Two best friends that gave up all their material possessions to live a true gypsy life on the road. Justin Vallee and Jeremiah Taylor make up artist duo. They have been globe trotting, on tour for 2 years, painting murals, experiencing new cities. Living full time in a small camper (Shasta) made in the 60s, and a van in Europe, without running water. In November of 2011, they went to Wynwood, Miami for Art Basel to paint. After Basel, they stayed, and have been painting murals in Miami ever since.
Street Art United States (SAUS) had a chance to catch up with the two for a very honest and revealing interview.
Who are you?
(Justin Vallee) a passionate man. I Live outside the box all while staying in it. Meaning the artist is always the artist. I approach life as an art and therefore mingle with many of her forms. I love running my fingers across letters as much as I love painting with them.
(Jeremiah Taylor) Hustler, poet, lover, philosopher, not a great speller, connected, 2square, skater, painter, a day dreamer, a driven motha sucka.
When/how you did you guys meet?
(Justin) We met in our mid 20’s we both made a lot of money at the time and we knew how to spend it quickly.
(Jeremiah) we met about 7 or so years ago. We had a mutual friend, that introduced us. We really didn’t vibe at first, but the more we hung out, it all started to click. Until our click was called 2square
When did you start doing art?
(Justin) I had always been in art classes and excelled at them in school. During my 20s I began experimenting more with spray paint and acrylics. I started to have exhibitions working on mannequins, abstract, canvas, and tape paintings. The last few years my fantasy world became my subjects. I also played with stencils and t-shirt designs. I did it all blindly with no education and no real influence from the art world at the time.
(Jeremiah) I feel like I’ve been dabbling in various art forms throughout my life. I’ve always been writing, drawing, scribbling, taking photographs building things, skating, cutting hair. I was an art director for my last job. That was before i gave it up to become 2square, where I now put all my whole focus on putting my works on the street.
What school/training did you get?
(Justin) No formal training, no Mr. Meagee’s, or Sinsa’s.
(Jeremiah) I don’t have any training from an art school. I grew up in a very small town in Tennessee. It’s safe to say they didn’t focus on the arts so much. A few years later, after I graduated high school, l went to hair school and became a hair stylist It was there where I learned how to be disciplined and articulate in expressing details of my final objective and how to create and manifest in real life the vision that you had thought of. That knowledge that I received, has given me the technical thinking to unlock an artistic paradigm.
Who or what influences you?
(Jeremiah) My neighborhood, nature, the city, faces that I see, friends, family, travel, God. Everything really. Whatever you’re around affects you in some manner, the good the bad the ugly. It all goes somewhere internal whether we are conscious of it, or not. I try to expose the truth of those things in a beautiful way…
(Justin) Wow I have many influences now, the world, my life, what I see, the city I’m in, my circle of friends, the struggle, my desires, and women to name a few. I’m a lover so women move me, my words, my brush, my pen, my can, or whatever else is in my hand.
Do you do mixed media or only street art?
(Justin) I will paint whatever I can get my hands on. It varies from canvas to clothing. We have over 400 very expressive poems on our site follow2square.com. I’m working in 2 sketch pads currently, right hand and my left hand. I’m right handed but have been training my left hand the series is called Lefty or Lefty2 he does murals as well. Bringing his technique better is something I’ve been focusing on. The dude is fucking crazy and I never know what is going to come out of him. When we were overseas, buying canvas is never an option so we would paint on cardboard and recycled materials, sheets of wood, basically whatever we could get our hands on. We both model and have been fortunate in our travels to work with some world renowned photographers and I think that our portfolio rivals most women you know that call themselves “models” but really just get naked pictures taken by some dude on the train tracks (facebook/2square modeling portfolio). Our web series can also be found on our website follow2square.com as well as blip tv. Our series has been directed by a few different people including us. Right now NoPlanB is shooting and Dreams the brains behind it is capturing us in a new light. He started out shooting music videos and now he does our series and random documentaries as well. On our show you see our struggle first hand, our friends and fans can watch our struggle. We allow you in to see our reality sometimes its sweet sometime its bitter to watch. We live in a modern fishbowl people eventually witness our success or failure. I like to focus on success. We do designs or paint on; shoes, skateboards, and clothing. I have used brushes, cans, stencils, graffiti pens, and wheat paste in my street art. If you friend request me on Facebook you can watch melody work as I complete it, sketchbook, Lefty pads, and street art (Justin Vallee).
(Jeremiah) There are many other arts and art forms I practice and study. I really like fashion. I like making clothes. The last fashion show we did, I made 3 dresses. I really like wearable art. It can be a loud statement. I love to photograph people, create the set, and also work the beauty side of the shoot as well. I experiment with music. I’ve produced our video series while we were on tour. I’ve built furniture. I do quit a bit of things. I think if you’re a creative person your eyes and mind see and comprehend creatively. When you’re that person, everything is a creative project.
Everything becomes art.
Do you incorporate your art with fashion in your real lives?
(Justin) Jeremiah and I are crazy in our fashion sense. People have told me before that I’m a showman and I definitely think that’s true. I love performing I can paint a wall at a fast speed in front of a crowd dressed crazy as fuck. It turns me up and on I feed off energy and crowds. We go to the thrift stores and shop in all the aisles, men’s, women’s, kids, granny’s. Whatever! If it makes people laugh I go for it 2. I have a tendency to cut my clothes up. Living in Miami you can get away with wearing next to nothing. One of our ultimate goals as 2square is to bring some different clothing lines out and tailor them to very specific crowds.
(Jeremiah) For me there isn’t a separation in who you are, or what you do. Fashion wise like any art it’s all about expression. And It’s fun to be expressive.
The following questions are just my curiosity since I am new to this: how do you get commissioned to do work?
(Justin) For a long time we painted portfolio work and directed our attention at becoming better. I think now it’s finally coming around and we are starting to get paid little by little. We’ve been in Miami for a year and a few months painting relentlessly the whole time. At first no one took notice. Most people come here for Art Basel in December to paint, they stay for 5 days then leave. In 2011 we came for Art Basel and then began to work odd jobs in the entertainment industry for extra money. There was a point when we had been here for so long we had to decide whether to stay and keep working towards Art Basel or leave. We decided to stay. Here we are still, working hard in and out of the paint with the goal of flying overseas to do another street art tour. Wynwood is a world of its own one day It will be famous and everyone will know about it. Right now the soil is still somewhat raw. If you are dedicated to your craft now is a time. You can be a pioneer. We have painted buildings during our stay so many that when the next Art Basel rolled around the streets began to talk. People were like, “Why the fuck does 2square have so many fucking walls? Meanwhile we spent most of, if not all of our money painting them in the “off season” , when the only thing on the streets with us were the crackheads and fucking tumbleweeds. As a result a team of international bombers hit one of our buildings the night before the busiest day of Art Basel. One of those murals alone took Jeremiah a month and half to paint. Backed in a corner we had to make a choice, Leave the murals alone and fix them after Basel or do something about it during. This was a low point for us we had worked hard and personally sacrificed a great deal in order to paint these murals. Jeremiah and I put our heads together and came up with the stop motion idea. The inspiration came from Blu a street artist we both look up to. So with the help of NoPlanB we filmed a stop motion feature in front of the crowds during Art Basel. The 5 days following I corrected all the murals both mine and Jeremiah’s. I even did one with my left hand the Frankenstein remix by Lefty. Ultimately we got 9 new pictures for our portfolio and elevated ourselves as street artists by trying something new that we had both been itching to do from the very beginning of 2square. The Basel videos are the next in our web series to be released the people still have no idea about what we’ve done.
(Jeremiah) You build a portfolio of your work. Then you market your work. Hopefully people dig it, and want you to paint their big beautiful building(s). With the way social media is today. The masses can see your work, with just a click.
Do you buy your own paint supplies when you are working on a commissioned job? How do you paint a wall, do you ask permission, or you just go ahead and paint?
(Jeremiah) If it commissioned, it’s paid for. For the second question, It’s both. I’ve asked for permission, and at other times we have taken walls and buildings. Its nice when you have permission when your painting. I can focus on my work a bit more. Without having permission there is always a big distraction of getting busted.
(Justin) When we came back from Europe we had to figure out how to travel, paint, and ultimately not get arrested. The clear choice was to bridge the gap and work legally. Now if 2square wants something they ask for it. Our portfolio has gotten considerably better (Facebook/2square) but that comes with work and time. Sometimes we take the walls. In the past when the owners saw the deserted properties we were thanked for the outstanding work when others may have just thrown something up. With that said there is still the illegal element to street art that we must dance with from time to time. On commissioned jobs I usually tell them how much it will be in supplies. Some pay ahead and some after.
I understand that street art is considered vandalism, my question is this, did you ever have a run in with the law? And how did you resolve it?
(Justin) Jeremiah and I have had a degree of luck in this department though he or I may have been in trouble before this a spray can hasn’t been a contributing factor. In Prague (Czech Republic) we were working on a wall in the day time I did my first clown and for us this wall was epic we left elements of the mural that was there before and embellished it with our own 2square street art. The police drove around us a few times and then parked a ways away, closer to where I was but the wall was curved so J couldn’t see us. I chose to approach them rather then waiting. The cops were cool they just wanted to watch us work a little. I’m sure after I spoke they knew we were foreign and only there to do some work. As of today, the mural on that wall is still one of my favorites from our European Street Art tour it established the clown series as well for me. In Detroit we worked legally and illegally doing even bigger work, the city was very open to us and they helped lift us up. Our Detroit murals were the backdrops for tv shows, magazines and helped us land interviews with dope street art magazines. But we had a moment or 2 during our stay when things could have gone bad. The last day before we departed for Miami the cops rolled up while I’m finishing a huge mural under the Amway tracks. Jeremiah was done and chilling, I’m finishing up a mural called “Dead rappers” featuring Biggie, PAC, and Odb. Basically I have 2 more columns that would have been Easy E and Pimp C the Detroit work would have been finished at that point. The 2, very young, very high strung, black cops relaxed when they got out and saw our body language and the subject matter. We got a get out of jail free card. Some days you win some days you lose.
(Jeremiah) it’s happened a few times but the scariest for me was in Caracas, Venezuela. While i was there I heard a lot of stories about crooked cops. they have done some effed up things to people that they would catch painting. So when the cops rolled up on me while I was painting. I was pretty anxious. My Spanish at the time was very limited. I was very very lucky to have a very charming and very pretty girl with me to help ease the situation. She was telling them it was our honeymoon and that we were traveling thru Venezuela. That seemed to help a little, but one cop had his hand on his gun walking around us, while the other was asking for my passport and wanting to take me in. Luckily it started raining real hard and they ran back to their car. If it had not started raining, I believe it would have been a different outcome.
Who are you favorite classic artists and from what era and why?
(Jeremiah) I tend to love very large scale oil paintings. I love the Renaissance period. I like a couple of artist that came out of the early 19th century Klimt, and Egon Schiele. I’ve been into a couple of contemporary artist lately. Kevin Peterson, Marcus Ray
The first art/artists I really loved were Ed Templeton and Mark Gonzales. They were big inspirations on me. My appreciation for art came out of the 90’s skate scene, since then my love for art has evolved.
(Justin) I have an appreciation for many artists’ work, I used to be a big Warhol fan. In our travels we’ve seen some of the best paintings and murals in the world. You can’t imagine what the Louvre in Paris holds, or looking at a ROA mural in Berlin. So much talent dead and alive is out there in the past and present. I enjoy a Picasso but I love looking at an Aryz mural online and I’m dying to inspect one first hand. In the past I wouldn’t look at other painters work street artist or otherwise because I didn’t want to be influenced. Now I think differently I stalk street art sites on Facebook to see what other people are doing. I see now that Jeremiah and I have our own ever expanding niches and styles in street art and the other areas we are exploring. I’m such a fan of so many different artists right now and honestly I can’t wait until I get the opportunity to work with many of them. I know the time is close.
What are you plans in the near future?
(Justin) Right now 2square is on the hustle we’re in Miami working different gigs such as production, props, and art department for travel money. We work in 3s with another dude spiderman we met in NYC doing his thing and he turned us onto Basel and Wynwood. We model and get paid for that on the rare occasion. We also get cast for commercials, music videos, catalogue shoots, new shit all the time. The industry is all around us and therefore we are getting well rounded in this world. I consider us Unsigned hype like you see in the Source we have loads of potential it’s just having clear access to do what you need to do in order to move forward. I like self managing and I’m always learning new ways to work in and thru the ever changing system in order to push 2square ahead towards our goals.
(Jeremiah) Paint, paint, paint.we hope to travel and get on the road again… Willie Nelson style. We keep our plans pretty loose.
Where do you work, what city?
(Justin) We are currently still in Wynwood creating the largest work of our lives and also some of the biggest pieces in the city. I hear the word prolific around me on a good day. I like hearing this word it makes me work harder and harder. You can’t imagine my focus in the middle of a storm. We have 2 maybe 3 months at the most till we make our next push. We are saving for our next street art tour. Worst case scenario we drive out of Miami towards LA stopping where we are called New Orleans, The desert, Austin etc…Best case scenario we fly out to Europe and buy a van in Germany and do another street art tour. With our new knowledge and ability we can push ourselves to the next level. No matter how much work we do in this city there is a ceiling right now. I think if this work was spread out in other cities we would be taken more seriously. Even though we traveled before we are considered “Miami” or “Wynwood” street artist. I’m cool with that I go hard as fuck in the paint here and I got Wynwood tattooed on my forearm to show my love, devotion, and pride. We’ve painted in Berlin, Oporto, Barcelona, Mainz, Cleveland, Knoxville, Prague, Detroit, Stuttgart, Canada, Venezuela, and all over Miami. (Jeremiah) We’ve been living in Miami, for a year and some change. We have a lot of our work here in south Florida … We’ve lived like gypsies for the past couple of years roaming from place to place living out of a camper. We rolled into Miami about a year and a half ago. We’ve had the breaks on ever since then. Miami is treating us really well. I’ve made some great relationships here. I’m very happy about Miami.
(Jeremiah) We’ve been living in Miami, for a year and some change. We have a lot of our work here in south Florida…We’ve lived like gypsies for the past couple of years roaming from place to place living out of a camper. We rolled into Miami about a year and a half ago. We’ve had the breaks on ever since then. Miami is treating us really well. I’ve made some great relationships here. I’m very happy about Miami.
Where do you want to work?
(Justin) I hunger to travel abroad it’s the main contributing factor that made 2square. I want to paint anywhere I can in the world. Places men go and places they are scared to visit. There is a big canvas outside waiting to be painted.
(Jeremiah) I really can’t think of too many places that I wouldn’t want to go. I really wanna go back to South America, Europe again, Asia, Siberia would be cool. I love to travel and experience different cultures. I’m really down to go anywhere.
Do you have a message in your art?
(Jeremiah) I think my art definitely carries a message, but I feel the message changes with each wall that I do. I approach each piece from a different thought, unless I’m doing a series. So the message generally changes with each piece.
(Justin) Sometimes my message is clear in my work while other times it may not. I always hope certain points come thru to people but just as people are different so are the interpretations of ones work and view. I hear comparisons all the time some I like and some I don’t. I try to take the good things to heart and not the bad things but that’s not always easy to do.
What are your political leanings?
(Justin) I have no clear political leanings. I think our country has something’s right and many things wrong. I believe I have a bigger opinion with my can then with my vote and if I choose to give a message to the people this is my approach. We live in a camper with no running water or TV. It’s been like this for a few years now. When I watch TV or listen to most politicians ramble on i see between some of the lines most people don’t. People are consumers being bought and sold.
(Jeremiah) I support a peaceful revolution. I think a lot of things in our country should change. Starting with getting rid of party names. It shouldn’t be a republican or democrat thing. It should be an us thing. Until then it will never be about us.
What are your views on art in general?
(Jeremiah) I think art is so broad right now. It seems like you can label anything as art anymore. I try to look at art as openly as I can, I don’t think I’m any judge of what good art or bad art is. I have my ideas, but I think art is subjective to each person. I am glad that people create, and express themselves. I think everyone should create art. It’s a way to find out a lot about yourself, and if people are using art as tool to do that, who am I to judge or hate?
I believe the best masterpiece we can work on is ourselves. We are art, life is the most sacred of all art forms
(Justin) I love art. I love self expression. Everyone that uses a tool like a brush or can is going to show you something different and unique to them. Where I am now in Wynwood it is popular, trendy, and cool to be a street artist. Therefore you see some bullshit on the walls but for the most part they dwindle out after a while.
What are your views on human rights, racism and injustice?
(Justin) I get down with humans and think they are all created equally. Unfortunately “Determinism” (thank you Reggie for the term) can keep you in check. It’s a modern world anyone that judges people based on their skin tone is uncultured, small minded, and negative. I try not to give too much thought to these people. Traveling does a great deal to knock down barriers and little thinking. I try to live my life in a very “just” way of thinking and acting. The energy you put out in most cases the same energy that you will attract.
(Jeremiah) I could go on and on, on this topic, but we all deserve love and justice.
If you guys have one wish, what would that be?
(Justin) I think we are both itching for our wings we want to fly overseas and paint for a lengthy amount of time. We both know how to live without, or on very little money.
a) plane tickets overseas and,
b) conversion van.
I think 2square would be very happy boys and could do the rest ourselves.
(Jeremiah) First class, Unlimited sky miles in the world’s largest jumbo jet, for me and the click. BAM!
How would you see yourselves in 10 years?
(Justin) I hope to be painting very large buildings. Continue with our series instead maybe it’s on a network. Definitely want to have clothing out. Also we have a collective we’d both like to see brought into different cities we fancy. I hope we are in a place to do good things for the world and help other people and paint, paint, paint!
Thanks to Justin and Jeremiah for taking time out to give Street Art United States a fantastic insight into 2Square. Good luck guys!
2square
Justin Vallee and Jeremiah Taylor
http://www.follow2square.com/
http://www.facebook.com/2square
Street art portfolio: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.290811774305271.75241.116360575083726&
Web series trailer: http://www.follow2square.com/videos/item/895-2square-has-noplanb.html
Modeling portfolio: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.436359499750497.104109.116360575083726&
