In any major metropolitan city across the U.S. and abroad, you see them – probably on a daily basis. You know those new breed of young fashion consumers – hipster men and women, inspired by hip-hop – who make up the “in-crowd” of apparel trendsetters that must have the latest wears. They’re not hard to miss, especially if you’re shopping on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles or in SoHo in New York City, with their 80’s retro or skateboard-esqe, fitted gear. Yet when was the last time you’ve seen any of these hipsters take any stances, politically, with their clothing, (let alone in the voting booth)? And given America’s current financial and energy crisis, and the 2008 race for the President of the United States, among a myriad of issues that face Americans-at-large, there are definitely statements to be made.

Artist and sneaker customizer, Van Taylor Monroe is all about making statements and then some. The Cleveland, Ohio native has been thrust into the limelight of late for his sentiments expressed through his artwork – on athletic footwear. One of his pieces, affectionately known as the “Obama Shoe,” has been the talk not just of the exclusive, limited-edition sneaker buyers world, but also has made its in way into the entertainment biz (Diddy, will.i.am, and Oprah Winfrey’s best friend, Gayle King have purchased pairs of the Obama shoe) and as far as the 2008 Democratic National Convention (where the shoe was on display for the convention’s art installation). And with this and other customized creations for his Sole Awakening line, Van is all about raising the political and cultural consciousness of young men and women in the hoods and the suburbs through art and fashion. Phiscal Matters caught up with the burgeoning sneaker designer to talk about the now-famous Obama shoe and his other lines, and queried the entrepreneur about his inspiration. To say it’s been whirlwind of a year for Van is an understatement. But if you were to ask him, this journey “is a calling from God.”

Phiscal Matters: For the past couple of months, at least on a national stage you have been getting some press regarding the footwear you design. Can you talk about your company and what was the inspiration for starting it?

Van Taylor: Well, I actually been doing this before the Obama [shoes] took off I should say. I been trying to put social issues, you know, to put some more substance on tennis shoes and t-shirts, for a few years now; and that’s just to balance out the light weight stuff that you know is going on, as far as with the other artists are doing, just putting out stuff without any substance. I got shoes with rappers too, but I got to have something worth some substance to balance everything, and I noticed that years ago, so every since I started airbrushing sneakers back in 2002, 2003 that’s been my goal – to hit the same audience with a different message. Its kind of like when you were younger and your mom wanted you to eat some peas, but she would put some sugar and some butter on it to get you to eat it, you know what I mean. She would try to mix it to get that good nutrition inside of you, so I want to get that nutrition in ‘em, but for them not notice that was the purpose. So I put it on a t-shirt and it was cool. They read the message and they begin to understand what’s going on. I think the first t-shirt I made was John Carlos and Tommy Smith from the 1968 Olympics, and a lot of people my age and younger didn’t know about that so I put it on a t-shirt. Back in the day when airbrushing was hot, I put things on a t-shirt and people would buy it because it was a hot, airbrushed t-shirt and they would get the message without being lectured too. So that was the whole purpose of the movement of Sole Awakening, basically it being social conscious shoe art. Actually we are going to try to launch, more than just customizing tennis shoes, we’re looking to create an actual shoe. So we’re taking it to a whole new level and coming with completely new ideas. You know I did the Barack Obamas, Darfurs, and in the past I’ve done the Moses Fleetwood Walker shoes. Moses Fleetwood Walker was one of the first dudes that integrated a major league baseball team (the American Association in 1884) before Jackie Robinson and he didn’t get any recognition ,just as Larry Dolby who integrated the Major League Baseball in the American League just a few weeks after Jackie Robinson, and not too many people talk about him. I appreciate everything that Jackie Robinson did but there are other people who went through the same thing, if not before him or at the same time so, just little things like that that a lot of people is not up on because it’s not on BET and see that. And they not teaching that in the school, so it’s like I must get to them the way I can get to them.

Phiscal Matters: The Obama shoe is a real popular item. I’ve also seen rapper Will.I.Am and some other celebrities sporting them as well. Why did you chose to go with such a person like Obama and what has been the response since you put the shoe on the market?

Van Taylor: I went with the Obama ones because I was going through a rough period in my life around the time in February, right after Senator Barack Obama had won Super Tuesday and he had won more states than what everyone had expected him to win. And he was out there giving his speech and I just got so inspired about what he was saying, that it actually played and fed into what I needed to hear at that time to keep me motivated, and to keep me moving forward to chase my dream you know? Where else would his story be possible coming from where he came from? That’s the rose dipped in concrete if you go back to his history. When he was in the fifth grade and he told people he was going to be president, they’d a laughed at him all the way through school as a matter of fact-even through Harvard they’d laugh at him. So I looked at all that and was like “if he can make it as far as he made why I can’t do what I need to?” So at that time I actually went to sleep and it actually came to me in a dream. Not too long after the February 5th or the week of the 10th, I had that dream and I woke up in the morning and made that shoe. When I made the shoe, I actually made it for myself. I made it for myself as an inspiration to myself everyday. I never intended for it to reach as many people as it did, but I did want to put it on my [Myspace] page, because it was something new, because politicians was never put on tennis shoes like these. So I was like, I’m going to put it on my Myspace page like I put everything else, if I get responses from it, ok cool, if not then I will still be doing my thing. Since I put it on my page, I’ve gotten the response that I always wanted, and brought the message I wanted to bring by reaching out to people that I probably was not going to reach out to.

I have several examples of this. I can open up my email, one inbox, I mean one message and it would be a fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year-old kid that is not able to vote, but yet, they like custom sneakers. They’re like “Yo, I can’t even vote, but I want those Obamas’” And then I open up the next one and it would be a judge or somebody or a lawyer from Sacramento. It would even be like an older White male or older White woman and they’re like: “I don’t know anything about custom shoes, as a matter of fact, you’re the first person I seen paint on shoes.” Many of these people never seen people paint on shoes before. I was astonished! I wasn’t the first dude, but I introduced them to this whole culture and they were like: “I don’t know anything about that, but I like Barack Obama, I like the message that he brings and I want those shoes.” It bridged a gap. I was actually just reaching out to the young people with the whole message on the shoe, but then it showed me just how little I was thinking, because I can reach out to even more people. Just bring people the sneakers with the message on it you know what I mean? I was using the message to get the sneakers out, and now I know that I can use the message to bring the people the sneakers.

Phiscal Matters: Right. It’s the shot heard around the world…

Van Taylor: Exactly. I got emails from Tokyo, I got emails from Iraq and I am not just talking about the soldiers. I got emails from Iraqi nationals and people from Australia. I’m in a magazine from France. They called me and asked me for permission to use my images, and they wrote and sent me two magazines. I can’t even read them because they in French (laughing). Its crazy!! I was interviewed by local TV station channel 19 [here in Cleveland] and I told the guy, Harry Boomer: “I don’t know what to say I just hope to say something good.” It has been overwhelming; it really shows you the power of art in politics or social issues. People have been painting on shoes a long time, and people have been talking about politics longer than that. I brought it together and people were like wow. This becomes a new phenomenon.

Phiscal Matters: Talk about your background. Did you always have a knack for art? Did you go to school for this?

Van Taylor: As a matter of fact I did a documentary on Youtube, and had touched on this. When I was two years old, my mother said I started drawing airplanes. We stayed in San Diego, CA near the airport and what I was drawing was a bubble cross. No one knew what I was drawing. They knew it was good, but just thought it was a bubble cross or drawing these plus signs or what ever, and I would always make this noise. But one day me and my mom was outside walking and a plane flew over and I made the noise and pointed up, and she saw bubble cross. When you look at a plane from the ground it looks like a bubble cross. And she was like this boy is drawing airplanes that he sees in the sky at two. That was the talk at the apartment complex we were staying in, and it went on from there. I put drawing to the side because I was an athlete as well. I played football, and played quarterback through high school. I made a couple short films as well; I gotta a couple of awards. I got a gold key and a silver key and a Governors award in my senior year for art. But it was still something that I put off to the side The thing about me doing art in high school was that my teacher used to get mad at me and force me to draw a bigger, and I didn’t. I used to draw real small spaces on a paper and she was like, “you gotta come better, you gotta get your message out bigger than that.” And I would never do it and I look back at it as to why I am so accurate on a tennis shoe, because like I was growing up drawing small pieces of paper when he was telling me to draw on bigger pieces of paper. I ended up getting a scholarship to University of Miami–Ohio to play football, and I went there as a graphic design student. I got in the graphic design program, but I didn’t like the way they was trying to conform me into what they thought art should be. You know they wouldn’t let me show my talent, so I got out of the program and got into psychology, because I figured I gotta learn business. And it was too late for me to get into a business program. Like I had to get into the mindset of how to say my message to the people so they can understand what I am trying to give to them, and understand how they perceive messages. So I went in psych and got a degree in psych and then still wasn’t really doing it. I was trying to be a businessman. When I was a manager at Sherwin Williams for a few years as a broker, I was still doing shoes during on the side at this time, then it just came to me one day: “man I need to do what God put me here to do.” That’s when I really started breaking into this shoe game to. I wasn’t trying to sit there and be no broker or whatever. I would have probably been good at, but I was like: “I can be a good broker or I can be one of the most amazing artists in the world?”
And my dream was to either be in the history books or museum. I already got the museum when the Smithsonian emailed me and said they want that shoe in the museum. I was like, “what, ya’ll want a custom shoe in the Smithsonian Museum? I’ll be long gone and that shoe will be in there.” My great, great grandkids are gonna be like, “yeah, my granddaddy made those shoes up there!” It’s ridiculous like, I’m in here with painters from Picasso and stuff, and yo’ they got my shoe!

Phiscal Matters: When did you get serious about painting on the shoes – around what time?

Van Taylor: I would say I got serious around ‘06, ‘07, but before that time I have been painting since 2003. But I didn’t put all my energy into it like I did during last year and when that happened, I had to give up a lot of things. I think that is one of the things that people don’t realize is that I had to sacrifice a lot to put everything into this art. And that meant everything – to having a girlfriend to having to being bold to death – getting up from under that financial umbrella that you get from having that corporate job and a pay check coming every two weeks. A lot of people don’t really realize how long it takes me to do what I do and how many days it takes me to work. I work seven days a week. They like, “oh yeah, you paint shoes all day you love it.” I’m like, “Yeah I do love it, but there are a lot of things that I got to give up.” You know it’s hard for me to keep a girlfriend because she hates what I do? They want to chill out all night wit you and that’s cool. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. I hate to give up a woman, but I would rather do what I’m doing now and get to where I’m at now, then be with someone and still be wondering and wishing: “I did get on, where would I be?

Phiscal Matters: So how old are you?

Van Taylor: I just turned 26.

Phiscal Matters: You got time man, you don’t need to be worrying about a woman right now.

Van Taylor: Oh yeah, they ain’t going anywhere (laughs).

Phiscal Matters: Can you talk about the political climate going on in your city?

Van Taylor: Not until probably a little bit after February, you saw Cleveland get excited about politics, unlike before hand. Its crazy because most time if you wanted to talk about politics you have to meet up with some old college colleague or maybe some older cat. But when it came to the hood, which is where I stay, I would be in the hood in a barbershop or in the grocery store, and you will see the same brothers that would be on the corner, discussing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Using the same ghetto slang and that same hood tone that they use to discuss Hip-Hop or a woman, they talking about politics. Although they might not understand a whole scheme of it, or the little things that goes on with the daily operations and policies, but it like brought a whole new sense of awareness, a new intellectual capacity and a whole sense of hope. I see Obama signs on people’s lawn. When I was at the Cleveland Air Show, and I saw an older White woman who had to be in her 50’s or 60’s, and she walking around with an Obama t- shirt walking around trying to get people to register to vote, I’m like “man this is crazy.” Barack Obama has really brought to light a whole new scene in Cleveland [and] I am sure that other cities can talk about what happens there as well.

Phiscal Matters: I noticed that with a lot of the customized sneakers today, you see a lot of hipsters wearing them. How is the response in the hood, in terms of, not just the social awareness-type brands you put on your shoes, but the styles. Is the hood in Cleveland embracing customized kicks?

Van Taylor: A lot of people in the hood wear customized sneakers, but they were a lot of the glitter, you know the flashy or something to match their clothes different color ways. But to get the response I get when they see some of the shoes is amazing. I knew what I was doing was popular and I just wanted to catch the hood’s attention, and they catching on and they recognizing and appreciating it. To me it means that they are at least taking the time to understand what is on the shoe. I had people talking about the Darfur shoe. I mean who on the block would normally wear some Darfur shoes and understand the meaning behind it, and understand what’s going on with the genocide over in Sudan? I feel like I did my part and that’s all I’m trying to do. And it is not always about the social conscious shoes that I do, but people do want to get shoes from me and if I can get one foot in the door, then I’m a run in next time.

Phiscal Matters: From a business perspective, obviously the response you have gotten has been so great, that it translates dollars for you. Do you work by yourself? Are their other employees? Are you looking to launch a website?

Van Taylor: Right I am working for myself; I have been working for myself since I have been doing this. I got business partners out in L.A. and we are going to get together for the sneaker line once it starts getting manufactured. But as far as me painting every single shoe, that’s what I do all day. I was just talking to someone from New York and they were talking about getting my shoes in certain amount of stores, so that New York can have a taste of what is going on over here in Cleveland. But I will do for stores in Cleveland too. Once I get a contract, I would probably hire other artists so I know what he is going to get paid every time he comes in. But its also going to be hard to find someone that is as dedicated to this as I am and that is the tough part. People say all the time, “yeah you can get somebody to do that.” Yeah I can but I can’t have anybody saying, “Well I’m going out with my girl tonight, so I can’t help you with the shoes,” and that is why I just paint them myself. I’d rather be up all night then wonder if someone is going to come by and do it. So once I find someone dedicated and they want to join in, then I will let them come in and help me out. Till then, I’ll just knock them all out because I know they will get done.

Phiscal Matters: So I guess right now the only way people can get in touch with you is through email?

Van Taylor: Through email because we working on the website now. And once we get the website up, I will have a personal website and a site for the Van Taylor Brand/Sole Awaking that’s coming up soon, and you will be able to contact us all through there. For now it, It’s just my Myspace, email, and Youtube and that is how I have been keeping it for the past six months.

Phiscal Matters: In the next six months to a year, that’s going to change.

Van Taylor: Yeah it’s going to change. It all happened out of nowhere. It all happened when someone took my picture, when someone took a picture off my page and sent it to Bossip. And Bossip was the first place to have it and when Bossip got it, you know with blogs and stuff like that, everybody gone get it then. It just went everywhere. I was on Republican blog sites, Hillary Clinton supporter’s blog sites. I had people fascinated. It was ugly that first week because I wasn’t use to this. I was going through a little bit what, Governor Sarah Palin is going through after she got thrown into the limelight. I had people making up stories on me everyone was saying that I was working for the Clintons’ and I was trying to make money. Or, that I was a Republican trying to get money for the Republican Party, and that Black people shouldn’t be fooled. I’m like “what??” It is so amazing that people would write a whole paragraph about me and you don’t even know me. Now I see what celebrities go through now. There were are a lot of people writing good stuff, as well as people writing bad stuff and my feelings were up and down at the time, but just yesterday, people didn’t even know my name, you know what I am saying? So I was like, “Yo, I am going to roll with it.” I went to all the Republican sites to clear everything up, and I got actually got love.

STAY TUNED TO PHISCAL MATTERS FOR PART 2