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haley himiko morris spots it, adopts it, paints it, displays it, activates it (rinse and repeat!)
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From out of the concrete streets of steely grey Cleveland grows a coral and mint palm tree because Haley Himiko Morris decided it to be so.
“It’s funny because I felt like when this happened I was like, “I’m going to remember this moment.”
I collected this beautiful garland… tissue paper garland from Dean Supply. Their party decoration section is amazing and they have all these beautifully dyed shapes…. Big shape garland that’s like repetitive but my favorite was the palm tree one.
The house I lived in from 19 to 24 was an installation, always decorated. We would have concerts and installations and shows and it was always decorated and almost any time we’d add something new it would just stay.
The palm tree garland inspired me … but they’re so expensive… so I took two pieces of card board and I just drew a shape based on the same palm tree graphic on this beautiful tissue garland and I just like cut em out and slit one top and the other bottom and slid them together and I was just like…
I know people that can help me make giant versions of these.”
With that help and on her she does make so many things of so many sizes. She makes tiny versions of the palm trees now on her Kick-Startered laser cutter and sells them as earrings. They’ve become an icon of her highly recognizable, quirky palette of colors, shapes, designs and events.
“I’ve learned more where some of that actually comes from. Even though I love it, I didn’t realize I was being influenced by all of these things that I’m just coming to identify.
and you know there’s so much of the world I’m so used to like hearing people call something ugly cheesy or tacky … outdated or making fun of something and it’s just like I feel like you know I’m a person who has suffered from depression and horrible self image and many things and
I just have to extract every piece of joy that I can and if I love something I’m not going to hide it - I’ll unapologetically embrace it because it makes me so happy.”
I love really collecting modular things that can kind of be arranged any number of ways but I tend to collect things that I can kind of change or manipulate: paint colors, things like that.
This little collection of things I’ve used and reused in different installations or parties and I basically have this cubical - this 21x21 foot cubical and I have all of these different things and maybe some things might you know not get full play in it but most of I think can.
I have a rough idea in my mind of where I see certain things and how physically I want the space to feel when someone walks in but once I get those things in place it’s going to be very (she knows exactly where to put things after that.)
I love the … playing with shapes.
Some people would say that looks like a mess… like a kindergartener could do that but like there’s something to be said about that that’s very primal.”
She doesn’t see limitations on what could be interesting.
“Sometimes I surprise myself. I might have condemned something a few years ago but I see it in a different way… moving into this house and redoing it I think carpet’s disgusting but at the same time like, I’d love a shag rug in a wild color in an installation or put on a wall… so it’s hairy”
“Playing with color and shapes that you have those skills and that the stuff going on in your brain that young…It’s still playing with blocks but I love patterns and geometry and collaging and it has a psychological effect on my mood and patterned clothing and formica…”
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The look was influenced by the movies and music she was exposed to as a kid.
“I feel like a colorful person inside and although I’ve spent a lot of my life really sad but I just … so many memories I have growing up consuming film.
[My parents] would talk about stuff they loved with my sister and I from a very young age.
And like so we feel like we grew up getting… absorbing the things they love I think a lot of people have that experience with their parents but I still… I guess it’s like a fault sometimes but I’m so absorbed with those things and I’m not always taking in the newest information.”
The nostalgia obsession, the 20-years-ago phenomenon, isn't new and it's not going away. And it doesn't seem to be hurting anyone. Kids around 20 emulate trends from the 90s era, in the 2000s we loved the 80s "look," once it had been calcified in the fashion history collective brain. And our parents would have been obsessed with the 50s nostalgia created in the 70s.
“Maybe (the cycle) has something to do with people sort of they fantasize or put up on a pedestal the era right before they were born.”
Her work does have a sense of humor in the way nostalgia sort of does inherently, whether on her radio show Pleasure Leftists or her band Pleasure Leftists, or in the discos and parties she throws multiple times a year around the city.
“Laughing, comedy was important, joking around. Making myself or someone else laugh…
My mom has a long history with comedy but they also did not filter anything we watched in tv movies.
I’m really happy I got to take in a lot of the stuff I did when I was younger.”
What sent me into sort of a scholarly deep delve down into trying to authentically create stuff that looked like this was when I started planning for the party … the new years party in 2017 inspired by ‘Earth Girls are Easy’ which was my favorite movie growing up. And back in those days, I just loved what I loved. I wasn’t a 7 year old doing research I was just dressing myself and styling myself and I loved … Boy George was my first crush ever.”
“I loved colorful things and I went through like a mall-goth phase.”
Deciding after three months that LA wasn’t for her, she moved back to Cleveland. And she eventually got a party planning certificate, although it would be hard for her (or anyone who knows her) to imagine a life where this fountain of imagery and creativity would be planning anything “traditional” for a hotel, etc.
She took to social media around the time of prep for the “Earth Girls are Easy” party, mentioning that getting into one of the old, defunked shopping malls in the area would be a dream. And it was realized fairly quickly after that.
“I will never forget that experience. It was literally a religious experience. Like being in a crypt and finding the treasure.”
Finding inspiration from the items and songs and movies that bring her joy has filled her with a bank of joy that she puts out through various channels, like her aforementioned radio show.
“Being in there saying nonsense or whatever I’m saying and doing this show where I collage you know film content that has a narrative and a story with this music that I love and experimenting, beat matching the sounds…”
“If you can’t imagine, or trick yourself into feeling the way you see or want to see yourself I feel like, ‘How you gonna get there?’ “
Ricki FUCKING Lake/
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DEVON
URCHIN
do you or don't you have a relationship with your social media account where you feel like unfollowing people is directly affecting your life? this is not an article just a question.
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