Mike Little is by no means small. As he towers over the table in front of him, his right hand holds a can of spray paint. The painting he just started will be complete in less than an hour.
Little, a 37-year-old Phoenix native, has been painting for nearly 13 years.
“My brother Steve got me into art because I was the musician inside the House Studios at 810 on Fourth Street,” Little said. “I was just playing music and living with all of these artists in this artist commune, watching them paint.”
Living with artists inspired him to quit his day job and invest his time in art, something he learned to find value in, Little said. He developed his own style, creating pieces that combined bright colors with unusual subjects.
“One time when I was painting this gigantic werewolf-looking thing and I was eating a Whopper. I took a tomato off of the Whopper and threw it at the painting,” Little said. “I just polyurethaned it over the piece and it was done. I sold it for $3,000.”
Although painting has become Little’s profession, it’s not just his artwork that’s earned him a following in Phoenix.
“Mike Little is just omniscient. He can do anything, he can fix anything,” said Tara Logsdon, a fellow artist and friend of Little’s. “He’s just one of those people that everyone’s inspired by, everyone wants to be like.”
Logsdon met Little at the MonOrchid in Phoenix in 2002. When she arrived he was sleeping on a couch in the studio, she said.
“He woke up and started making breakfast for everyone,” Logsdon said.
After their first meeting, she and Little became close friends.
“I’m pretty sure he’s either part alien or he’s been reincarnated many times,” she said. “He’s the most magical person I know.”
When he’s not painting, Little can be found fixing things around the house. He learned how to fix cars after working in a shop with his father, he said.
Little also plays table tennis and goes street sailing.
“I like to street sail, which is wind surfing with a skateboard on the street, basically,” Little said. “I almost got a ticket for speeding down Central Avenue.”
Jessie Dann, an ASU student living in downtown Phoenix, said she would not be able to function every day without Little.
“Mike has helped me do everything,” Dann said.
Dann met Little at another artist’s house in Phoenix her freshman year at ASU. After Little stopped a homeless man from stealing property in the street, he and Dann struck up a conversation and became close friends.
Over the next year, Little helped renovate the home she moved into in Phoenix’s Garfield Historic District, Dann said. Little helped fix parts of the home like the flooring and also added his own personal stamp.
For example, a parachute installed by Little stretches from the roof of the house to the roof of a back house in the backyard. Little’s neon paintings occupy entire walls in the home. On the porch, Little strung up hammocks to cover the balcony.
“I don’t know if (the house) affects the art or if my art affects the house. I feel more like a spider,” Little said. “I just break out with this web of Mike Little onto things.”
Dann said she considers Little her surrogate uncle.
“He taught me how to play ping-pong, paint a picture and really just think clearly,” Dann said. “Mike is a good guy, and he’s helped me in every way possible that a friend could.”
Little also plays music, a passion he has held his whole life, long before painting. He can play more than seven instruments — that’s not counting the ones he makes on his own.
“I consider music to be art but it’s a different form. It needs to be separated,” Little said.
Little has developed three albums over the past decade and plans to release them as a trio. His music is a style similar to post-rock, featuring rhythmic sounds and eerie vocals.
“As a performer, playing, singing is (a lot like) being naked in front of people and just revealing yourself as with art you can do whatever you want,” Little said. “There’s no such thing as a bad painter or a good painter. You’re either amateur or professional.”
Little’s artwork can be seen throughout Phoenix. One mural is across the front of the Lucky Strike bowling alley.
He has pulled out of galleries to stick to clientele, he said.
“I’ve been doing it for a living for about 13 years now,” Little said. “Sometimes I do pretty well. Sometimes I do pretty bad.”
Little plans to continue his eccentric lifestyle.
“There’s no place that I really want to be. I’m here because I like Phoenix,” Little said. “I was born down the street. I’ve been here my whole life. I love it here.”
Contact the reporter at tchawtho@asu.edu
