Olivia von der Lippe, Comm ’19, remembers the first time she saw her art on display at a local Barnes & Noble. She was six years old.
“I remember going to the store and being like, ‘This is so cool!’ That’s a core memory for me,” von der Lippe says.
There were a few other moments from childhood that showed hints of the accomplished artist von der Lippe would eventually become. Cat drawings that her mom turned into stationery. Afternoons spending the lunch hour in her high school’s art studio, learning to solder and make jewelry. Light-hearted pranks like turning the security cameras at John Hersey High School, which were shaped like eyeballs, into Despicable Me-style minions with a few creative additions.
During her time at Marquette, the campus community knew her best as the person who wrapped homemade scarves around the Father Marquette statue and laid colorful threads of yarn on random walls and trash cans, a practice affectionately known as yarn-bombing.
“I’m so fascinated by the idea of adding beauty to an everyday object,” von der Lippe says.
It should come as little surprise that von der Lippe’s time after Marquette starkly diverges from the 9-to-5 path many graduates pursue. While she is currently a content creator at KitchenAid, von der Lippe’s most meaningful work has happened when she does what she’s always done: find a new artistic interest in her free time and go all-in.
A FLORAL DRIVEWAY
One day during the COVID-19 pandemic, von der Lippe went home to the Chicago suburbs to visit her parents. She wasn’t there long before she made a request, one that would be odd for most people but entirely in character for her: Can I paint your driveway?
“The next day, my dad went to Home Depot with me and brought a three-gallon jug of white paint,” von der Lippe recalls. “My first design was just white flowers. I used a roller with a stick and did the designs with permanent paint and it lasted.”
The driveway instantly caught the attention of her parents’ neighbors.
“My parents met so many people who were just walking by that would say something about it. People started asking if I could do theirs. All of a sudden, I’ve done seven people’s driveways in the neighborhood, and eventually they started to have color. I did a lemon and strawberry design on one driveway because I had a fruit fixation. This year, we had the idea to use glow-in-the-dark paint, and that’s how I was able to do a lightning bug design,” von der Lippe says.
LIV A LITTLE ICE CREAM
A business that investors once valued at $1 million started with a Christmas present. Specifically, an ice cream machine. Some ice cream-making experiments — vegan so her friends with food allergies could partake — turned into Liv a Little Ice Cream. Winner of Marquette’s Brewed Ideas Challenge and a $7,500 grant from the university, von der Lippe’s ice cream obsession soon turned into a sensation.
“I graduated from college and suddenly I had all this time to dump into it,” von der Lippe says. “I invested in Milwaukee and Milwaukee invested in me and it was this really amazing relationship.”
The venture demanded a disciplined, entrepreneurial approach from the free-spirited von der Lippe. Space in an industrial kitchen needed to be reserved. Food inspections needed to be passed. Taxes had to be filed. When catering weddings and attending nonstop farmers’ markets grew to be too much of a time demand, von der Lippe quickly pivoted to making ice cream cakes.
Although Liv a Little is no longer active, von der Lippe contends that it got her every 9-to-5 job she’s ever had.
“I can’t believe how much I learned from that experience.”
DEXTER THE DACHSCHUND
While most of von der Lippe’s fixations change with the seasons — fiber arts in the winter, beading and painting in the summer — she’s always known that she wanted to illustrate a children’s book.
That opportunity came through a co-worker of her father’s, who quit her job to become an author. She remembered that von der Lippe had made a calendar for her as a holiday gift a few years prior, which led to a job offer: illustrator for a book called “Dexter the Dachshund,” named after her real-life dog.
“Drawing the same character consistently is really hard. How am I going to draw this dog the exact same way on all 30 pages? But it was an amazing challenge, a true bucket list item,” von der Lippe says.
That so many of von der Lippe’s breakthroughs come when she works on projects for either herself or close friends is not an accident.
“I don’t know what my response would have been if someone random reached out to me to illustrate their book, because this is already outside my comfort zone,” von der Lippe says. “But I trusted her, and that trust allowed me to pour myself into this. I cared about the person and the project, and I know they trusted me back.”
THE TOWN THROUGH HER EYES
A project two years in the making started in the dumpster.
“My friend found this really nice Pottery Barn canvas in a dumpster in a Chicago alley and asked me if I wanted it to paint on,” von der Lippe recalls.
That call intersected perfectly with another one of her compulsions: to paint all the places that she and her partner, Grant, liked to visit near their condo in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. It took a while, but the canvas steadily filled in over time. The park down the street took shape, then their favorite shaved ice shop, then an elevated train, until suddenly, the sharp ends of her pencils had produced a whole neighborhood.
“I loved adding the little details and textures; it’s such a whimsical piece,” von der Lippe says.
