Meet Desmond Jones

Today we’d like to introduce you to Desmond Jones.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
My name is Desmond Jones known as “skilz “the artist I’ve been drawing and being a creative since the age of 4, My elementary pre-k teacher discovered my talent and told my mom about it and ever since then I’ve basically dedicated my life to improving and nurturing my gift. My mom would buy me sketchbooks when I asked and I would fill them up with different characters that I loved to watch on tv and then eventually after doing characters I started doing portraits of myself, family, and even pictures of celebrities found in magazines. Through years of school and just aging I found myself gravitating to drawing sneakers and putting my spin of creativity to Nike shoes that would release. I fell in love with the concept of designing sneakers and I would even say I was going to be a sneaker designer and work for Nike although I don’t work for Nike I’ve found myself on the road to customizing and painting sneakers for people. In 2016 is when I created my brand “Art is dope” and in that ending year I had got some amazing news a family friend had come in contact with a football player from the Miami dolphins who happened to be Jarvis Landry which I didn’t know yet she just told me that a player wanted cleats customized with a looney tune theme and that was it but I was just happy it was a NFL player from the dolphins and that I would be creating cleats for that player until I found out who I was creating them for when I was done and to have him say he really loved them and that He wanted another pair of them that launched my customizing career to another level and gave me more hope in succeeding in my business. The cleats I did for him jumpstarted my business and it had quite a buzz on Instagram and then from there I reached out to more NFL players and then some players started reaching out to me.

Please tell us about your art.
My artwork is very nostalgic full of fun and iconic characters and cartoons and being from Miami Visiting wynwood gave me a love for graffiti and street art so I started to tag my works with “Art Is dope” and vandalize them to get a certain urban street art look. The message behind art is dope is to “paint Life” meaning that you’re the artist and you hold the colors and the paintbrush so you are in control of how you paint your life aka your “masterpiece “.when people look at my artwork I want them to have nostalgic moments from childhood from gazing upon the characters and I also want them to smile or laugh which is normally the reaction I see when they look at my artwork, So that makes me happy and inspired me to keep going.

We often hear from artists that being an artist can be lonely. Any advice for those looking to connect with other artists?
I would say to the artist that are struggling financially to stay positive, read books on marketing, study and continue to find ways to get people to buy your artwork, that was another reason why I went in to customizing shoes because I noticed people would pay more money for shoes because they can show them off rather than just having something done on paper and they only can hang up in their house although it’s nice but as artist we have to create ways of income and not give up.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My artwork can be seen on Instagram @_artisdope, you can support my artwork by purchasing a customized hat from me or A T-shirt from me through Instagram usually on Instagram so I’m just a dm away.

Contact Info:

• Phone: 3057479513
• Email: artisdope21@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_artisdope/
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/Art-Is-Dope-206157566546985/?ref=bookmarks
• Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/Skilztheartist

Image Credit:
Desmond Jones

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