Today we’d like to introduce you to Alfredo Andrade.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Alfredo. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am a creative from Corona, CA where I grew up most of my life. I joined the military as a personal legal administrator after high school and then moved to the Arts District in downtown LA after my service to pursue my career and find myself as an artist. Upon moving to Los Angeles, I was introduced to a mutual friend named David LaChapelle. David took me under his wing and I became part of his small team, assisting him at the studio, driving him everywhere, and even training him at the gym. We were spending everyday together so I eventually began living with him in Hollywood. I looked at him as my mentor and sort of like a father figure of mine since I never grew up with a father myself. Because of him, I was able to get my foot in the door and meet a lot of people who I am still close with till this day. I was attending Santa Monica College at the time, studying film and fine arts, but I dropped out after a year and committed all my time to working with David. I learned a lot about the industry in LA, and he taught me a lot about myself, helping me narrow down exactly what I wanted to pursue in my life.
Now I work a lot from home, painting commissions, murals, and designing masks/clothes. Around 2018 I started my website lowercaseghost.com and designed my first face mask. Then I got into making full balaclavas. I was selling my masks specifically to other artists and musicians who would use my masks for photoshoots and music videos. It wasn’t until early 2020 when COVID-19 happened that I started getting more recognition for my masks since I had been making them prior already. I consider myself as one of the first artists in LA to specialize in making face masks and balaclavas because I didn’t know anyone else doing that until COVID-19 happened. Then it seemed everyone was hopping on the masks trend. I am focused now on creating masks and balaclavas for daily use and for more practical reasons so that they can become a norm in our society; not only as a fashion accessory but as a necessity.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Obstacles and challenges have always been relevant in my life, and if anything have only really just begun. It’s a struggle everyday for me simply getting out of bed and starting my day. I challenge myself everyday to learn something new, not only about myself but also about the world around me. I feel like the road is always going to be bumpy, for we are constantly finding ourselves and that alone is a life long struggle. I’m grateful that I have found something that I love and makes me happy. Any setbacks I encounter become part of this bumpy road called life, subsequently taking me exactly to where I need to be.
Lowercaseghost – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I take pride in being one of the first artists in my area to be producing face masks and balaclavas in 2018, way before COVID-19 became a global pandemic. I have had a lot of people sending me messages asking how I knew about this ahead of time, and that makes me laugh haha! I originally started making masks because I was not ok with how invasive facial recognition was becoming in places like Asia where you couldn’t even cross the street without getting a ticket in the mail for jaywalking. It had nothing to do with the Coronavirus, but more so to do with trying to create masks that people would feel comfortable wearing out on a daily basis. Almost like an alternate identity for people, similar to face tattoos and dying your hair a crazy color or something. I want it to be normal, not weird. I think that’s what sets me apart from everyone else.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
My proudest moment so far was getting recognition from Alastair Mkimm, creative director of I-D magazine, when he highlighted one of my flower masks I created on his Instagram. Then next to that would be when the gallery Art Share LA chose to showcase two of my masks for two months. Other than that, I’m very proud of everything I’ve done so far and I remind myself that it’s only just the beginning.
Pricing:
- I sell my masks for $100 each
Contact Info:
- Website: lowercaseghost.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @lowercaseghost
Image Credit:
Nina Koyfman, Pierce Gabriel, Carlito Redmond
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