bit of money.”

Illicit owner Steve Hodge, now her business partner and boyfriend, says the Misery range brought a new customer to Illicit, which had been a guys’ domain featuring scantily-clad chicks and hot rods. “She introduced us to Asian kids and women.” She also brought in considerable cash: the average Misery customer is quite happy to pay $300 or $400 for a dress, while at Illicit they’re lucky if the average purchase reaches $150. And her paintings sell for $1,500 to $2,300.

“I really love what I do but I am business-minded and I like money.”

In 2002 she moved back to New Zealand to establish her label and a range of more feminine clothes in collaboration with former Illicit designer Christine Leung. They proved so popular that Misery Boutique opened next oor to Illicit HQ at the end of 2004. “I was growing up and wanted something sexy and pretty,” says Thompson, whose painting style also took a turn for the saucy.

The boutique is a hyper-girly space with polished wooden floors, pink-striped wallpaper, clothes racks suspended from flower-covered chains and racks of flirty undies and sundresses. The dressing rooms are decorated with paintings of smouldering sexpots and mini chandeliers. At the back of the shop is a curtained-off area dedicated to cases of jewellery, where the soon-to-be-produced Misery bath range and, one day, Misery perfume and accessories will be displayed. It’s all as cute as a button, neat as a corseted waist—until you notice the paintings of damaged children and the staring, bobble-headed mannequins.

None of this would have been possible without the guidance and support of those punks from Illicit. Thompson describes cartoonist Martin Emond, creator of the underground character Switch Blade and the series White Trash, as one of her biggest influences. He was also one of her best advocates until he took his life in 2004.

“He spotted her art on the street [on hoardings] and we used to steal it and take it back to the flat,” says Hodge, one of Emond’s closest friends. Emond encouraged Thompson to become a member of the Illicit stable of artists and it is her symbiotic relationship with the streetwear label that has allowed Misery to blossom into the brand it is today.

“New Zealand is a really good place to start,” explains Thompson. “It’s small enough to get known really quickly if you’re doing something interesting.” Plus the ‘low-art’ community is supportive and connections are easily made with artists overseas. When Emond moved to Los Angeles, he helped arrange a solo show for Thompson at Meltdown Gallery on Sunset Boulevard. She has another show there later this year.

Emond wasn’t the only one to spot something special in Thompson’s street art. Wellington art dealer Peter McLeavey, whose Cuba Street gallery shows work by Michael Smither, John Reynolds and Laurence Aberhart, learned of Thompson two years ago when a camera crew asked to film the gallery frontage, which is covered in graffiti.

“We’re quite happy about the way it is, it’s become a feature in its own right,” says McLeavey. “At some stage this mysterious, elusive woman called Misery did a little biro drawing about two inches square. It was an engaging, cutesy-pie face. I liked it.”

Since then, he’s heard of Thompson’s transformation from “waif-like graffiti artist to mini-corporate” and he’s impressed. “Her imagery is memorable and could be marketed in the same way as Andy Warhol.”

When Misery Boutique opened, Thompson lived and worked in a studio above. “I never left K Rd. I was called into the shop all the time to answer silly questions.” She wasn’t getting the work done, and it was stressing her out, which in turn made painting difficult, a potential disaster because the painting and drawing is the engine that drives Misery Inc. That’s why the sheer joy of graffiti art was such a boon. “I really miss it. I need to do a love job like that again to bring everything back to earth.” These days when she needs a fix of fun, she goes out stickering.

Since buying a house at Muriwai at the end of last year, her days have become more peaceful, beginning with a walk along the beach with her French bulldog Lulu. Then she checks her emails, replies to business-related queries and spends the rest of the day painting and drawing. Three days a week she commutes into the city but the guilt stabs nonetheless. “I feel like I’m neglecting my little shop.”

But she has a new love: toys. Her plush toys are made by Flying Cat, the same company that launched Scarygirl, a cult sensation in Japan, and while there are just two characters at this stage—a lamb and sausage dog—a Misery doll is in the works. She’ll look a lot like Thompson, be about 20 centimetres tall with big eyes, a bigger head, long hair you can style and her own Misery wardrobe.

Thompson is hoping she’ll take off like the iconic Blythe doll designed by Marvin Glass in 1972 and manufactured by American toymaker Kenner for just one year, but reborn in 2001 when Japanese toymaker Takara bought the rights.

“The women who like Blythe become really obsessed—they dress like Blythe and put the same makeup on. It’s amazing. Imagine if that could happen with my Misery doll—that would so hilarious!”

Think Misery: Tanya Thompson’s rules of business

Think global

You’ve got to look beyond New Zealand if you want to make real money.

Get your product in front of buyers overseas

Get on a plane, go to trade shows, knock on doors, keep trying.

Don’t limit yourself

Keep your options open. The future for Misery clothing includes everything from babywear to couture. Not to mention cosmetics, linens, jewellery, shoes, dolls, and animated film.

Making a commercial success of your artwork is a long-term goal

It takes up to ten years to establish your name and brand.

Remain true to your vision

All the creatives at Illicit and Misery were thrown out of art school or left early because teachers tried to tamper with their style.

Get good advice

If you’re not a natural business brain, form a partnership with someone who is.

Keep it real

New Zealand is a great place for creatives to live and work because there is little chance of getting caught up in hype that can destroy artists overseas.

As much as Thompson craves crazy-big success, she fears it too. She doesn’t have to look further than any city mall for an example of what she doesn’t want to happen to Misery, which she still envisions as a niche brand. “Emily Strange [a goth character with four cats] started off as this really cool underground label but now she’s everywhere.”

Thompson knows she needs to curb the temptation to start making Misery shoes and lippy and household linens and jewellery, all right now. It would only devalue her brand.

“I get a little bit terrified because I’m on this speed train. I hadn’t really thought properly about how this is going to grow business-wise until this year. I want to be so involved in everything but I know I can’t—because if I do, everything will look terrible.”

She admires Takashi Murakami, the Japanese pop artist who collaborated with Marc Jacobs on those covetable multi-coloured Louis Vuitton bags that were snapped up by status-conscious shoppers worldwide. Murakami has a team of animators and graphic designers to bring his vision to life.

Thompson has started putting her own team together: she has Hodge of course, designers Jonni Tumaru and Barbera Tee (formerly of denim label Bug) who help bring her fashion ideas to fruition, and her mum, who sometimes travels with her and offers business guidance too.

Still, she worries. If she starts producing her clothing in China—there are plans to open six Asian Misery shops by 2008, in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei, among others—there will almost certainly be cheap copies to contend with. “I’ve even found ripped-off Misery t-shirts at the Avondale markets.” It was a perfectionist’s nightmare: stacks of badly-made knock-offs still in their plastic bags. It would be worse in Asia. Thompson met a woman in Taipei who designed a stationery line that did so well, she opened a shop dedicated to it. Within a month lesser versions of her work were available in the street, then the rip-off merchants opened a shop next door to hers. It was impossible to compete.

If Thompson wants to avoid a similar fate, she must keep innovating to stay a step ahead of the copycats and to keep her customers entertained. If she’s smart about who she chooses to work with—and so far she’s shown a knack for hooking up with true stars—Misery could be the next Hello Kitty, says Hodge.

For now, she is concentrating on the fashion, toys and animation. It’s still experimental at this stage, but if the animation takes off Misery will be made. She’s building three distinct clothing lines: a street-based label true to Misery’s roots, Mini Misery for kids, and a couture line. “I really like high fashion, elegant clothing and a lot of my characters don’t lend themselves to that.” Hong Kong Fashion Week? If it sounds ambitious, Tanya ‘Misery’ Thompson makes no apologies. “When people tell me I can’t do something, I really have to prove to them that they’re wrong.”

Originally published in Idealog #4, page 50