Interview by John Freeborn
I don’t remember when I became aware of Justin Santora’s work for the first time but it was one of the more spare, landscape images and it struck me visually right away. I wanted to see more. I still want to see more after years of consuming his prolific output. During our first conversation I knew that I was dealing with a pure skateboarder and everything flowed naturally.
When I first saw your work I immediately recognized that you were a skateboarder. Something in your style, approach to environments and graphic qualities just told me that I should reach out. I was correct. You told me that when you were young skateboarding gave you an outlet for your creativity and rebellion. When you look at skateboarding today what do you see? Do you think it still fuels the same energy for this generation?
Skateboarding today completely blows my mind. Many of the things I see every day on instagram are things I never thought possible on a board, it really seems like there are no limits anymore. It’s incredible. The fact that skateboarding will be a part of the Olympics now is an indication that it’s become a lot more accepted and won’t ever go fully underground again, which is okay. I’m not lamenting that. Looking at the histories of punk, hip hop, and skateboarding, it’s the natural progression for powerful subcultures to eventually go mainstream. I think there are pros and cons to that, but that’s another discussion.
“I was first drawn in by the dream-like quality of his work & the subject matter. His illustrations tell a story right away. When I took a closer look, I was lost in the detail. I wanted to work with Justin right away… He killed it and is an inspiring example of a talented artist with real professionalism.” – Andy Jenkins
Skateboarding is still both creative and rebellious because those qualities remain intrinsic to it. Skateboarders are still using components of the urban landscape for new purposes. Skateboarders still make renegade DIY spots. Skateboarders still run from the cops and clash with security guards. Skateboarding will always have a youthful energy to it.
I think the most exciting thing about skateboarding right now is how many women and girls are involved today compared to the skateboarding world I followed years ago. It’s so cool to see things open up and not be such a boys’ club.
I love that you noticed and appreciate this development in skateboarding. I’ve been digging through skate mags from the 70s and back then it was not uncommon for women to be featured right along with the guys. There were contests and the coverage (while not equal) was present. Sadly, this coverage died in the early 80s.
That’s interesting. I wonder what happened there. I feel like we’re at such a great turning point with women’s issues that it would only make sense for it to resonate within skateboarding as well. To me, skateboarding is supposed to be for anyone who discovers it, and we can’t have that vision without women being a part of it too.
What were your favorite skateboard graphics and brands growing up?
When I first started skateboarding in 1996, I was just a kid, so I remember really liking those cute World Industries graphics, haha! Maple Skateboards had some really cool cartoon graphics, too. I learned kickflips on a Dave Mayhew deck that I really liked. Alien Workshop was popular back then, too. Their designs had a really cool sterility to them that stood out against much of the more cartoony stuff.
I was obsessed with how skate gear wore out, too. When I had a new board, I would examine every scratch I put in the graphic. It was so cool to select the perfect graphic and then smear it all over curbs, homemade rails, benches etc.
A lot of your work features worn things. Do you view these damaged objects having a personality?
Personality is a big part of it. I love the aesthetic of wear and tear. It’s more fun to draw or paint the textures with urban or rural decay; rust, peeling paint, foliage, splintered wood. I also think a lot about a world after humans and what kind of scraps we will leave behind. The idea of something abandoned, forgotten, and being reclaimed by nature is very powerful to me. I like the inherent and implied stories of well-worn or broken things.
You’ve been plugging away making posters, prints, paintings, and murals for a long time. Has your creative process changed over time?
One big thing that changed about seven years ago is that I began to finally incorporate the computer into my work. When I first started out, I was doing screen prints entirely analog. I would blow up ink drawings onto film with a blueprint printer at Kinko’s, and I was hand cutting rubylith film for color separations. Now I have a tablet monitor and have drawn plenty of illustrations entirely in Photoshop. A couple years ago, I got an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to mess around with, and it has proven very useful. In 2018, I was on a trip with my wife and drew the lion’s share of two posters entirely in the Procreate app. When we got back home, I was able to load the files up in Photoshop to finish them and prep them for printing.
Technology gives you a whole different level of flexibility to choose various paths. Some people find this liberating, others find it to be paralyzing. Do you feel like you’ve lost anything in the change?
It’s definitely changed my relationship to screen printing. Cutting rubylith forced me to make decisions and stick with them. I used to do prints one color at a time, and each layer would often be a reaction to the previous layer. Now I can work on every layer of a print at once, which can definitely induce option paralysis. There’s a certain element that I think I’ve lost by abandoning the design-by-print approach, but I’ve also found it liberating and it’s opened a lot of doors. I can show a finished image to a client instead of just showing a sketch, which broadens the spectrum of clients I can do work for. I occasionally do illustration work for design firms or beer companies and it’s expected that I’m able to work in photoshop. I’d be severely limiting myself if I refused to use computers in my work, so being able to adapt is important.
When you are young skateboarding becomes all encompassing for many of us. You’ve got music, art and skateboarding in your life. How did you balance these in your life? When you were younger versus how you manage it now.
I never thought about it much when I was younger because they were just things I was obsessed with. In retrospect (and quite regrettably), I think I neglected art in favor of getting good enough at drums and skating every chance I had. I don’t regret all of the awesome memories I have made skating and traveling with bands, but with art I feel a lot of need to catch up in terms of technical prowess. As much as I love playing drums and guitar and jamming with friends and (occasionally) playing in a band, I should have devoted more time to practicing drawing when I was younger.
While I’ve never made any money playing music or skateboarding, art and illustration is my livelihood and my main focus these days. Music and skateboarding continue to have value to me, so I keep making time to do them. It feels like a constant ebb and flow, and the three things sort of inform and feed off each other. I can always draw when I have a deadline, but for personal work, creativity seems to come in waves. Sometimes I will just bang out a few paintings quickly, and other times I just stare at a blank sheet of paper not knowing what to do. It’s at that point that I usually grab my guitar or go skate and I can sometimes come back to the drawing table with a fresh perspective.
I’ve come to realize that playing music and skating are good for my mental health, which is good for my creative output.
You’ve done posters for a really diverse set of music acts: The Black Keys, Iron & Wine, Childish Gambino, Ween, Phish and many more. How would you describe the process?
Each poster job is a little different, yeah. Sometimes the client wants the artist to reference the city the show is in (for example), and sometimes the parameters are completely open. The goal on my end is to come up with imagery that will resonate with the band’s audience and make them excited about the poster. It starts with a round of sketches and the band’s management will select a concept. There are often small revisions along the way. I often handle the screen printing portion of the process as well, so often after illustrating a poster, doing the type, and getting a final image approved I will switch gears into print mode.
It’s very interesting to me that in band poster world the illustrator also plays the production role. This isn’t always the case, but I’ve seen it happen a lot. I’ve pulled my share of ink over the years and it’s hard work. Making mistakes is expensive and it’s super time consuming. Why is the printing process important to you?
Printing came first. I was able to print proficiently way before I became a competent illustrator or typographer. Being able to print my own work in an apartment made it possible to make money doing art and illustration. I could self publish art prints for the cost of materials and my own labor. I was able to take small poster jobs and build up a portfolio. It would have been cost prohibitive to do it any other way.
Printing used to be a large part of the design process. I work a differently now, but I will still make decisions based on what I know about the printing process, if for no reason other than that I will often be the one printing the image. And even if I’m not, I have a solid grasp of the limitations of the medium, so it’s always something I consider.
This is a skate zine, right? Skateboarding questions. What are your go-to tricks?
Frontside tailslides, crooked grinds, frontside boardslide, bluntslides, and lately I’ve been doing a lot of slappy 5050s and slappy crooked grinds at my local curbs.
What tricks still come pretty easy and feel good on the board?
The older I get, the harder all of it gets, haha, but some of the aforementioned tricks still feel very rewarding when properly stuck. Even just pushing always feels awesome. The city just repaved the street I live on, so it’s smooth sailing over here!
What tricks are a battle?
Backside tailslides and varial flips. Both are harder than ever for me now, but I can still do them.
These tricks require speed, effort and commitment. My hat is off to you.
Haha, thanks! It’s hard getting older, but I’m gripping the tricks I have left with white knuckles.
Check out Justin Santora’s website for more.
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