Jeremiah Lee's Strange Little World

As you approach the little art studio located at 1344 East 11th Street in the Pearl District of Tulsa, first you may notice that across the street there happens to be a giant cowboy holding a rocket in front of a wall full of art, which just adds to the whole scene.

Next you’ll also quickly notice the beautiful Victorian gothic awning above the door of the studio, and the blood red letters that are seemingly scrawled onto the window which read JLA art.

Next to that is a poem that has been hand stenciled onto the window, titled Fifty Gallon Drums. It’s worth the few minutes to read before entering.

From the windows you can see glimpses into the wonderful and strange world known as JLA Art. When you enter, you are instantly transported to the labyrinth and lair of Jeremiah Lee Anthamatten’s studio, into a place full of mysterious and interesting characters and powerful images that create stories and worlds. It is a cross between a funky and hip Art studio and an oddity shop full of curiosities. Everywhere you look, in every nook and cranny, there lurks something delightful to spark the imagination. Even the sawdust sprinkled cobwebs seem to serve the purpose of ambiance which bring a touch of magic that only the authenticity of a true crafter’s workshop could provide.

Anthamatten’s genuine yet gritty style shines through in the energy of the entire studio. There is a hauntingly beautiful quality mixed with something much more raw, in both his physical appearance as well as the art he creates. There’s darkness mixed with light, beauty mixed with pain. It’s art that can create a visceral feeling deep inside of you when you observe it. Anthamatten’s devilishly charming wit and vibe are only shadowed by the sheepish and mischievous little boy grin that he flashes every now and again, and all of that personal style bleeds through into his creations as well. Most of his art surpasses just paintings, but displays mixed media, using hand stitching, metal works, and hand built frames.

It seems that Anthamatten has always been drawn to creative expression, be that in painting, building, photography, graphic editing, or music.

“I tinkered with art when I was a kid. I wasn't ever very good and I wasn't really very productive, but I liked it. I think I considered myself an artist even though I didn't really produce anything,” said Anthamatten when asked when he got his start in art.

He didn’t find his footing in art right away and fell more into music for a while. During that time Anthamatten moved to the East Coast as a young adult to play music.

“Being on the East Coast, I started getting exposed to a lot more art galleries and exhibits and all that kind of stuff. Partially because the music that we were playing was in those scenes, the two were tied together; music and the art scene. So, after seeing enough galleries of things, these great big rad pieces, I kept thinking that I could make something like that. Like at least my iteration of it, I could make something that's that powerful on a big white wall. So, I just started trying and I bought a handful of canvases, and some paint and just kind of started. I still couldn't even draw. But I just started kind of penciling in the basic shapes and then painting them. Then I found that with the paint, I could actually create all the shapes and textures and things that I couldn't do with a pencil,” said Anthamatten.

During this time period he played drums in a band that got signed and was about to go to much bigger places, when the band’s internal struggles caused it to all fall apart right before they started that journey.

“I had just spent the past 10 years or more trying to be a rock and roller and that was my primary focus. And whenever I finally got to that moment, and it fell apart, it was so disappointing that I was like, I got to have my own voice and I can't rely on a bunch of other people to make it there. So that's why I really started painting, is because I needed to fail for me and not because anybody else, you know what I mean? If I was going to make it, or not going to make it, it had to be because I didn't do it,” said Anthamatten.

With that devastation weighing on his shoulders, he moved back home to Tulsa about 10 years ago. Once home, Anthamatten dived right into his world of art, starting with a few little private studios. He created his own little weird world of creative expression, but wasn’t fully satisfied because no one else really got to see it. While he was enjoying the aspect of living and creating his art in industrial spaces, he wanted it to be more than that. So, he began looking for retail space, and came across his current location in the Pearl District, where he’s been for about 4 years.

While the move back to Tulsa was supposed to be temporary as a way to find his footing before heading back out to the East Coast to try again, he found something at home that he didn’t count on. He found a new energy and community wanting to build and create and make Tulsa into something even more than it ever had been.

“When I was a kid, this place was so full art and music and by the time I was in my late teens, early 20s, it was just another scene. There wasn't much going on, and it was mostly just old guys playing blues in strip mall bars, and young guys playing hard rock.in strip mall bars. But we've got these organizations that are working to preserve and create the art scene here, which is beautiful to be part of a city that’s like that. It feels like it did when I was a child, in terms of emphasis on art and music. The city is starting to heal from the racial tensions that happened here. Our downtown is collecting again and building that back up again,” said Anthamatten.

“A lot of the people now in their 30s 40s and early 50s, they had moved off. We all left. The city was dead, there was silence. We all took off and then for whatever reason, different things brought each one of us home and we're all here doing these great things. I'm not suggesting I’m changing the city, but I know I have a hand in it. If it's not a musician or artist or something like that, then it's some kind of cool business person or chefs and things like that, that have gone and done their culinary stuff all over the world, and now they are here doing that stuff and creating these badass, little restaurants and it's just all the salted people that are coming home that are creating it. Ultimately, I had no intention of staying here. I came home to get my ducks in a row. Because I was headed to Brooklyn, because that was where I wanted to be. That was where I was starting to transition to before I left. I had every intention of just coming home saving up some money and being gone in two years. And life caught up with me and I got kind of stuck for a little bit, and the city still sucked. I mean, it was awful. When I got home, I was just like, yeah, this is why I’m not staying. Then all of a sudden, overnight, everywhere around me started generating. And then, you know, I got this place, and that changed my entire perspective on what's happening. I was watching all these people kind of pop up in the shops and do cool little things. I was crazy freakin’ jealous, and once I got a place and started really paying attention to what was happening, who is actually doing these things, that it's all these people that have moved away and came back. You know, they went all over the world and they come back here and they're doing these cool little things. And so, it's given this place so much flavor, the culture is from everywhere,”

The unique beauty of the studio is in the windows that allow those passing by the opportunity to look in and watch Anthammaten create as he works, which offers something even better than just displayed finished pieces, but the act of art and creation itself.

“This neighborhood to me is like our little Brooklyn. It's in that process where it's still affordable, and there's lots of cool people moving into it. There’s history, you know, and modern people that are living in this area, so it's making it fun,” he said.

“I'm just experimenting with this place, I mean, there's no goal with it or anything. But I was showing out and doing festivals and stuff like that. I really did well last year, but I feel like my name wasn't spreading very fast or very far. And I was kind of fighting for all the same art exhibits that every other artist around here are. I got sick of playing that game, I guess. I want to be an artist, not an agent and a delivery guy and you know, the pickup guy. You know, all of the rest of the jobs that go along with doing showing out for festivals and stuff. The sales guy which sits there the whole time, and I mean, like, none of that appeals. I just want to make art. I went to art school and I left art school because I was like, screw these rules. The first rule of art to me is that there are no frickin’ rules. Period, there is no other rules after that. I'm not interested in that whole process, I mean, I just want to be so busy painting and creating and shooting video and editing video and making music and doing all those other things.”

Anthamatten has lived the starving artist life, and while it was deeply satisfying in a lot of ways, he feels like he needs a new approach so he can live out the rest of his days simply creating art as he sees it.

“It's about self-expression for me. It's a constant pounding in my chest to try to get this stuff out of me, so there's no sense of release in taxes or business aspects. None of that feels like expression.”

Anthamaaten’s expression is so much more than just a picture on canvas or wood, his art comes with a whole story line and narrative. You’ll quickly realize that he’s also a storyteller, and that he can paint a picture with his words as easily as he can with his paintbrush.

“First and foremost, I always paint from some sort of narrative. So, everything has a storyline. I don't really do any art that I don't feel like doing. Ultimately, I think that I have a reputation in town for being a native inspired artist. But all of this native stuff is from a storyline I call ‘Future Indigenous’. It imagines the Native Americans 1000 years from now, after this civilization has crashed and burned, tribalism springs up again. So, you'll notice that they're using bones and feathers and tattooing and all that kind of stuff, but they're also using our gears and our bolts and our pretty little metal objects that would stand the test of time. They're mixing our metalworks into their innate, human tribalistic roots and rituals”

The studio is definitely peppered with art that is inspired by this storyline, from the various dreamcatchers that hang from the ceiling to the native headdress wearing skulls, to one of the most prominent pieces, called the Victorious Chief.

“She's the chief. I imagine that world being so similar in so many ways, but completely upside down in others. If you look through history, you can see that we probably had a global civilization before. In my opinion, we had a global civilization before and they came under some sort of capitalism. You see all these tribes springing up all over the world, and they all do these very similar things, like tattoos, the use of feathers and bones, or leather and all that kind of stuff worldwide. They all did it. So, it's either innate, or it is residual from that culture. And that culture was so widespread that it affected everything. So, I imagined that stuff happening again, but in this version of that story, there’s an emphasis on the female and not the male. It's not about inequality. It's about the emphasis. I think humans have a tendency to swing so far one direction, you know, because it's like in order for women to be on top now, the men almost have to go all the way to the floor. You know, and that sucks, but that's part of that process.”

Looking around at all of the paintings and creations that live inside the studio, you will actually see entire worlds that live within a single painting, or a character that repeats throughout several paintings. Such as the piece called Iron Mouth and the Good Dr. Monroe.

“This guy is a mid-18th century plantation owner, rich as all get out. He grows tobacco and has a huge amount of slaves. He gets caught up in an uprising and his head slave murders him. So, he gets sent to hell and in that universe hell holds you there based on your sins on earth. Because he had destroyed everybody with his tobacco, and he built this world on the back of everybody else, in hell he can’t breathe oxygen. He was stuck in hell and he can only breathe you know, like exhaust types of fuel and those gases. He meets this 1980s author and scholar who is a suicide, stuck in his head. So, in hell he is nothing but a skull and a spine. He can communicate and that's about the best he can do. And so, he says, ‘Hey, listen, I can help you build the apparatus to get out of here, but you got to take me with you.’ I want it to be a graphic novel and a series of comic books. The graphic novel will tell that story of how they both live their lives,” he said looking up at the larger than life paintings.

Motioning to the painting of the woman next to Metal Mouth, he says, “I’m still developing bits and pieces of the story for her, but they all find each other and they all die for their own reasons, and they all have to find ways to escape them. This guy is more or less evil. Like, he doesn't mean to be. He’s kind and sweet, because he's a family man and all that shit, but his priorities are just fucking jacked. You know what I mean? He's always making all the wrong decisions, and then this scholar guy is so caught up in himself that he's not a voice of reason. And so, she is the voice of reason.”

“But she's based on a character that has no nose, and you'll see that I paint her a lot. The concept with her is, you can have all the technology in the world, they won’t give you any foresight if you have no nose for it. You know what I mean? She's meant to be kind of dumb, but she ultimately is always the voice of reason, and of course, good. There's this triangle of emotional things that are happening. They would basically live their lives through the graphic novel, die, beat and escape hell in that story, and then I'm going to do graphic or comic books after that for whatever adventures they get into.”

Anthamatten is definitely a renaissance man of many talents. He writes, he paints, he makes videos, he makes music, he creates photography, he creates worlds. You can literally feel the energy coming off of him in waves as he animatedly tells the stories of his paintings, his passion shows through in his authenticity and vulnerability. He never stops moving, going a mile a minute, his stories only interrupted by his affable laugh, which gives him a youthful quality. You can tell he has so much to say, so much to express and get out, and only so many ways to do it. Yet he utilizes them all.

“The only thing that's not really based on narrative is my photography. I just photograph whatever happens. And I don't consider myself a photographer of any standard because people go to school to be a photographer, people go to school to learn those cameras inside and out. I didn't do that. And frankly, I can use the camera, not to the standard of a photographer, but the best of my work comes out of freaking a cell phone because as long as I get a high-quality resolution, the rest of whatever happens for me happens in editing. Because even if I want the background blurry, I can create all that. I can take a really raw photo and I make the rest of it happen. I guess that's part of also why I don't feel like a photographer because I'm actually more of a graphic editor than a photographer. It's just if you give me a cool picture, I’ll make it way cooler, or at least artsy.”

Anthamatten’s studio is a work in progress, ever changing as he goes. You’ll see knickknacks and treasures hidden in corners, dried flowers hanging from the ceiling, and pieces of wood among piles of sawdust. He has a term for the frames he builds and creates himself, trash deco. There’s a razor thin line between trash and treasure, and he likes to tightrope walk down it. Anthamatten also creates time lapse videos of his processes, artistic displays of him creating art set to music, which are delightful and engaging. In fact if you follow his Facebook account he quite regularly posts delightful windows into his strange little world. He writes poetry, snaps photos, goes on adventures, and shows videos of him creating.

Anthamatten’s also got a fun scavenger hunt type art drop that he does in connection with the First Friday in the Arts District. He creates a set of 4 pieces of art, and leaves them with a poem that instructs the finder to take the art, placing them in different corners of the arts district. He leaves clues on his FB page, and it’s a serendipitous way for him to spread the love with his art.

He’s left 12 pieces now, and finds it  both fulfilling and a way to combat a need to control where the art goes. One of his pieces was found by a 13-year-old inspiring artist on her birthday, and her mother reached out to let him know. That in itself is enough for the time and effort it takes to carry out his art drop. To him, knowing he was able to reach that one person in an inspiring way makes it all worth it.

“It's not about notoriety but if I can reach that many people, you know…. because part of this for me is, I've been struggling with depression and fucking crap anxiety, just not doing well for a long freakin’ time. It was devastating my life. And, I, like so many other people with mental illness was just being like, ‘well, you can't just turn it off, can’t just switch it off, blah blah blah’, and nothing's working and it's like the whole thing is just a fucking excuse to be an asshole. So I did that all the way to the frickin’ bedrock until my life was devastated. So, there's a part of me that wants to spread that message to people. If you want to not be sad, stop being sad. You got to do something about it, get to work, build something out of yourself. Because truthfully, that's where you're going to find your self-value is in building something, whatever it is, whatever your passion is. I think more than anything because of my philosophical beliefs and the path that I'm on, I feel some sense of duty to spread that message. Because no doctors, no pills, none of that shit is going to help you if you don’t help yourself. Your family can't tell you, your friends can’t tell you, you just have to make the damn decision. You gotta figure out what's the breaking point. Where do I stop doing this? I was just as bad off as anybody, I AM just as bad off as anybody, but in the process of it, I grow and I become more because I keep trying to add these pieces to it to try to get to the other side of that anxiety, that frozen non start. I want to create something with all that energy instead of paralysis,” said Anthamatten.

“I hid my darkness for years, because I mean, I played metal bands and I dressed dark, but I hid how dark it was in here for a long time. And you know, it's not dark in a vicious way, but I hid that from people for a long time. I don't think the world truly appreciated me because I was a facade, you know, and I wasn't being who I was. So, these past few years I've just started letting that out, letting my darkness out, the thing that I was afraid that the standard cultural construct would shun. I'm too tired to sustain that shit every day. Now there's still stuff lurking in the shadows that probably hasn’t come out yet. That will come out on the canvas as time goes on. I like metaphor, so I hide something really dark and fucked up under something completely different, dark and fucked up. I let people deal with this aspect even though I know it’s really this, which may not even be as bad as that, but it feels that way so it's nice because I can be transparent without being direct,” he said.

As if all of those things he’s up to weren’t enough to keep him busy, Anthamatten is also in a band which will soon be going to Nashville to record. He plays guitar and sings, a mixture of blues, southern rock and country, in a funky melting pot of sounds and styles. The name of the band is Seamus, after Anthamatten’s ridiculously cute Yorkie.

When asked why he wanted to name the band after his dog, he said that was as country music of a thing as you could do, which to him was a funny way to go about it all. They plan on hitting the Tulsa music scene soon, so stay tuned. And while he once wanted to get as far away as possible from Tulsa, now Anthamatten is more than happy to call it home once again.

Be sure to check out Anthamatten’s Facebook pages for more information and entertainment. Also make plans to go check out his studio and pick up a piece of art. He has pieces ranging in various prices and tries to make sure he has stock on hand in all affordable ranges. Just the trip into his strange little wonderland of art is worth it, and if you are lucky enough to catch him there and get him to tell you the stories of his paintings, you are in for a treat for sure.