Lawrence.com

The dreadlocked girl behind the counter at Henry's coffee shop is sweet as a double-shot vanilla latte with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkle of chocolate powder.

Andiy Sullivan also happens to be an artist.

That means she's an observer. Always watching, remembering, making notes from behind the espresso machine. She sketches the peculiar folks she meets - chance encounters, as well as certifiable "townies" of the eccentric order. They become the quirky caricatures of her artwork, complete with quotes and identifying characteristics.

Thing is, they don't know it.

They don't know their Sullivan-ized likenesses are tucked away in a drawing pad somewhere, waiting to blossom into colorful paintings and - just maybe - hang in the public restroom at Henry's.

That's where "Bill the Pill" currently is exalted in acrylic paint. Sullivan won't reveal the identity of the subject, who was among the first of her clandestine sketches to become fully realized works of art. Because, while Sullivan's inspirations exist in a public forum, her artistic process is a private one. And she worries that her motives might be misunderstood.

"I'm covert about it because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings," Sullivan says. "I don't do it out of spite or to be mean. I just find these amazing traits they have. They have great character, and these things they do need to be pointed out - because they're hilarious."

The 21-year-old says she views many of her day-to-day interactions working at Henry's or her former employer, Sugartown Traders, through a satirical lens: "It's like Saturday Night Live - but all day, every day."

Sullivan says she finds both beauty and horror in the idiosyncrasies she highlights. "Bill the Pill," for example, includes lists of the subject's likes and dislikes, as well as details on several of his personal belongings - all nods to the hyper-confessional chats he had with Sullivan on a daily basis for months at a time.

"I was captivated by his personality - and slightly annoyed at times," she says. "I was intrigued by his ability to talk to people - he's very social. But the flip side is maybe not knowing when not to approach someone, or sharing too much information in five minutes."

Sullivan says the painting's positive feedback during last year's Red Balloon To-Do art exhibition inspired her to continue with similar townie portraits. Meanwhile, the piece hangs in the dim Henry's bathroom. Sullivan says she is sure that "the Pill" himself has seen it, though he hasn't mentioned it to her. Any chance he didn't recognize himself, what with the crazy mouth and decidedly vaginal elbow?

"I think it looks identical to him," Sullivan says. But while she aims to keep physical features very similar to her subjects', she admits that her "personal flair" often adds a grotesque element to the human body.

"I've been trying to get more into realistic paintings, but they always end up kind of silly," says Sullivan, who also has directed her less-than-flattering style at herself, in the form of a self-portrait.

"I like to draw women with very unappealing, uneven-sized breasts. And give men a little package, or women a little camel-toe. It really cracks me up - enlarged elbows, added weight, some rolls around the middle. I like to make them pretty and ugly and the same time."

Unwitting muses

It's those cartoonish, misshapen representations that drew Lawrence resident Ailecia Ruscin to Sullivan's art. But it's the stories behind them that kept her interested. Ruscin bought some of Sullivan's work during the artist's two shows at Henry's Upstairs, both of which resulted in all 20-some pieces being sold. Ruscin describes with amusement the pair of Sullivan paintings she owns.

One painting features a young woman attempting to cover her naked breasts while exclaiming, "Oh my God, Debbie, I didn't know you were standing right there!" The painting is based on a scene Sullivan witnessed while working at Sugartown - a girl peeked over the fitting room curtain to see her friend, who then was embarrassed by her own nudity.

The other shows a young, Paris Hilton-esque woman whose arms are morbidly stretched to the ground by a heavy bracelet and a credit card. The quote: "Daddy, my arms hurt."

Ruscin, who teaches in KU's women's studies department, speculates that the painting was informed by Sullivan's working downtown for a low wage while watching wealthier young women exist within the same scene. Ruscin wonders whether Sullivan's secretive approach is, in some cases, a sly retaliation against what she experiences as personal affronts.

"Andiy herself is a part of the downtown scene, so she's probably self-reflective of her role there," Ruscin says. "As a cute girl who works downtown, she has to put up with a lot of crap. I think it's really great she does these paintings, because then the situation is reversed. It's like she's saying, 'If I'm gonna work in public and you have the right to harass me, then I have the right to paint you.'"

When portraits go public

Lawrence-based muralist Dave Loewenstein knows all about public-square-based art. As a graduate student at Grinnell College in the 1980s, one of his creations almost landed him in jail. Reacting to the university president's controversial comments about the "type" of people who contract AIDS, Loewenstein imposed a photo of the leader's head onto a fat, naked body and invited other students to write on the artwork. Loewenstein was accused of defamation, but evaded prosecution with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"It was freedom of speech," Loewenstein says. "He was a public figure, and I had the right to comment on him."

Photo Gallery

Portraits by Andiy Sullivan

Loewenstein says the example is an extreme one, and that a "public" persona is not always so easy to define. But he upholds a similar ethic of freedom in all his art. In a recent series of portraits, one subject was not happy with the results, but Loewenstein says he has "been an artist too long for it to matter."

"She said, 'It's a good painting, but I don't like the way I look in it.' Whenever people are represented through painting or film or photography, our vanity and egos and idea of our self-image come into play. That's why it's interesting to be in that dialogue, both as an artist and as the subject."

One subject to enter that dialogue was Joel Mathis, a Lawrence journalist who shares Loewenstein's love of La Prima Tazza coffee.

"I get to drawing when I'm downtown, and Joel became one of the victims," Loewenstein says. "Since it was a favorable likeness, I showed him right away. But had he not liked it, I still would've shown it in public. If I was commenting on the person's character, or if it was more of a caricature, I might think about it, though."

The portrait has hung at La Prima Tazza and other venues around town, resulting in a few embarrassing moments for Mathis.

"Somebody will walk up to me and say, 'Hey, I saw your face at the bank,'" says Mathis, who works at the Lawrence Journal-World and writes a blog on lawrence.com. Despite the extra attention and some disagreement over the portrait's "square jaw and fierce brow," Mathis says the experience was cool.

"The thing I love about Lawrence is the artistic community. It was great to be able to participate in art in some fashion, even though I'm not an artist myself," he says.

Sullivan hopes her own subjects would be so enthusiastic.

"I'd like to think they'd consider it more of a compliment," she says. "But it's hard to know."