We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful John Westbay. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with John below.
Alright, John thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us 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?
Yes, luckily I am able to earn a living from my worK, but that wasn’t always the case. When I first started painting, it was truly never even a thought that I could turn this into a career. I started painting on canvas for fun in February 2013. (The first painting I made was actually a Valentine’s Day gift for my mom). Little did I know, it would really be a gift to myself, I immediately fell in love with painting. Feeling like I had discovered a whole new world, with no rules, no boundaries and no mentor, the beginning is purely instinctual and experimental. Trying all different types of paints and surfaces and mediums, naturally later that year I got my hands on some spray paint. I started tagging the signature LOVE all over brooklyn and the 5 boroughs. People reacted to it, quickly. Posting pictures of it, others sharing it, taking pictures in front of it, the DAILY NEWS even did a full page article on “THE LOVE VANDAL”. The response was real positive, I knew it would be, but it surprised me how much and how fast. I made an anonymous instagram page, where I didn’t show myself, only the illegal love tags.. Very shortly after, people starting messaging me, wanting to purchase LOVE pieces on canvas. I hadn’t painted the love on canvas yet, to me it was never supposed to be canvas art, it was just a fun, street thing. I hadn’t sold any of my canvases yet, but I realized quickly that thru the buzz that was created from the street art, i stumbled upon a way to create a demand and actually be able to sell my work. Of course I could have sped up the process if I knew what I know now. How to paint number 1, lol. I’m self taught so in the beginning the pieces were not very aesthetically pleasing. I wasn’t using great materials, had no concept of color theory, composition, balance, etc. I also had no idea at that time the power of social media, that was a great time to use it, before ads, when it was all organic, and if I knew then what I know now I could’ve absolutely sped up the process 100x, but thats a fantasy world. In reality theres a process to things. You can’t become a black belt without first being a white belt.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is John Westbay, some people know me as Westgard which is my instagram handle. I am a visual artist, mainly a painter but I work digitally a bit as well, as a designer for my own products, (toys, sculptures), and streetwear brand. I kind of explained how I got into this world in my last response, but what keeps me in it and inspired is an absolutely insatiable thirst for creating, learning, exploring new mediums, and seeing my work in those new mediums. I don’t think I recreated the wheel with my work and Im certainly no Michelangelo, but what I think my work conveys and what resonates with people is actually the simplicity of it. I love realism, and the work of some artists who are amazingly technical, classically trained painters, but I think for a lot of people it can almost be discouraging, like wow I can never be that good. On the other side of that, you have some modern art, where it’s just a dot, or a blank white canvas, and the reaction to that can be discouraging as well, like thats BS. My absolute favorite type of art, and the art I try to make, is something that looks really cool, powerful, says something, evokes an emotion, but as you get closer, and break it down, it’s really pretty simple, where people, maybe a young aspiring artist says wow, this is so good, but I can do this! To me thats the the power of art, and the super power of artists. To possess a flame, and to be able to spark that flame in someone else. There are no rules, you don’t need to be strong, fast, tall, male, female, rich, poor. You just need to fall in love with it, believe in it, and go for it.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
Everyone sees the good stuff. The extra freedom, not having to wake up at 7am for work, punch in at 9 and punch out at 5. If my friends would ask me to go somewhere and I said I couldn’t because I had to work, they would legitimately laugh at me, like I don’t actually work, or say things like, ‘’so what, you can just do it the next day”. They see the success, they see what a piece sells for at a show and say “wow, that only took you two days to make’’. No one sees the other side of it, the years and years of self doubt. The overwhelming feelings of discouragement, especially early on, when it seems so impossible to actually get where you are trying to go. The hours that you spent on canvases, trying things, but in the end you white it out because it was just shit, over and over again. The months that go by early on without a sale, but you have to stay positive, you have to keep painting if you ever want to get better. The amount of times you get turned down from galleries or opportunities. The amount of people that try to take advantage of young artists. Charging them for wall space in shows, spending the money on it and you don’t sell one piece. No one shares those parts on instagram, no one sees all that.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield to me is the Bible for creatives. I only read it last year for the first time, but wow I wish I found it earlier. Another thing that has really helped me is Brazilian jiu jitsu, I started training in 2017, 4 years into painting. It completely changed my work ethic. You learn the value of hard work in a very quantifiable and almost tangible way. When you can see and feel major progress happen over time, from just showing up every day, once a day, learning one tiny little detail every day, and some days you feel like you learned nothing, it is SO powerful, because then you can apply that to other areas of your life.
Contact Info:
- Website: Withlovebywest.Com
- Instagram: @Westgard
- Linkedin: John Westbay
Image Credits
Nick Dabas Joseph Dimino Justin Sicari