Meet Lauren Rae Holtermann | Illustrator & Designer, Creator of Monster Market

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lauren Rae Holtermann and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lauren Rae, every day, we talk about how much execution matters, but we think ideas matter as well. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I’ve always had a couple of side-projects burning at time— freelance gigs, commissions, collaborations with friends. I love exploring interests and I love building things from scratch. In college, I found a handful of artists with similar ambitions, and we started a group called Rozelle Artists Guild— named after the street where we found and fell in love with an abandoned warehouse. We spent several years rehabbing this dilapidated building into communal art studios where we’d host all-night creative sessions and live music shows. We also hosted events around town— themed group exhibitions at local galleries like Marshall Arts, live collaborative murals like at the Brooks Museum’s screening of Beautiful Losers, and immersive art experiences, like the meta-studio party we hosted at Roy Tamboli’s sculpture studio that featured projections of video interviews we conducted with a dozen Memphis-based artists in their own respective studios.

The Guild was a big part of my journey. It inspired me to explore, experiment, and try new things creatively— but it also provided an outlet for me to learn how to plan, organize, and execute in a leadership role: how to communicate with a team, how to collaborate with artists and businesses, how to take an idea for a feeling or an experience and actually bring it to life! Rozelle naturally dissolved in the 2010s as we all graduated and found our respective careers and paths into the world, but those experiences stayed with me.

Fast forward years later, and I’d found my own foothold as a UX designer in the tech industry. This was a big change for me at the time job-wise, but the main effect this had on my life was stability. After years of burning the candle at both ends with part-time design jobs and freelance projects for other people, I settled into a calmer lifestyle where I was able to take care of myself physically and mentally for the first time ever. A steady salary income allowed me to turn down side projects that had kept me constantly overcommitted, access to health insurance allowed me to seek out physical therapy for my chronic back pain, and most exciting— I had spare time to work on my own personal art projects, at my own pace.

I spent the next year or so using that spare time to build my personal brand, Holtermonster, creating a collection of art items and novelties I was really proud of: stickers, prints, pins, and tees with my illustrated monsters and type treatments. I also began creating posters pro bono for the Time Warp Drive-In, a series of themed movie nights at our historic drive-in theatre programmed by local cult video store Black Lodge.

Soon enough, I was popping up Holtermonster booths at art events and vendor markets all over town selling my wares. I quickly learned several key things: Firstly, I confirmed I did have an audience out there! I met all kinds of folks who loved my work and my style, and that was very validating. Secondly, I discovered how much people love to shop in person! There are huge perks to in-person shopping—the urgency of a limited time offer, getting to handle an item before you buy it, the connection of talking to the person who created it—and I found I could tip the scales in my favor with thoughtful packaging, cohesive branding, and really considering the booth space as its own mini-experience. Thirdly, I realized I kinda hated setting up booths—especially in the heat, and especially when I didn’t make any money. It was thrilling to have a good sale day at a market, but equally as crushing to have a bad sale day. I realized just how many factors there were for success, and felt discouraged that I couldn’t control more of them.

At the time, I felt like there wasn’t really a market opportunity in Memphis that catered to makers like me. There were ways to vend all over town and all sorts of events, but really only a handful that were art-specific, even fewer that were curated, and none for dark, weird, alternative sorts of makers. So that’s really where the idea came from! My partner Matthew, who of course helped me at every vendor market I ever did, made the innocent suggestion, “Why don’t you start your own?”

And so began Monster Market!— my annual pop-up shop that carries a curated collection of weird, dark, strange, offbeat art and home decor created by a roster of mostly Memphis-based makers, for a limited time each October. Years removed from Rozelle Artists Guild, I was able to call back on so many old skills, artist friends, and connections in the arts community to pull together an immersive, but decidedly strange shopping experience. I’ve let my experiences as a maker and vendor myself shape my decisions for how to run the business ever since.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Monster Market is an annual freaky pop-up shop in October! Each year, we carry a new curated collection of dark art, weird apparel, strange home decor, and other fun stuff from a special roster of makers, artists, and small independent brands. Some makers return each year with new wares, but we also add new makers every season. We then thoughtfully categorize all of these wares into an immersive retail experience, either in-person (There Will Be Yellow Fur) or in recent years, online!

Monster Market is different from other vendor markets firstly because we truly try to be! This project was born out of the need for a place for makers like us. The shop aesthetic is an evolving mix of goth, sci-fi nerd, horror enthusiast and weird artsy kid. Monster Market’s distinct collection also depends a lot on curation—we not only curate the makers we carry, but the items as well, which lets us set the bar high for quality, reduce competition between our own makers, and generally make sure we have a well-rounded catalog each year with something for every type of weirdo.

One other major thing that sets apart Monster Market is something that came about organically over time— the concept of a “Monster Market Exclusive”, which are specialty items from makers that you can only get through us! This encourages some makers to experiment in darker themes than usual. For example, Pretty Useful Co. already create these very beautiful screenprint posters with imagery about coffee, cocktails, or the tarot, but their Exclusive item this past year was a gorgeous illustrated print celebrating Dani of Ari Aster’s horror Midsommar. The work is still very on brand for them, and genuine to their interests, but maybe Monster Market gave them a nudge to pull the trigger on it.

Since we first began in 2017, we would find a different empty storefront in Memphis each year, and transform it into a yellow, fur-covered novelty shop of weird art for the month of October. This model was super fun, but exhausting! We did it this way for three years, until 2020 hit. By then, we’d become a staple in many local maker’s yearly market schedule, so instead of being another event canceled by COVID, we found a way to pivot to an online pop-up! Still just open for the month of October, we created a virtual storefront instead and have mailed out a few thousand orders over our 3 years online.

Switching to a virtual format brought tons of challenges— learning how to take product photos, building a web store, managing inventory, figuring out shipping rates… Surprisingly, one of the most difficult parts of online order fulfillment was figuring out all of the different box and package sizes we should have on-hand. But it also brought me as a business owner quite a bit more freedom. Building an online store was a more natural fit for my abilities than working behind a retail counter ever was, and I was able to tend to the business at odd hours like a freelance project. However, after a few years in the online fulfillment game, I can say it brings its own set of challenges.

My true intentions behind starting Monster Market (other than creating a really awesome market experience for myself and creative people like me) was to bring us together—a community of weirdo-makers. That elusive communal feeling has been harder to capture with a virtual market, so this past October, we tried our first “hybrid” year— we launched our annual month-long online shop like we’ve done since 2020, but we added an in-person Kick-Off Party! The event included an info wall telling our story, a framed art show of prints from our 2022 collection framed by local frame shop The Frame Corner, and a Mini-Mart with original soft sculptures, art prints, ceramic pieces, one-of-a-kind jackets, short-run t-shirts— just a fraction of our 2022 collection! We were absolutely overwhelmed with the response from the Memphis community. It really reinvigorated my spirit for this endeavor, and reminded me that this project means a lot to others, too.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I am a lifelong Memphian and I love showing off my city! I’d take a newbie to do all kinds of stuff—
• Tour local recording studios—both historic like Stax and Sun, and new-school like Hi-Low and Young Avenue Sound
• Explore Overton Park by taking a walk through Overton Forest, checking out a modern art exhibition at the Brooks Museum, and seeing a live music show picnic-style at the Levitt Shell
• Check out whatever weird marathon movie night or themed event is going on at Black Lodge Video for something odd to do!
• Visit the Malco Summer Drive-In on a Time Warp Drive-In night and take in a throwback double feature, with the absolute coolest vintage-style concession stand
• Do an all-day food tour of Summer Avenue featuring some of the best food you’ve ever tasted (must-try: tacos from Taconganas, paletas from La Michoacana, pulled pork from TOPS, and brisket from Elwood’s Shack!)
• Visit shops and bars on Beale Street during the day, followed by a Grizzlies game at the FedEx Forum
• Walk the Big River Crossing pedestrian bridge over the Mississippi River, along the banks in Martyr’s Park, or explore Mud Island on foot for awesome views of the water
• Spend the day in Cooper-Young shopping at indie shops like Goner Records, 901 Comics, Cooper-Young Gallery and Gifts, and Burke’s Books— then head to the Hi-Tone Cafe for live music and late night smashburgers
• Explore some strange areas/structures— like the Crystal Shrine Grotto (man-made cave meets art installation filled with creepy biblical sculptures, entrance located in the middle of a cemetery), the Pyramid (a massive glass pyramid built on our riverbank housing the biggest Bass Pro Shop in the world), or Earnestine and Hazel’s (a cool downtown bar that was once a brothel, with LOTS of history)
• See art all over the city— check out the current exhibitions at the Brooks, Crosstown Arts, or Memphis Current, and tour murals around town by local artists like Birdcap, Kyle Tyler and Kong Wee!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I want to dedicate this shout-out to my closest loved ones who inspire and support me: my dad who has been an inspiration as a small business owner for most of my life, my mom who very greatly influenced my love of weird art, my brother Kiefer who is always willing to lend a hand, my partner Matthew who helps me plan and execute every step of the way, and my best friend Reagan who helps me bring Monster Market to life each year!

Website: http://holtermonster.com / http://memphismonstermarket.com

Instagram: @holtermonster / @monster.market

Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/holtermonster

Facebook: http://facebook.com/memphismonstermarket

Image Credits
Lauren Holtermann, Jamie Harmon