We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Justin Metoyer Mullon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Justin below.

Justin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

This was an objectively small risk but I think it speaks to an important aspect of artistic practice and life in general. It was during the summer of 2020 and I noticed an organization online called that was hosting a celebration of Juneteenth. The surprising part was to find that in the area and they were offering booths at no charge or a low fee at that time, I don’t completely remember.

I hadn’t seen or heard of anything like it in many years. I went ahead and signed up as a vendor. It was a bit uncomfortable after having spent a good number of months minimizing large groups of people but during that time I had also been able to pick up momentum on my studio practice while teaching remotely. The day of the event I loaded up, I had doubts about the event because of the history in the area and lack of local institutions centered around black culture and heritage. I almost turned around and went back home, but despite my hesitation, I decided to go with my gut and follow through.

I connected with people at that event I still collaborate with to this day. I developed friendships with other folks who love art and community and believe in supporting artists like me. It became my most successful vending opportunity both in sales and in relationship building. I reinforced the value of persevering through doubts, trusting a gut feeling and being able to reach out and connect with people even when it might feel somewhat uncomfortable or awkward as a creative who may be introverted or accustomed to making art in the studio but not getting out there and connecting with people who may support your work and help you build community.

More Recently I joined an artist collective called Art of the Bay and I’ve been able to build community with other local artists in the east bay, but I had to take the leap and be willing to meet people. Since that I event I picked up many more vending opportunities and consistently joined in pop up markets, began working on commissioned artworks for collectors and illustration projects in children’s books and comic art.

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

I began my explorations in art earlier in childhood than I’m able to remember. The story is that I’ve been drawing since I could hold a pencil. Making art is medicine for me. Its become how I process and interact with the world. It’s a bridge for creativity between my imagination and the world.

As a professional, I provide illustrations for cover art, children’s books, graphic novels and comics and paint commissions for collectors. As a commissioned artist my art practice allows me to connect with people who resonate with my approach and the style I work in. We’re able to build that imagination bridge together and create something we both feel good about.

One of the most exciting and rewarding parts of creating art for others is the excitement, fulfillment and wow factor they express when I hand them a work of art that I made based on the collaborative effort of artist and client. Sometimes it’s as simple as sharing excitement about a character from a comic book, show or movie. I have a great time making those individual pieces as well during conventions and events.

My work in illustration is based heavily in sci fi, adventure, mythology and overall pushing the bounds of imagination while remaining grounded in our world with an intent to build community and improve the quality of our lives by learning through art that makes us reflect on ourselves and our world while we imagine better ways to build our lives.

I Work traditionally and digitally. I began my practice avoiding digital tools until I had to teach online. In my day to day work I’m an educator in visual arts. During that time period from 2020 to 2021 or so I was teaching remotely and camera quality online was terrible then. I had to screen share from a drawing tablet in order to show my students what I Was doing and facilitate lessons. I also

I went back to one of my favorite teams of characters growing up to learn digital art as a new medium, rather than a replacement or replication of the traditional media that I love. When I work on illustration projects now I tend to use a hybrid approach incorporating traditional drawing tools and digital art tools as well. you can see work like that in the children’s book “The Truth About the Watermelon” and my cover art for Oakbridge the audio Drama by 97 to Now productions.

I did that first digital TMNT piece in class as a demo and delved further into comic art from there,` creating images of characters I enjoy and love, purely for the enjoyment of it and to challenge myself. Eventually it returned me to my love of ink drawing. I started working in ink around maybe middle school. My mom and I would draw in tandem using ink pens and create mash up drawings together. I’ve always loved ink. My mom taught me in ink to accept the markings I make and work them in to the bigger picture. It’s become a lesson in life as well as in art. There is no erasing ink once its on the paper and in life there’s no time machine or edit undo. For that reason in most of my work I avoid erasers and that edit undo in my digital works. from time to time people, including my students will ask for an eraser and I have to say, nope, don’t have one. Of course there are times where I use an eraser, selectively, or working reductively to create highlight.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Growing up around my Mom I was surrounded by art. I got to ask her questions, she gave me the fundamentals. lessons I still give my beginner level students. I use to make her flex her arms so I could see what muscles looked like when drawing fantasy characters and warriors or hands. (Thanks Mom) So I grew up in the closest relationship I had with an artist. We have always had vibrant figurative art from my mom’s favorite artists throughout the diaspora in our family home in addition to her paintings and drawings. So being around those works in addition to the media I found in cartoons, movies and comic book covers or trading cards. I have those visuals in my library and more importantly a person who was more experienced and practicing art, in my life.

Over the past few years, making connections with other artists is the most valuable support system that I have as an artist. The Friendships, the support that I’ve been able to offer, the synergy on projects, the critique and feedback and simply just “getting it.” in the same place at the same time. With Art of the Bay it was clear that I would be around artists but I didn’t know how well I would connect with people or that it would become as much a part of my life as it has. Other times I’ve met people just being out in the world not knowing I would. MY advice is if you have a partner, take them on a date.

I met my mentor in illustration and narrative art by taking my wife on a date. Shortly after businesses re opened following the shelter in place for covid, we moved and I didn’t know anyone in the area but I happened upon a comic book shop, and even though I didn’t get to read them in early childhood, I enjoy reading them now and I love the art. The guys who owned the shop were friendly and loved my work, so they started carrying some of my prints and stickers in the shop which was surprising and exciting to me but I took that risk and went for it. One day they told me about a local artist I needed to meet who was doing a signing and had worked on a comic style indie movie. I don’t remember what happened but I missed the signing and didn’t get to meet him that day. I was disapointed I missed a connection with another artist and one with experience professionally.

I wanted to learn and find more ways to practice my art. Long story short I heard the movie was screening in town and I took my wife to go see it. Turns out, Lawrence was there, it was the last screening of the night and on a gut feeling he stayed to do the talk after the show. We connected that night and have been friends and partners ever since. The movie was Lumpia with a Vengeance and a spin off comic was my first published credit in comic books, now we are both working for I See Sound Comics creating visual adaptations of their audio dramas among other original titles. People are the most important part of our lives, especially people who share a resonating path with your own.

I’m not sure that a community of artists is something I could have known about, or been able to readily access. Being in close partnership and community with other artists and people who love art is probably the most important connection or support system that you can have as an artist. I happened upon those connections and relationships by reaching out to others , by openly searching for art related opportunity and people to share it with.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think that its important for people to recognize that an art is an integral aspect of humanity. Our capacity to imagine and create from that vision may be what makes us unique among the multitude of creatures on this planet. At our core I believe we are guided by love. From that place we find courage or reinforce fear. The stereotype of a starving artist pushes people to assume that pursuing an art practice or an art career would prevent a person from being financially stable. I’ve learned more about managing finances as a freelance artist than I did as an employee anywhere.

Despite that people stand in awe of art, enjoy art, make sense of life through the arts, they value and respect the end product they often discourage others from walking a path in life that would produce those works we obviously need. The arts are our essential vehicle for education about life. They preserve our heritage, fuel our traditions and carry our collective memory from generation to generation. I believe people, are born with imagination and creativity and we live in that imagination as long as we can unless discouragement or fear of inadequacy get in the way. Artists grapple with those feelings constantly, even as a professional.

People discourage others from taking a leap and doing what they love in the place of something expected and predictable.

I am very fortunate to have loving parents who trust my path in life and encourage me to achieve what I believe. I did not get pushed away from pursuing an art practice or discouraged from making it a professional career. That doesn’t mean every decision I make gets agreement. I get honest feedback, and I want it to make my practice better. The way that people devalue art and artists on a societal level is usually revealed more to me in the field of education and the attitudes that some people take towards art and creativity. Often they’re only regurgitating what they’ve been told by their parents and others in the world.

I’ve heard people say they’ll never use it, it doesn’t really matter, its not going to make them any money, or that they expect it to be easy or that it’s not a real class. People assume that talented artists are born and not made. People tend not to consider that artists who commit to making art on a regular basis are spending hours, days and years, decades and even a lifetime cultivating their skills and honing their craft. People know professional athletes practice daily, lift weights, stretch, take consistent action to improve their performance. When I’m explaining the way I teach I often explain that learning to create art is akin to learning a sport as much as it is to learning a language.

If people learned that art is an essential part of human life and our economic system consistently supported more artists in their practice we could change typical perception and the common narrative. I told one of my best friends, years ago, that I’m a well fed artist. I believe we could all be well fed artists if enough people recognize it is art that feeds our soul, nourishes our mind and heals our wounds in time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jammtheartist.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/jammtheartist
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/jammtheartist
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/jammtheartist

Image Credits

Fernando Escobar, Art of the Bay Collective