The Discovery of Anne Cha and the #GirlPower Movement

Artist Anne Cha created #GirlPower 

in March of 2013 to celebrate

International Women's Day.

Inspired by the classic Rosie the Riveter icon,

#GirlPower is dedicated to strong women everywhere.

And women across the globe have her embraced her!

As the creator of Art of the Pin-Up Girl, I am engaged in the social media world on a daily basis.  I attribute much of our success to the support of all of our friends and fans who have loved us from the beginning.  I have a deep passion for pin-up and it is amazing to see that I am a part of a greater community who all share this undying passion.  It is in this glorious space where I discovered Anne Cha.

You see, I follow many modern pin-up models and share them with our community.  The trend towards a classic, golden era styling and photography is exhilarating to me and resonates with our fans as well.  Jolee Blon' is one of those beauties who looks like a snapshot from days gone by and it was this portrait by Anne that first caught my eye!  As I delved into Anne's facebook page for the first time, I was mesmerized by her work and could see that she was a rare talent.  And then I saw #GirlPower and I shared it.  Here is my first share of the piece:

Now, my fans are the classiest, coolest people and they always interact with me, but this was a huge response to a share of any kind on my fledgling page - including famous people.  I knew right then, that this was something special.  I immediately reached out to Anne and asked her if she would be willing to partner with me, to release #GirlPower merchandise in the United States.  To my delight, she said yes and we began not only a business relationship, but a friendship - which I cherish.  Since then, we have been on a roller coaster of a ride I call:  Defending #GirlPower!

An Anne's authorized agent and manager, I filed the United States copyright for her piece and we began fielding requests for using the artwork, as well as trolling the net to find all the ways that people have embraced and shared her.  #GirlPower has gone viral and women all over the world have connected with the work and put their own spin on it.  

In fact, Anne has been able to discover over 100 women, across the world, who have had #GirlPower tattooed on their bodies.  They have shared their stories of struggle and survival with her and these women are truly inspiring and many of their stories are heartbreaking.

And then came the "Pink"!

Someone - to this day, we don't know who - rendered #GirlPower into a pink version with the tattoo changed to "Fight Like a Girl".  

This version - despite the poor quality - also went viral like crazy!

And this #fightlikeagirl version was changed and shared in a variety of ways - prompting Anne to render her own high quality version in pink to support the cause of breast cancer awareness.

On May 23rd at Pinned Miami, we released the first ever Anne Cha #GirlPower merchandise, offering prints, t-shirts (sponsored by Tatyana Boutique) and #GirlPower military-style dog tags.  In fact, for the finale of our concert show of Art of the Pin-Up Girl at Pinned, burlesque troupe The Assets, danced onstage wearing the #GirlPower t-shirts!

One woman even had #GirlPower tattooed on her arm on the spot at the Pinned Miami Festival at one the tattoo booths!

Now you can buy officially licensed #GirlPower merchandise on Art of the Pin-Up Girl's Etsy Shop!

So the sharing and viral activity has continued and #GirlPower has become an icon!

She has even brought out the big guns!  

A few weeks ago, celebrity Christina Milian shared #GirlPower to her 1.6 million fans on her Instagram.

Most people who share #GirlPower have no idea that Anne Cha is the artist.  It is true that when you create an icon like this, she belongs to the world and everyone calls her their own.  Please help us spread the word about Anne Cha and her fantastic art.  If you see her, tag Anne Cha and let people know that this artist is deserving of the recognition for creating this and many more beautiful works.  

In fact, her pin-ups just get better and better!

Several important licensing deals are in the works for #GirlPower 

and the "pink" merchandise will be on Etsy soon!  

Art of the Pin-Up Girl is your official source for 

#GirlPower merchandise and all purchases directly benefit the artist.  

#GirlPower is protected by US copyright 2014 and all rights are reserved.

Watch our Video Montage from Pinned Miami 2014!

The South Florida Premier of Art of the Pin-Up Girl at Pinned Miami

Art of the Pin-Up Girl was staged as a live concert on May 24, 2014 at Pinned Miami!

For those of you who have never been to a "Pin-Up Festival", it is a new and different experience.  There are classic cars, lots of photographers and pin-up girls everywhere.  Pinned Miami was an exciting mix of all of the elements of pin-up culture - and until you see it with your own eyes - you cannot imagine how much fun it really is!  

My partner-in-crime - Melissa Coleman (who also discovered her new career as the fabulous Bettie Page) - and I drove down Friday morning with all the trimmings in tow for our stylish booth.  We had all of our Art of the Pin-Up Girl promo materials, posters and sponsor swag, as well as our original merchandise created from Anne Cha's #GirlPower piece.  There were vendors there of all kinds, pin-up hair and make-up, clothes, bands, and even tattoo artists giving tattoos on the spot for anyone who wanted one!

Melissa Coleman (Bettie Page) and Sam Streich (Rosie the Riveter) showcase our fabulous finds 

at the Art of the Pin-Up Girl Booth.  Anne Cha's Girl Power pictured here on right.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday we worked the booth, selling t-shirts and dog tags with the iconic GirlPower image as part of an exclusive arrangement with Artist Anne Cha and sponsored by Tatyana Boutique.  The energy was electric and we made lots of new friends and all bonded heavily over our undying love of all things Pin-Up!  We even got to meet Celeste Guiliano in person!  She is a nationally known pin-up photographer whom we have been smitten with for years!!  She was signing her beautiful new book Keyhole Cuties that is a compilation of so many of her spectacular pin-ups.  She is the best in the business.

Sam, Celeste, Melissa, Lacey and Heather ~ after the show!

Saturday night was the show, so as the cast and band began to arrive, the ladies retired to hair and make-up which was done by Terribly Girly.  That is, all of us except for Melissa's Bettie, who had already worked the show floor, handing out postcards and promoting our show - and otherwise making people stop dead in their tracks with her uncanny resemblance to the real Bettie Page!  She even snapped a pic with a Marilyn Monroe.

Miss Olivia Jean as Marilyn and our own Melissa Coleman as Bettie Page

Popeye was photographed by the Sun Sentinel, who gave us a nice mention:

Pinned Miami pinup convention delivers retro vibe to Miami

And we were also #2 on the Miami News Times list:  

Pinned Miami: Eleven Things to Look Forward to at Miami's First Pin-Up Festival

Our cast was spectacular.  The ladies transformed themselves into the most beautiful Pin-Up Girls from every era of our show and were visually stunning!  I cannot say enough how proud I was of them.  Their energy and enthusiasm for the original material and the focus and positivity that they exuded was so inspiring and contagious.  Their sparkle and our fantastic (kick-ass) band made for a truly magical combination.

Left to right:  Melissa Coleman, Lacey Nikkinen, Ariel Amoure, Zoralys Calle and Sam Streich
Photo by SA Dawkins

Band Members:  Gregory "Popeye" Alexander (keyboards, harmonica, bass, band leader) , Dakota Dawkins (bass), Jerome Degey (guitar, bass), Tim Malbacher (drums), Angel Pagan (percussion), JT Tutino (saxophone, guitar), Johammie Romero (trumpet), David Bayardelle (trombone)

Photos by SA Dawkins

Alex J. Weir performs the finale "Pin-Up Bunnies".

Tallahassee-based burlesque troupe, The Assets, choreographed an original dance 

and performed in the finale, "Pin-Up Bunnies"

When showtime came, everyone looked amazing and we were so ready to share this piece with the audience.  As fate would have it, the band before us ran long and so we began our sound check at the time our show was supposed to start.  So the audience of about 400 people, actually sat and watched our sound check.  It was strange and uncomfortable at first - but it seemed to melt all of our nervousness away and everyone was able to deliver a really great show!  

Melissa Coleman as Bettie Page

Photo by SA Dawkins

There is nothing like the feeling of seeing this original work come to the light and be so well received by the audience.  Numerous people came up to me after the show and the entire next day to say how much they loved it and how everyone was talking about it.  It just makes us all want to do it again!   So buckle up, Bettie, this train has left the station! 

Art of the Pin-Up Girl at Pinned Miami

was generously sponsored by

    

There will be more to tell of this adventure, so stay tuned and follow our Pinterest board for all the media related to our performance at Pinned!

Art of the Pin-Up Girl performs at Pinned Miami 2014

Art of the Pin-Up Girl.  Copyright 2014.  All rights reserved.

Anne Cha's "Girl Power" is also protected under United States Copyright 2014.  All rights reserved.

Have You Heard the News?

It's Official! Art of the Pin-Up Girl will present a concert version of the show at 

Pinned Miami! Hope you can join us on May 24th in Miami!

Art of the Pin-Up Girl: The Musical will premier at Pinned Miami: South Florida’s Pin Up Model, Photography, Culture, Art, Fashion, Tattoo, Rockabilly and Burlesque Festival, May 23-25, 2014 at The Miami Airport Convention Center!www.pinupfestival.com

PRESS RELEASE:

Pin-up girls − those iconic, perfectly proportioned beauties who have adorned magazine pages, posters, calendars and bedroom walls for more than a century – will come to life in a new musical set to premier in South Florida with concert staging in May.

The new show – Art of the Pin-Up Girl − is the culmination of a decade-long dream for Heather Storm, the Jupiter, Fla., based playwright, lyricist and singer/songwriter who has lovingly crafted the book and lyrics. The 15 original songs in the musical were composed by Gregory “Popeye” Alexander, Storm’s husband and a well-known South Florida composer, producer, singer and radio personality. Musical contributions and production of the soundtrack was provided by Alex J. Weir at Dreamhouse Studios, West Palm Beach, FL.

For the first time in South Florida, Art of the Pin-Up Girl will be presented in a concert format, highlighting 10 of the original songs with a historical and visual narrative by the playwright. The event will feature a live band, known as Popeye & the Pin-Ups, and performers from the South Florida area will bring the classic pin-ups to life onstage.

Art of the Pin-Up Girl tells the stories of actual people and events in history, weaving them into a tapestry that is a glorious musical trip through the time and space of Pin-Up Art in America. “Those women were real women, live models for the artists. They lived fascinating and often scandalous lives,” Storm says. “Their stories are firmly rooted in the lore of our American theatrical and entertainment culture – from the richness of the burlesque to the Greenwich and Ziegfeld Follies, to the Golden Age of Hollywood and yes, even Playboy.”

Familiar characters who leap off the pages in Art of the Pin-Up Girl include pin-up legends Bettie Page, Anna Mae Clift, Lena Horne and Rosie the Riveter, as well as acclaimed artists Alberto Vargas and Baron von Lind – who has created an original pin-up girl poster to promote the new musical. Lind’s lifelong obsession with pin-up inspired the narrative for the play, Storm notes.
“We are thrilled to be presenting a concert of the show’s music at PINNED” Storm says. “It has been our goal to bring this piece to South Florida since the NYC reading two years ago and the audience at PINNED is our dream audience. It will be thrilling to share this musical with people who love the beautiful world of pin-up as much as we do.”

To listen to musical excerpts from Art of the Pin-Up Girl and learn more about its origins and the pin-up icons who inspired it, visit www.artofthepin-upgirl.com

Art of the Pin-Up Girl on social media:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/artofthepinupgirl
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/artofpinup
Website: http://www.artofthepin-upgirl.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/artofpinup
Tumblr: http://artofthepin-upgirl.tumblr.com/archive
Blog: http://artofthepin-upgirl.blogspot.com/
Smartphone App: http://artofpinup.app.gp/
Musical excerpts on Soundcloud:http://soundcloud.com/heather-storm

Pinned Miami is 3 days dedicated to the culture of Pin Up, featuring models, bands, photographers, artists, workshops, panels, burlesque, classic cars, exhibitors, vendors, films, tattoo artists and more! Get ready for the sexiest show on Earth!

The Facebook event page for PINNED MIAMI is now up! RSVP athttps://www.facebook.com/events/816931541655966/ and let us know that you're coming! www.facebook.com/pinupfestivaland www.pinupfestival.com

So That Happened #SMDayMia &The Pin-Up Dreams Roll On

This journey I call Art of the Pin-Up Girl has taken me many places.  In fact, in the years I have spent writing, recording, researching and creating social media for this piece, I have had to step out of my comfort zone to help push things to the next step.  And because that is very difficult - little by little - at a snail's pace - we move forward.  It has been quite awhile since I last shared the progress of the show.  I have been reluctant to mount another crowd-funding platform and frankly without funds from somewhere, the arts are not possible on a grand scale.  Still, I try to do something to advance the show every day and as a result the social media is thriving in the name of our #PinUpGirl!

Last June, while on vacation at the beach with my family, I went out on a limb and submitted to be a guest speaker at World Social Media Day Miami to tell the story of our show and how we used Kickstarter and social media to fulfill the dream of the first staged reading.  I didn't think I would be picked - but lucky day - I was!  So at 1:30 pm on June 30th at the gorgeous Adrienne Arsht Center, I gave a half hour talk on our Kickstarter adventure to a standing-room-only crowd of enthusiastic people, many of whom were already familiar with the project - and quite a few beloved friends who lovingly came to show their support.  Of course it was exhilarating to connect with real humans and interact not just from behind the computer screen.  It reaffirmed my enthusiasm for doing this and proves once again that there is an audience for our work and a tremendous interest in the process of producing and distributing as an independent artist - using the vast tools of social media.

Our luscious show still has many miles to go before we see another staging of the work and someday bask in the bright lights of Broadway, but the latest news is that our composer is currently working with a new group of musicians who have received CD's and we are working on a live act to perform the music.  Soon another casting for our pin-up girls will begin and existing artistic partnerships will be announced as we set out to present a concert version of the show.  Stay tuned to our social media for all the details!

Keep the faith, #pinup lovers!! It will be worth the wait.  Viva la Pin-Up!