Remembering beloved Phoenix artist Luisa Leon
For 100 consecutive days last year, Luisa Leon taught hundreds of people, many of whom she’d never met in real life, how to paint, free of charge.
Leon, a Camelback High School graduate who went by @azlotusart, shared stories about her life, introduced her online audience to her friends and family members and was “just being bubbly, being herself,” while connecting with her followers during nightly Instagram livestreams, her partner, Leon Klepin, said.
At around 9:30 p.m. every day from March through June, her followers — sometimes up to 200 of them — opened the Instagram app and followed along on their own canvases at home. They tuned in to not only hone their artistic skills but to “unwind and escape reality,” as one friend wrote, while the coronavirus pandemic raged outside their homes.
Every day featured a new subject, from butterflies to sushi rolls to mariachi bows, but she always gravitated toward blues and yellows. She painted because “we’re choosing to create and bring color to the darkness,” she wrote in one caption. “Art heals,” she wrote in another post, “and life is always better in color!”
On Aug. 28, many in Leon’s community learned that she had died at age 33 when the Latinx art collective she was a member of, Phoenix Fridas, paid tribute to her in an Instagram post.
“Luisa contributed so much artful and positive energy to the Phoenix Fridas. We are thankful to have spent these past few years with her,” the group wrote in a statement to The Arizona Republic. “From her nightly online painting classes to her soulful messages about blooming in your path, she left so many gifts for us to cherish.”
Luisa Leon was ‘a bright light of hope during a dark time’
In 2018, Luisa Leon left her full-time job at AZPRO Group, a large-format printing company, to spend more time with her daughter, Mariely, and follow her dreams of being a full-time artist.
“She took that leap of faith in herself,” said Klepin, who is lovingly known within her online community as “el novio,” which is Spanish for “boyfriend.”
The two met at work a number of years ago, but he isn’t sure when they first crossed paths, exactly. What he does know is “we have one of those relationships that it felt like it’s been a lifetime.”
Once Leon committed to being a full-time artist and instructor, she started face painting at events and also hosted paint parties.
“She wanted to offer her service to people. She didn’t want to just sell paintings,” Klepin said.
He told The Republic that Leon had started #paintingliveswithluisa on Instagram due to “struggling with quarantining and being at home so much.”
“She was a bright light of hope during a dark time of uncertainty. She shared more than just teaching people how to create art step by step,” said Lizette Guzman, who tuned in from California despite never having met Leon in person.
“She gave us good laughs and opened about her personal life like growing up in a circus, her mini daughter, and her very supportive ‘novio’ boyfriend. She also let us, her students, connect and build relationships with one another. She connected people during a social distance time,” Guzman said.
‘She was everybody’s hype girl’
Since Leon’s death, Klepin has been receiving messages from the community she built over the last several years.
“I just never realized the legacy that she left. And that community has shown me, personally, so much love and support,” he said. “She said she was everybody’s hype girl. She would push me, and she would push everybody, to be the better them.”
Leon’s legacy lives on in Phoenix’s public art. Two of her murals, “Conscience” and “Vida,” can be seen outside Fair Trade Café — which was “her second home,” according to Klepin — and Luna Culture Lab, respectively, downtown.
June marked Leon’s three-year anniversary of forging her own path as an artist — a milestone she celebrated at Fair Trade Café. In fact, the courtyard of the downtown Phoenix café is where Klepin said she experienced “one of her happiest moments” when she met actor America Ferrera.
Last October, Ferrera had stopped there for a “Latinas Make a Difference” tour, and the two posed for a photo together in front of “Conscience,” which Leon had explained was about intentionality and interconnectedness. It also pays homage to the workers and land that are the source of the coffee served inside the shop.
Leon was one of Fair Trade Café owner Stephanie Vasquez’s closest friends. They also worked together through Mujeres Mercado, a market for Latina business owners and creatives. When Ferrera learned the news of Leon’s death, she sent her condolences, Vasquez said.