COMMODITY: PLANTING SEEDS FOR THE FUTURE

Back in 2018 I had packed up my life in Ohio and moved across the country to Long Beach, California. I had recently accepted a job at Hybrid Apparel and was ready to soak up everything I could in this completely foreign paradise.

Fresh out of a long term relationship, and flush with time to dive into my goals in the land of opportunity, I began trying to turn my goals into a reality. At this point in my life I had only assisted on a couple of small murals, but it was a huge goal of mine to break into the mural scene and create large scale works of my own.

Part of the reason I chose to live in Long Beach was because it was home to Pow Wow: Long Beach (now Worldwide Walls) - an international mural festival created by Jasper Wong that takes place in cities all over the world. I didn’t know yet at the time how I was going to do it, but I knew I would find a way to get plugged in and be apart of it.

I would often spend my time on the weekends hanging out and working at a local coffee shop around the corner called Commodity. They only had a few small tables where I would dump out my sketchbooks and markers, then proceed to experiment with new drawing styles and often times would get caught up chatting with various patrons curious as to what I was working on.

After a few months they had gotten accustom to me being there, and the owner, Alan Gomez, reached out to me about having my own art show at the shop. I painted a window “mural” on the glass dividing the space between Commodity and the Record Shop next door, and hung a number of my new drawings in the rather dark, and long narrow hallway. Looking back (as you can see with this short clip) it was not one of my finer artistic endeavors, but hey, we all gotta start somewhere, right?

One of the benefits of the art show was getting connected with a man named, Ben Lau. He owned a company called Ecom Department that partnered with smaller businesses to help produce their merchandise and other brand collateral, as well set up and maintain their e-commerce sites.

Ben had reached out to me through instagram because he loved my style and all of the apparel work I had been doing up until this point, and wanted to work with me on designing t-shirts for some of the brands he worked with. Over the next few months I got to design a number of tees for local auto shops in the area - Even though I was never much of a car guy, it was still a fun opportunity to draw old BMWs.

Shortly after we got connected the world came to a halt due to Covid-19 and the lockdowns. During the summer of 2020 Ben wanted to help Commodity increase their foot traffic, as well as provide me an opportunity for my first public mural. Alan and Ben were both vintage car aficionados, specifically Porsches and BMWs, and often hosted car meetups in the alley next to the shop.

For the mural they were looking to combine their love of the Porsche 911, Alan’s Triumph motorcycle, as well as David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix since there was a record shop next door. Outside of that I was given full creative freedom to do whatever I wanted.

The mural was a huge success, and provided a large splash of color on a rather drab corridor right off the corner of 10th and Redondo Ave. Over the next few months we took a few opportunities to “rotate out” the mural on a smaller column to the left of the front door. These were a really fun exercise for me because the goal was to spend as little time and energy as possible to create something fun and different as the seasons changed.

Over the next few months we did a number of small projects to keep busy while lockdown was in full swing (just two weeks, right??) One of which was this label for a collaborative beer between Commodity and Liberation Brewing. Ultimately, it did not come to fruition due to timing and a few technicalities. However, it was a fun experiment for me when I was just starting to learn how to use Adobe Dimension and playing around with creating 3D mock-ups.

At the start of 2021 Alan and Ben had decided they wanted a refresh on the mural on the outside of the shop to be more subdued and less distracting from the cars when they host their car meet ups. They were also in the process of starting to rebrand and change the overall direction of the shop itself, and wanted it to be a bit more serious.

They wanted what they kept referring to as a “Q-Bert” pattern - Which as you can imagine was a big change from the previous mural. However, I did not get discouraged because I knew it would be an important challenge to overcome and to be able to accomplish as a muralist. My whole goal was to be able to work with brands and companies to create large murals that we can both benefit from and be proud of.

The process of painting this mural was daunting and incredibly painstaking due to the sheer amount of measuring and mapping out involved in order to keep everything aligned properly, as well as level across a 115 foot wall.

Over the course of two weeks I created a number of shortcuts and methods for speeding up the process, and when I finally caved and decided to rent a scissor lift it made my life drastically easier.

Shortly after I completed this mural I unfortunately learned an incredibly valuable life and business lesson the hard way. At this point in my career I was still new to everything and still very uncomfortable talking about money and knowing the value of my work. I had done the original mural for what I thought was a great amount of money - $2000! WOW! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! - Until you realize the time, effort, and materials that goes into painting a mural.

I was unbothered by what I got paid for the first mural, because after all I had full creative freedom, it was my first paid gig, and it was a large public piece at my favorite coffee shop - it was a win all around.

When I had finished this mural I was completely exhausted and run ragged. I painted by myself during the grueling summer heat over the course of two weeks. It was mentally and physically taxing, albeit incredibly satisfying to see when it was completed. I made the mistake of not being direct before we got started about my expectations and what I was looking to get paid. I was also scared of confrontation or the possibility of losing the project that I just went ahead and got started with the hopes that when it was all said and done they would pay me more.

Ultimately when I was finished I brought it up in an email to Ben - we got our wires crossed and the points we were both trying to express got lost in translation. A few days later we hopped on a call and tried to make amends and clear the air so we could move forward professionally and keep working together. Unfortunately there were enough hurt feelings in the situation that it did not pan out, and the relationship that we had soured and fizzled out.

I held onto a lot of frustration and anger about how everything ended for a long time, but it truly had been a monumental part in establishing my career. I am truly grateful to Ben and Alan, and their willingness to give me a shot in the very early days of my career. Because of the work I did with them I was able to lay the foundation that has ultimately gotten me to where I am today.