Last fall, Netflix subscribers who received a DVD in the mail got a visual treat when they tore into the mailing envelope: an illustration of a tiny monster sitting on the opened door of a mailbox, eating popcorn, and watching a movie being shown within said mailbox. Santa Barbara artist Cris Hamilton created the whimsical scenario for Netflix’s Design Our Fall Mailers contest; she was selected as the West Coast winner from a pool of thousands, and her beastie appeared inside the jackets from September through October 2016.
While Hamilton’s Netflix tiny monster may be the most famous of her creatures, she has many more in her portfolio. In fact, she has an entire children’s book, called Let’s, starring the wee monsters. Books are Hamilton’s specialty, and each one features charming characters — generally monsters or women — who make introspective and extremely refreshing observations, with a minimalistic or fantastical background. Though Hamilton’s artwork depicts an imaginary world governed by its own laws and logic, it is grounded in her real-world impressions of culture, scientific advances, and politics and aims to uplift and inform readers of all ages. I recently sat down with the artist, animator, and illustrator in her Santa Barbara home to discuss the inspirations behind her subject matter.
What made you gravitate toward monsters as subject matter? Well, it wasn’t necessarily a big, crazy love of monsters. My first one was just a curious creature, and people reacted really well to it, and they called it a monster … And of course now they look a little bit more like monsters. [Laughs.]