Street Smart
The Artist Known as M. is Getting Her Close Up
Within the labyrinth of booths surrounded by grotesque sculptures, replicas of ancient pottery, mesmerizing NFTs, silky paintings, and crowds of people speaking different tongues, Viva LA’s exhibit at the recent LA Art Show (Booth 203+ Booth 1204) served as a portal into a realm that fuses sacred geometry and art to form a universal language. The LA Art Show exhibited Meghan Hall’s artwork at the LA Convention Center from January 19 to January 23, which is regarded as the most comprehensive international contemporary art show in America. On the fourth day of the five-day show on Saturday, M. crouched and twisted her body while drawing on the walls around her artwork with the back of her iconic black leather jacket adorned with the Viva LA Heartwings logo and her unique drawings on full display. From the art on her jacket to the drawings on her black combat boots made with white acrylic paint, Hall seamlessly blended in with the art she created surrounding her.
Hall is first and foremost a street artist who is artistically known as “M.” and this is her first big solo show and long-awaited debut into the world of fine art. While she stands inside the Viva LA booth with its pink and blue walls she reveals and laughs, “I started doing it on walls, street art, and paintings but mostly just street art. This is the first time I’ve been a fine-art type of individual. As you can see I’m still playing around on the walls because I’m a street artist at my core so I’m going to kinda bend the rules a little bit.” From doodling onto the side of a page during class to going out into the city and creating art on the walls and surfaces of the LA streets, M. is excited to finally be creating in the world of fine art by using canvases and is optimistic about the future of her journey with art.
This is the first time I’ve been a fine-art type of individual. As you can see I’m still playing around on the walls because I’m a street artist at my core so I’m going to kinda bend the rules a little bit.
With the support of her sponsor and the co-creators of the brand Viva LA, M. has gained a lot more exposure in the world of fine art at the LA Art Show. M. is the first artist that Viva LA has collaborated with to promote the creative culture of Los Angeles. Additionally, the creators will continue to fuel the creativity that resides and is born in Los Angeles by promoting a sense of unity for people who love Los Angeles. Andre Miripolsky, co-creator of Viva LA and pop artist based in Los Angeles, pointed at the vibrant rainbow-colored canvas in the center of the wall and explained, “I did the Viva LA logo and color and she did the rest of the hieroglyphics. The combination is LA! It has the vibe.”
Located on Viva LA’s second Co-LAB showcase in Booth 1204, co-creator Christian Mitman describes M.’s artwork in response to a young man who asked him what the shapes and symbols meant, “Math is underneath anything across the world and so M. picks up on the energy of specific locations and translates those vibrations into her automatic writing style.”
Whether her canvas is a piece of clothing, a pair of shoes, bags, or even longboards, M.’s creativity oozes out of her hands. Mitman comments, “She’s always wearing her art. She draws on everything. My sports coats are covered in her art. We actually launched a line of clothing with her that we launched on Christmas.” He describes M. as an artist devoted to her craft, “M. is extremely focused. I have never met an artist who is more hardworking and with a more intense follow-up strategy. I love that because I’m a workhorse, too. I appreciate someone who is like that. She’s very creative and she knows that it’s 99% hard work and doing the grind over and over again.”
M.’s family and friends are very supportive of her and her work as well. She brings up that her mom has been calling her every day telling her that she is praying and sending her love. She proudly says with a smile, “My family is awesome.”
Despite never taking an art class before, M. is proudly a self-taught artist and has been consistently creating art in a unique style that incorporates the use of symbols and the relationship between straight lines and curves. Right around when she was six or seven, she started coming up with these symbols when she was doodling in class on the side of the pages. Initially, she did not think much of it, but then she started realizing that she was actually saying something.
She meditated on the revelation and learned that her symbols seemed to be informed by concepts of Sacred Geometry. Essentially, her art is a reflection of the energetic field that surrounded her. As soon as she realized that she was channeling through a language that comes from a bigger source like consciousness, she started looking into sacred geometry and discovered that the Tree of Life and other symbols are part of the creation of the universe.
Even before she knew that what she was subconsciously creating would become her artistic voice, has always been a big fan of line artists such as Keith Haring. She talks about the importance of line artists, “There’s a lot of us out here and we haven’t really made a name for ourselves yet … but I really want to hone into all of the different line artists because ultimately they’re channeling something, too. They are saying something in their lines and in their language. I’m kind of curious to dig into what that means as I continue on with the journey.”
The street art she did in her hometown in Virginia was very limited, but once she moved to Los Angeles, she was able to be more free and productive. Los Angeles is M.’s canvas. The streets inspire her to capture the soul of a specific time and space.
Although M. can make art by herself, she loves the energy of being and creating art in public. She loves when her art resonates with people at such a high-level consciousness that they are compelled to come up and talk to her about it. That is when she knows she is on the right track. For instance, a Korean couple, a few older Armenian men, and a Hispanic family were just a few of the people who were drawn to the magnetic pull that M.’s art has during the LA Art Show.
She explains further, “I feel like when people see art it resonates with you and it makes you feel good and now you’ve put that rippling effect on that person and they’re going to go and make people feel good. If we can do that and vibrate there, we’ll get better than what it has been because it’s pretty rough right now… ” Ultimately, she says her artwork can activate something within the viewers’ DNA which helps them to themselves and the universe.
I feel like when people see art it resonates with you and it makes you feel good and now you’ve put that rippling effect on that person and they’re going to go and make people feel good.
Originally, Mitman, co-creator of Viva LA, and M. wanted to find a location where M. could create her series in view of the public such as creating a studio in one of the many vacant storefronts on Hollywood Blvd. where passersby could watch M. painting like an artist in a fishbowl. When they could not convince a single building owner of the value of turning their empty unused space into a public art event for just one month, Mitman decided that he would create a mobile studio just for M. in the back of a 26 feet long truck clad in artwork from Viva LA’s “Celebrate LA” exhibition from earlier this year, of which M. was one of the featured artists. Between December 5, 2021, to January 5, 2022, M. and Mitman took an exhilarating excursion all over Los Angeles to create artworks that are directly inspired by people, nature, and the energy present.
Over the course of 30 days, M. created 30 stimulating artworks at 30 iconic LA locations that come from the mobile art studio project called “Channeling LA” and several of those pieces were present at the LA Art Show. Locations ranged from the Urban Lights at LACMA and The Broad to the parking lots of Venice Beach and graffiti-saturated Santee Alley under the 10 freeway in DTLA. M. and Mitman packed their schedule for each of the 30 days to make sure they met their production goals.
For example on New Year’s Eve, they went to three different locations in a single day. Around sunset, they went up some stairs that led to a sacred temple in a secret garden located somewhere in the Hollywood mountains where M. created the piece called “Secret Garden”. Afterwards, M. created artwork on the deck of a Hollywood Hills house which was owned by the 1970s band, The Bee Gees, with a 360-degree view of Los Angeles at night in all its glory. Then, at midnight with the fireworks going off and painting the skies with illuminating colors, they blasted the mobile studio with light and drove down Sunset Boulevard with the back open so everyone could see M. creating a “Viva LA” painting inside.
While M. was creating art in specific locations such as Santa Monica Beach, she wants to feel what she calls “zero point” which is when you are in the zone and in the moment and you are not worried about anything. She points at one of the small screens on the pink wall that show small snippets of her in action at Santa Monica Beach, “I knew I would get to my zero point if I could be hitting right where the water is hitting the sand. So to be sitting there feeling that and drawing was just BOOM!”
As M.’s cinematographer and production manager throughout the expedition, Mitman made sure to support her in any way possible and recalls their time at Santa Monica Beach. “I was in the surf in Santa Monica holding the canvas from the waves so that the waves didn’t take it away and she was painting there. I’m behind the canvas holding it and she’s in the water painting and the waves are coming up to our thighs and then our waist and finally we had to move out because the canvas was going to go underwater.”
I was in the surf in Santa Monica holding the canvas from the waves so that the waves didn’t take it away and she was painting there.
M. reveals her favorite site from those thirty days. “On Christmas morning, I met Christian at 5 a.m. and we rolled up to Runyon Canyon and it had been raining. The rain stopped and a circle of clouds started culminating over my head while I was drawing with hummingbirds flying over and I was just like ‘OH MY GOSH!’. I’ll never forget it ever because it was so magical. Then, Christmas evening during magic hour, we rode the truck up to the Griffith Observatory and I did the light pink one when the sun was setting with cotton candy skies. Later, when it got dark, I popped the canvas right in front of the Astronomer’s Monument and I was feeling all of it with the stars above me. So, Christmas, the whole day felt like an out-of-body experience the whole time.”
Mitman recalls that same morning where M. created the piece, “Blue Canyon.” “When we were walking toward the Runyon Canyon site, this old couple in their early 80s or late 70s saw us carrying the canvas and they asked, ‘Oh what are you doing?’ I said, ‘She’s doing a painting at the top of Runyon Canyon.’ and they were like, ‘Oh that sounds nice.’ I think they thought she was going to do a landscape or something and we saw them like half an hour later walking down and they are looking at the painting with sacred geometry and the woman turns to her husband and goes, ‘You know, I thought I have seen everything.’”
In between laughs, he says, “It was hilarious. It was actually really cute.”
M. believes that her art can serve a higher purpose such as for healing because she has used her art for animal therapy, specifically with horses. M. brushes her short, jet-black hair with her fingers and explains, “You know how healers can heal? It’s like that flow but I’m saying it in symbols.”
She loves going to sacred places and hitting locations that resonate with her or that need healing. She did exactly that for thirty days and hopes she can work with Viva LA again because she says their mission is on point. M. shares that she wants to take this to a global level to create healing, powerful art, even statues or whatever it might be as she evolves with her craft.
In Booth 203, she profoundly declares her intentions and her goals, “I want healing for Mother Gaia. I want the highest timeline for all of humanity. I want us all to be able to heal and do anything that I could do to be of service… I know it’s great to make money here and there because we want to be artists full time and then we don’t have to work two or three other jobs, however, when we focus on our mission of being artists and healing and utilizing that for the greater good of humanity, the money comes…When you get there, the universe provides. That’s kind of where I’m at in my journey and I’m learning every day.”
She points at the artwork from the co-LAB around her and explains, “This is a culmination of some of that learning in LA. So once I’m done with the LA Art Show, I really want to do this on all of Mother Gaia’s Chakra Systems like Mount Shasta and that would require my art selling to do that but I feel confident in my work and I feel I’ll be able to do it.”
