Bold strokes, bright blues, a red saturated background, squiggles of movement, and eyes wide open staring straight at you. One look at artist Lisa Grubb’s signature Happy Dog painting which is the namesake of her gallery will make you do a double take. This is no ordinary dog, and Lisa is no average artist.
Lisa Grubb is the artist behind Happy Dog Gallery, located on the southeastern corner of Flywheel Park. Happy Dog Gallery is the only self-sufficient, individual owned gallery here in Piermont and has been here for over 25 years. Her work has achieved a tremendous reach, with buyers from all over the world including Japan, Australia, Italy, Germany, and United Arab Emirates. Her art appeals to everyone — young and old, locals and celebrities, as well as big names in the entertainment industry, including Marvel Comics, Warner Brothers, and Disney. Her success is what starving artists dream about, but few actually achieve. How did she get here?
Her story goes back to her childhood. “I was the youngest of three children. Any time I tried to look for my brother and sister in the house to play with them, I always found them at the kitchen table drawing or sculpting with clay.” Art was appreciated and encouraged in her home: from the art supplies that she and her gifted siblings used, to the ballet dancing performed by her mother, to the playing of musical instruments and singing by her cousins. Lisa grew up surrounded by creativity and talent, but she herself never took any art classes. She is completely self-taught.
“In my early 20s, I got jobs in offices and hated it. It felt like the shoe didn’t fit. I finally said, ‘That’s it; I’m moving to Key West.’” When she arrived, it was before the area had developed, and Key West was this gorgeous, tropical place where people could escape society and immerse themselves in a free, artistic community. Sunsets at Mallory Square were the time and place when artists would convene. Lisa got her start by hand-painting on t-shirts and immediately discovered it worked — her t-shirts started selling.
Lisa eventually decided it was time to leave Key West and move to New York City. In New York, she developed a t-shirt line which was sold around the country, from shops in the Village to Bloomingdales, Macy’s, and high-end stores. Lisa even got an international license deal. But as time went on, big companies in the garment industry started copying her designs, and at that point, she decided it was time for another change. She moved from the city to Grandview and started painting on canvas.
Lisa would still go to the city, and because she loved to “paint live,” she would set up her easel and paint on Fifth Avenue, right in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, like so many other artists do. Just like her t-shirts, her paintings started selling right away; in fact, they were selling like hotcakes to New Yorkers and tourists from all over the world. She said to a friend, “Oh my god. I’ve got something!” Her canvas paintings were a huge success. At the same time, she discovered Piermont, when they were just starting to build the brick buildings along Ash Street and Roundhouse Road. There was one last spot available, and Lisa and her business partner, Deborah Tritico, decided this would be the perfect spot to open the Happy Dog Gallery.
The secret to Lisa’s success lies in her pursuit of opportunity — she’s not afraid to take risks. One day she heard that the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest trade fair for books, was about to take place. With hardly a plan in mind, Lisa immediately bought a plane ticket, lugged her easel, canvas, and paint onto the plane (this was before the birth of TSA and all the carry-on restrictions), and flew to Germany. Once there, she set herself up and started painting live at the fair, and again, people started liking her work right away — including the president of Marvel Comics who was at the event. He said to her, “Your work looks like some work I saw at a gallery in New York.” She asked him where, and he responded, “A little village called Piermont.” Lisa gasped, “That’s my gallery!”
Three days later, he invited her to come to LA to paint an 8-foot painting of Spider-Man at the Los Angeles Art Expo for the anniversary of Spider-Man. Lisa had never painted humans before but that was about to change. An entourage of attendees surrounded her to watch her paint. One of them was Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man who signed Lisa’s painting on the spot using her paintbrush and paints. Warner Brothers saw her work and liked it so much they gave her a solo show on Fifth Avenue and 56th Street. Then people from Disney saw her paintings and invited her to showcase her work at their gallery on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. The Disney gallery show was so successful that they carried Lisa’s work for many years afterwards. Lisa’s scope grew even wider: a German art collector bought two slabs of the Berlin Wall and commissioned Lisa to fly to Berlin and paint her signature characters on them — an incredible honor. Those pieces are now exhibited in a museum in Tubingen, Germany, where they will become part of a sculpture garden. As if her paintings weren’t enough, Lisa is also a published author-illustrator of two children’s books, Happy Dog! and Happy Dog Sizzles!, published by Philomel, a division of Penguin Putnam.
When asked about her success, Lisa said, “I feel blessed and grateful. I know there are so many talented artists in the world, but it doesn’t mean that their work sells. I’m honored that people like my art and it sells.” When asked how she came up with her style, she replied, “People always ask me that. This is just how it comes out of me. I cannot paint or draw any other way.” Even though her art reflects a fun, light-hearted sense of humor and a strong, bold color palette, everything she paints is polished, professional, and intentional. Each painting takes her a long time to make. “It takes a lifetime, because it’s a reflection of how your mind works. It’s a lifetime of decisions and practice.” For Lisa, there are no mistakes in art. “The point is to stay with it. Keep doing it. Whatever it is, you get better and better at it.”
This article is dedicated to Lisa’s mother, for always championing her children’s creativity while
growing up. You can see more of Lisa’s art at lisagrubb.com and on Instagram at lisagrubbart.
Story by Shauna Wennerod
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