We were lucky to catch up with Pete Klockau recently and have shared our conversation below.

Pete, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I started designing my own products under The Black Lagoon Room name around 2017 – I had left my long-time job in the music industry, which involved a fair amount of illustration and graphic design work, I was bartending at a craft cocktail Tiki bar at night, but was looking for a more creative outlet that might make a few extra dollars on the side.

We’d had a table at a Tiki-themed art show, Lowbrow Aloha, in Chicago several times, and I wanted to try my hand at making some new stuff to sell alongside a few art prints and other things I had made in years prior. I had some experience making merch for the record label, so I decided to have a few things made based on designs I’d been kicking around.

My first enamel pin and glassware designs sold out pretty much right away, and in 2018, I released my “Mai Tai til I Die” Tiki design, which sold (and continues to sell) unbelievably well, far above and beyond my initial expectations.

Meanwhile, my wife and I had always wanted to open a Tiki bar of our own. After moving into our current home in 2015 and building our own Tiki world in the basement (our home bar is also named The Black Lagoon Room, hence the name for the company) the urge to have a public space was real, it was just a matter of coming up with the cash.

We had a few friends who had worked with sculptors and factories overseas to create Tiki mugs based on their designs and all had sold pretty well. Having been deeply involved in the Tiki collecting scene for many years, I had plenty of concepts for new and interesting designs for mugs, so we ran some numbers and put a down payment on our very first Tiki mug – What better way to raise funds to open a public Tiki space than by selling our very own mugs to collectors?

It was well over a year before the first mug was finally finished, and (as fate would have it), stock arrived at our house from the factory in late February 2020, just weeks before Covid shut down the world. I was terrified they wouldn’t sell, given the state of the world, but we already had two other designs in production (go big or go home) so we just crossed our fingers, put them up for sale and waited to see what would happen.

I expected 6 months to a year to sell through, based on what our friends had experienced with their releases. We sold out of our first 500 mugs in less than 24 hours – It was mind blowing. That design, the “Creature from the Crab Rangoon” (a ceramic Chinese takeout container with a little creature with a big eyeball climbing out of it) has sold over 1500 units to date, with more currently in production.

Our second design, based on The Black Lagoon Room logo I designed, sold out 200 units in less than three minutes.

Unfortunately the supply chain has given us some major issues last year and this one, but things slowly seem to be leveling out and we’re feeling optimistic for the future.

Every day is a learning process – Finding manufacturers, learning how and where things are made, finding out what designs connect with people and what ones don’t. I do wish I had had the confidence to jump into doing this years ago, but life has a funny way of working out sometimes. I never really intended (or expected to be able) to do this full time, but I had always wanted to make a living creating things, working for myself, and doing something fun, and I have all that and more – I am so unbelievably fortunate to have found myself in this position.

The fans have been an unbelievable source of support, inspiration and motivation – Every new release, every order that comes in, every positive review or message I get from someone… Every time we spot one of my stickers or T-shirts randomly out in the world, every person we chat with at events, every time I get to sit down and write something like what I’m writing now, I’m still stunned that I get to do this for a living

We’re now preparing for our sixth, seventh, and eighth mug releases later this year, and are branching out into new projects all the time, including some fun collaborations with other like-minded businesses, including our cocktail bitters released with Bittercube here in Milwaukee, our upcoming hand-made soap through Dive Bar Soap Company in Chicago, and an exclusive coffee blend with Glassworks Coffee. This year we plan to produce our first vinyl action figure, plush toys, Hawaiian shirts, and a line of bar ware (cutting boards, bar mats, cocktail shakers.) So much more stuff planned, as long as the supply chain holds out and folks are still interested in what I’m churning out!

As a one-man operation, I’m creating concepts, designing, drawing, marketing, organizing manufacturing, and hand packing and shipping every order myself – It’s a lot of work, but it’s extremely satisfying to realize that I’m actually doing what I set out to do, the way I want to do it, creating my own little niche, and it’s beyond rewarding to know there are other folks out there who like that niche, too, and want to come along for the ride.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a Milwaukee-based illustrator and Designer, specializing in Classic Horror themes, Lowbrow art, Tiki, Cartoons and a deep appreciation for terrible puns.

I’ve been drawing my whole life, and never really studied art much (or well) in school, but every notebook and brown paper book jacket was always covered in cartoon Frankenstein Monsters, zombies, bats and assorted ghouls. Over the years, I developed my own style and way of putting pen to paper, which is both a blessing, and sometimes a challenge, when it comes to tackling new projects. But – I daresay anyone who sees something of mine and is at all familiar with my style would likely know what they’re looking at was mine, and that, I think, is a really big help. It makes it distinct from everything else out there, in it’s own wonky way. The blessing of the internet is access to both the means of production, and free marketing (and, ideally, a fanbase) but the curse is that there is so. much. content. out there, so I think it helps to stand out or differentiate yourself somehow. My style just kind of happened over time, and I love it when something comes together right away, and hate it when I need to make something look very lifelike, or have to draw something in a weird pose (that’s where art school might have come in handy!)

I worked in the music industry for 13 years, and created everything from concert posters and T-shirts to album jackets and 7″ covers, logos, beer labels, and everything in between. I still do a bit of commission work, but with all of my own irons in the fire, it’s on a case-by-case basis these days.

Under the name The Black Lagoon Room (named after our beloved home Tiki bar) I now design Tiki mugs, cocktail glasses, enamel pins, T-shirts, patches, prints and more. All are my original drawings, hired out to other artists and factories to turn them into tangible, sometimes drink-able, sometimes wear-able finished goods. I sell them through my website (theblacklagoonroom.com), Etsy (etsy.com/shop/theblacklagoonroom), eBay (crap_with_a_star), Instagram (@theblacklagoonroom), Facebook (/theblacklagoonroom) and in person at Tiki events (and soon, horror events) all around the Midwest, recently branching further into the South and East.

I am most proud of being able to get this little ghost out of the grave and turn it into something I can be proud of, mashing up classic Polynesian Pop imagery with ghosts and graves and roadside attractions and anything else I can come up with. If I’d been asked 5 or 10 years ago if I thought this was possible, sustainable, and something I could grow into a viable business, I would likely have thought that concept was absolutely mad. But here we are – 5 years into the company existing in some form, just 2 into it being it’s own little weird, creepy, creaky thing all its own, with no signs of slowing down and interest increasing all the time.

I couldn’t do any of this without the support of all of my fellow Tiki weirdos and Monster Kids out there in the world, following along, collecting my stuff, spreading the word to new folks, and making this strange dream a reality, so THANK YOU so much to everyone who’s ever bought a mug, a swizzle stick, slapped a sticker on the back of a street sign or sewn one of my patches onto their leather jacket. You mean the world!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One thing I wish I had been told in school, or by an adult in the room earlier in my life is that there are a LOT of unconventional ways to make a living, and there are ESPECIALLY a lot of unconventional ways to make a living as an artist, doing something creative.

I always thought education was key, and and without that cornerstone, you were kinda out of luck. And while I went to college and got a degree, it wasn’t in visual arts, and for years I beat myself up for not getting the proper training, not being good enough at drawing, not learning what I should have learned years prior (basic things like lighting, anatomy, color theory, etc) and not accepting or embracing new technology as it became more and more ubiquitous (Hello, Photoshop, old friend. Hi, Illustrator… I still don’t fully get you, bud.) I would lumber through projects and hate what I was turning out because it didn’t look the way I was seeing it in my head. To me, an “artist” meant, a commercial artist who could make a living working in fine-line, realistic illustration or computer animation or could PAINT beautiful scenery. Meanwhile, I was making homemade comics at Kinko’s after class, and most of my backgrounds and scenery followed the Hanna-Barbera school of “one horizon line and repeating trees and buildings” that I’d grown up with.

But there are about a billion different kinds of art, a billion different ways to create it, and a billion different kinds of artists. I am only now realizing after 40 years of bashing my head against the wall, that there are also billions of different consumers and fans of art who all like different things. There’s room for everything, if (cliche as it may sound) what you’re putting out there means something to you, comes from some weird itchy thing deep down in your guts, and you care about it. To be honest, when people ask what I do for a living, it still feels very weird saying I’m an artist. But I am.

I operate in a very niche subculture, but there are also a billion other subcultures you might not even have discovered yet – Have something to say (whether that’s serious and grave or goofy and silly), find something that speaks to you, and embrace your way of expressing it, and you can avoid the head-bashing and frustration. There is certainly a huge amount of value in a good education, but that definitely isn’t for everyone and NOT having it doesn’t mean you have to give up on yourself.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

After years of struggling during college and right after, I had resigned myself to believe there was no way I could make a living doing art.

For a decade or more, after years in the craft cocktail and Tiki world, I thought perhaps a public Tiki-immersive environment with hand-crafted cocktails, creating an experience for people was a more sensible, commercially viable route for me, and would be as rewarding as what I had convinced myself was not in the cards.

But Covid happened. The bar, restaurant and hospitality industry was completely turned on its head (and still hasn’t fully recovered.) I was laid off from my bar job, and in a classic case of life having a funny way of working out, people really began connecting with stuff I was putting out in the world, and here I am.

Life has a way of sneaking up on you when you least suspect it, and I am a classic example of that. Just when I was sure what I was going to do with my life, a new (old) opportunity rises to the top, and it’s all upside down and out the window in the best way possible.

(…That’s not to say we still might not open that bar someday, but for now I’m extremely eager and feel unbelievably, truly fortunate to be able to wake up in the morning, come up with a concept for something, get it on paper and slowly watch it become a real, tangible thing that people are excited to buy and bring into their collections.)

Contact Info:

• Website: theblacklagoonroom.com
• Instagram: @theblacklagoonroom
• Facebook: facebook.com/theblacklagoonroom
• Twitter: @blacklagoonroom
• Other: etsy.com/shop/theblacklagoonroom

Image Credits
Pete Klockau | The Black Lagoon Room