Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Harper. They and their team shared their story with us below:
“Rarabird” (Laura Harper) is a Native Floridian who now resides and survives as a professional artist in Southern California. Laura is a 20-year diehard supporter and driven artist exclusively painting (old-school, with brushes…no graphic arts) for the Tiki Culture community. She focuses on supplying fantastical imaginative, fun, kitschy, and exotic artwork for public tiki bars and home tiki rooms across the nation.
Laura signs her acrylic paintings “RARABIRD,” a variation on “Laurabird,” which is her childhood nickname, given by her father.
Laura’s childhood fascination with the flora and fauna of the islands began at an early age. It formed as a combination of playing and working in her father’s commercial tropical greenhouses (his own business, Harper Valley Foliage), and her young obsession with the talking birds and singing flowers of the fantastical, dark, contained atmosphere of the Enchanted Tikiroom at Disney World. While working at her first job out of high school as a ride operator at Disney World, she would spend hours after combining her art and plant passions by sketching the landscaping at Disney’s Polynesian Resort, surrounded by the music, scents, and ambiance of the “fake” Pacific Islands.
Laura’s real artist training began at the early age of 4, attending children’s workshops in the homes of Disney World artists in her local town of Ocoee, FL, only a 15-minute drive from Disney property. The Disney artists saw strong potential in Laura’s artistic talents, and it was clear exactly what Laura was destined to be, no questions. By age 17, Laura had all the skills and potential of a professional artist. After spending 4 years as a ride-operator and tour guide at Disney World. She decided she wanted her career to be a theme park artist. She then attended University of Florida, where she focused on Theatre Arts (scenic painting, prop-making, costume, puppet, and mask building. etc.). Her first job out of college was with the scenic department at Hollywood Studios, Disney World (then MGM). Her first project out of the gate as a Disney artist was rehabbing the paint job on the animals of the Jungle Cruise ride.
She relocated to Los Angeles to work at Disneyland when the Enchanted Tikiroom and the Jungle Cruise were sleighed to be rehabbed for the 50th Anniversary celebrations. Eventually, she became the propmaster and display designer for Adventureland in Disneyland’s “Decorating and Resort Enhancement” department, her favorite job she ever had. Laura’s final Disney project was as scenic artist for the Millenium Falcon ride in 2019.
Since the rise of the popularity of “Tiki Culture” grew steadily in SoCal from the early 2000s (right when she arrived in California), Laura has been making paintings and creating hair flower crafts for the growing amounts of tiki marketplaces and art shows in LA for 20 years. Ever since leaving Disney, she went full-throttle in her own art business, dedicating her whole life to the Tiki community. These days she travels across the country and vends her arts at Tiki conventions all year long, both local and nationwide. She also participates in Tiki art shows and has paintings in galleries on the Big Island of Hawaii. The main thread of her more serious Tiki painting themes involve a nod to the artwork and spiritual symbolism of the Tarot card deck. She also gets inspiration from the suggested themes of the various Tiki art shows throughout the year. Sometimes her paintings stem from kooky ideas that pop into her head and have no theme but to be fun tiki stuff…especially anything to do with Disney’s Enchanted Tikiroom, which still holds a special cool, dark, air-conditioned place in her heart. Laura also designs Tiki bar menus (like the one for Forbidden Cove in San Diego). Paints magazine covers (Exotica Moderne Magaxine, paints ads for Tiki bars, decorates Tiki Airbnb’s (like the Kondo-Tiki in Tampa, FL) creates high-end hair flowers for Tiki fashions and coordinates art shows and marketplaces for the local tiki community. She has one Tiki mug design completed, but more are on the way.
She is 100% dedicated to the Tiki arts and hopes the Tiki fascination trajectory trend continues to explode and expand, so she can be a Tiki artist until they pry the paintbrushes from her cold, dead hands.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Becoming a stable, professional freelance artist is never easy for anyone. Even with all the advantages I had early on (growing up next to Disney property, trained by Disney artists, working in Disney scenic shops, arriving in CA right as the Tiki boom began), it has been a bumpy and tentative trajectory, no doubt. Finding work is not easy. You are constantly looking for the next stone to cross the stream. Art projects end; they are not full-time, permanent jobs. Getting a full-time job at Disney as an artist can take years of patience. Once people have one, they hold on until death or retirement. Sometimes you have to travel for work and stay months on end, be put up in hotels or artist housing; sometimes you have to move to another state altogether. Sometimes work doesn’t show up for months, and you go into great debt, then spend the next employed year or so just trying to climb out of it. It is rare that an artist becomes financially stable or “in the black.” It is merely a game of survival, and you have to do it all for the end goal. To be an artist…to be called a professional artist, to be known for only that. It is not the normal trajectory of college, job, marriage, car loan, mortgage, children, retirement. Pretty much you are scrambling for a job constantly and having to reinvent yourself, reintroduce yourself, prove yourself, fight off all the other divas, compete with all the other scramblers, and usually live near the poverty level most of the time. For what? Because of the burning, inside you, because of everything you exist for, which comes out of the end of our paintbrush. People are harsh to judge financially unstable “weirdos” like us, and we live along the fringe as we watch the rest of the world have weddings, sit in their cubicle drinking coffee, or drive their kids to soccer practice.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a fine artist, primary craftsperson, costume-maker, and scenic artist. I consider myself more specifically an illustrator of acrylic paintings on canvas. My work is not abstract in depiction but in idea only. My illustration technique is realism about fantasy subjects.
My initial “claim to fame” in the Tiki Community was as a rehab artist for Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland for the” 50th anniversary celebration. I redid the florals, the orchid boats, the Tangaroa tree, the “raincages”, the bird perches, the “birdmobile, built and hand-painted the kite on the exterior of the building and created from scratch all of the large birdhouse speakercovers that were newly introduced to the lanai. One of my most honored moments was when I was invited to speak about the rehab at the opening party alongside Rolly Crump, one of the original creators of the attraction.
I painted my first TikiRoom-inspired painting during these rehab months and was shocked to have it sell immediately at a private art show. It was a 3D full-color interpretation of the cartoon poster of parrots drinking from a bowl of Dole Pineapple juice that can be seen as guests exit the floor show from the Tikiroom. My rendition was inspired by my Baroque painting hero, Caravaggio, who specialized in high-contrast, dark, candle-lit scenes. The Macaws in my painting represented the 5 main characters from the show (Jose, Fritz, Michael, Pierre, and Rosita), sipping through straws from a Scorpion Bowl, a common classic tiki drink enjoyed at Tiki bars. This painting became the one everyone knew me by, and to this day is still my most popular print sold in my booth at Tiki shows. I jokingly refer to it as the “Dogs Playing Poker” painting of Tiki Art. Everyone knows it, many, many own it, and they all know it was painted by Rarabird.
In recent years my most proudest moments were being a scenic artist for the Millenium Falcon ride at Disneyland, being asked to paint the cover at for the national magazine “Exotica Moderne”, releasing my first Tiki mug design, being asked to illustrate the menu art for Forbidden Cove Tiki Bar in San Diego, and asked 3 years in a row to speak on a panel at Comicon about Tiki art.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
As a native Central Floridian, it would be easy to understand that my favorite Disney character is “The Little Orange Bird.” But there is more to it than that. In the 1960s, my grandfather sold 80 acres of our Orange Groves to Walt Disney when he was buying up property to build Walt Disney World under a fake business name. He bought hundreds of thousands of acres from the growers all around my family’s Homestead, which ended up making our newly altered property only 15 minutes from the back end of WDW property once it was completed. To thank all of the growers that he bought property from, Walt dedicated the enchanted Tikiroom to the Florida Citrus Growers Association. After 50 years, they still sponsor that attraction. The Little Orange Bird is their symbol, and he is one of the few Disney characters that is not featured in a film or TV show, he just represents an attraction. So, this symbolizes to me the relationship that my grandfather had in contributing to the creation of Walt Disney World. I love The Little Orange Bird passionately and collect every little piece of merchandise I can get my hands on. Plus, he is so darn cute! I do have painting ideas planned; they will come eventually!
Pricing:
- Originals: $650-3000
- Canvas prints: $3000
- 16×20 heavy stock paper prints:$100
- 11×17 paper prints: $35
- 8 1/2X 11 paper prints: $20
Contact Info:
- Website: www.etsy.com/shop/rarabirdart
- Instagram: @rarabirdart
- Facebook: Rarabird the PrimitivaDiva
