Mikki 100 is a graphic designer, illustrator & artist living in Southern California. Her practice ranges from painting and illustration to murals to objects and clothing.
Mikki draws inspiration from observations of people and places in her surroundings. Her current work focuses on landmarks, store signages, map making and other objects that demarcate a place or time.
She is interested in (to the delight of her alma mater) how culture, art & technology affect the past and ongoing histories of the collective and the individual. And how multiple narratives can be contradictory and true all at once, especially in subcultures and microcultures. In the same vein, the idea of identities as frozen in time, in flux, switched on/off, included and excluded as culture, art, & technology continue to evolve and affect how people live, document, identify/connect and remember their lives is a theme lying at the base of many of her projects.
Despite convincing her parents that a BA in Ethnic Studies could get her into law school, her current art practice is an accumulation of her UCSD undergraduate degree in Ethnic Studies and minor in Studio Art held together by her lived experiences here and abroad (from various cities and towns in the southwest US to Seoul, Korea).
Mikki from Apr 2022, Echo Park
Although I finished my UCLAx DCA courses in 2023, I wasn’t quite ready for my final review. Even after my pre-portfolio session, I just didn’t feel right. In my meeting with the program director, we talked a lot about who I am, my passions and aspirations. I felt this large distance between where I was and where I wanted to be. I could feel it in my portfolio. The gap between what I wanted to do and what I have done so far was frustrating to show and even harder to explain.
“The Gap” quote from Ira Glass gets exactly how I feel. It’s a famous quote that has inspired many in the creative industry to continue on. It inspires me. But getting to know myself through switching careers from corporate to creative, I know I need more than just an inspiring quote to get me there. I need more than online courses. I need more than a graphic design job. I need mentors to guide me and peers to journey with me. And so I decided this will be my approach to this portfolio.
This portfolio, this website is less of a showcase of my graphic design work for potential employers, and more of a calling card to creative leaders and peers who want to work and grow with me. If this is you, please let me know (I’ll be honest, I am reluctant to ask someone I admire to be my mentor. Oh the fear of rejection!). If you know someone who might be interested in my work, please share this website with them. Thank you.
Mikki from Feb 2017, SFV
"Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work …we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?
A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.
And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal.
And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?"
Ira Glass