Breakout Artist Alyssa Moslander Sgro on Art, Creativity & Life

Music Matters with Darrell Craig Harris - Darrell Craig Harris

Alyssa Moslander Sgro shares her journey from a challenging upbringing in Las Vegas to becoming a breakthrough artist, blending personal history with creativity. Her art, influenced by music, trauma, and spirituality, is

Key takeaways

• Artistic success requires patience and persistence

Transcript preview

Welcome to Music Matters Podcasts with Darrell Craig Harris. Talking about all things music with celebrities, artists, music business insiders and more. Alyssa, Moslander Scro, how you doing today? Good, how are you? I am good. So we're here at your art studio. Yes. And sunny Las Vegas, it's very hot. Yes. And sunny Las Vegas. It's very hot. extremely hot. So we met because we have a mutual friend. Actually your husband Tony, who's a great attorney that we love. And I met you because of your artwork and kind of through that whole process of knowing Tony, you were showing up our gigs. Tony's also a musician. Yes. And I became pretty fascinated with your artwork and it's such an interesting story. Tell us a little about you where you grew up and how you got into art. Okay. Well, I was born in Northern California. I didn't grow up there necessarily my mom moved us to Las Vegas my sister and I when I was six so I grew up here she was a young mom so she really did her best but she was a bit of a bohemian so every year we went to a different school because she just felt we needed a change and you know so you don't get to make that many friends but I found like most kind of weirdo kids art in English the teachers were very nice and they took to me so I found early on that I had kind of an affinity for art and I was good at it. So I just kind of stuck with it and it never when you grow poor art never seems like a viable career you know it's always like you love it but come on you're never gonna get to do that. But I just I just kind of felt like there wasn't any other way I did go to school after I dropped out of high school and got my my my GED and then I went into college and I thought oh maybe I really love journalism anthropology which also you're never gonna make any money doing that either so I kind of ended up going to college and then deciding to go to art school after that and I was studying for I was studying for I was studying for photography I wanted to be you know the next helmet Newton but I didn't think that was ever going to happen either I was obsessed with Sandy Sherman and she kind of incorporated the painting into the photography and that's where I first got the idea that you know maybe I can start painting a little bit more and started doing that and completely fell in love with the medium so I kind of stuck with it for the last about 10 years now. You mentioned to me before you grew up in a little small town of the sort of Central Valley California. You had kind of mentioned your era your grandparents and that was kind of an eclectic. because that kind of led into your story with your mom. Yes, yes. So, you know, famously my mom would say that my great grandparents drove over the border to have my grandma so she could be an American. So she was born in a town right over the San Diego, Mexico border. So she was born there, so we are a Mexican-American. I'm a third generation now. But they were, you know, they were hippies. My grandma was a hairdresser. So, we are and her husband got into selling drugs and just kind of hanging out which you know they were fun but they fried their brain early on and you know my mom kind of had to raise herself so she left kind of a better life for you oh yeah yeah she left home when she was 14 you know before I was born obviously and she still was in bedesto met my dad they had me when she was pregnant when she was 18 and had me when she was 19 and then a year and a half later got pregnant with my sister. So yeah, so actually having that background it's kind of a little bit of adversity but it kind of really helped form you and maybe probably in a way maybe it inspired some of your art you think? Oh 100% yeah I mean first of all you can't grow up poor without an imagination you know we didn't have cables so all I had was I think I had a choreography video and a VHS of Michael Jackson's music videos and then whatever PBS played so you know you kind of sit with the programming and you just hang out by yourself and you invent games with your sister while my mom worked at a ton she had a lot of different jobs and then when we moved to Las Vegas she was you know young and hot so she did young hot Las Vegas jobs and which is mostly at night so my sister and I were by ourselves. Yeah yeah but it wasn't it wasn't terrible. So we did that and then, sorry what was the question? That's okay. Well actually, I mean growing up in Las Vegas, yeah, it's crazy, right? It's insane, it's about as bad and as good as you can imagine. I think I'm a little bit naive and like slow when it comes to picking up on nuance or on kind of like adult being an adult. I was always a little bit of a late bloomer, so maybe Las Vegas helps me. along in that way because you're just so you're so introduced to like sex at a very early age you know I remember everything's here I remember seeing you know the crazy girls billboard every day on the way to school and you know it was just 12 asses lined up and then it ended up being you know one of my friends that was his mom and then right exactly so yeah and then my you know my mom was married she married when I was, I don't know, eight or something, to a boxing coach and he had a gym on the, like near the strip. So my sister and I would just walk up and down like the bad side of the strip to get snacks and... And you're just living life, you're not really thinking. Yeah, I mean, you're saying, yeah, you're saying... We shouldn't be walking down the street. You're saying hi to the nice women who ended up, now I know are prostitutes. and so all of that when you're a kid you don't know did you're like oh yeah everyone does this and then you grow up and you realize nobody does yeah and I mean like you mentioned too like it does kind of come into your art now when did you first like start actually painting when did that first happen gosh I did it just obviously as a hobby I noticed I knew when I was in third grade that I was good at it just art teacher, shout out Mr. Dartmouth, which is funny because I was like, oh, Dartmouth, man. But he was the first person who told me I was good. And I was like, that really, you know, people tell you're good at stuff and you kind of, you brush it off. But that one I think I knew was true. So I realized that I had a sense of color and that I could kind of stick with a painting thing. And I did it as a hobby on and off until I was about 19 and I started taking it actually people I mean they may or may not realize this but it's actually kind of an expensive endeavor. Oh my God yeah I haven't made a dollar it goes every painting that gets purchased goes immediately back into supplies and stretching it and you know yeah it's