Justin Bua Interview On His Career Path

Justin Bua talks about his career path and refusing to be mediocre at anything.

Editors Note: This interview was transcribed and condensed in 2006 and is part of our Throwback Thursday interview series examining the career paths of successful individuals.

Justin Bua Career Path Interview

When did you realize that art was what you’d be doing with your life?

Art was the only thing I consistently came back to. I had done many things. I was a graffiti writer. I was a professional break dancer for fourteen years. I was even a professional ping pong player. I was ranked #2 in the United States when I was 12 years old. It sounds like a lie. It’s almost like if you said you’re a professional tambourine player. But it’s true.

I was a professional ping pong player and I was really great. I lost in a big competition, I got frustrated, and I gave it up. That’s pretty much been the story of everything I’ve ever done except painting. It’s like, I don’t want to do anything that I’m not great at. I don’t want to be mediocre at anything. So I just don’t do it. It’s like surfing. I’m not going to go surfing. I’m probably the worst surfer ever. Why even bother getting into the water?

When I was in high school I started drawing. I actually wasn’t as good as a lot of the kids around me. Believe it or not. There was a lot of talented kids that were a lot more talented than I was. But I was more persistent and more angry about how talentless I was. I was very creative, but I didn’t have the technical ability to be great.

It threaded my entire existence and always came back to me. Like dancing, I got injured. It made a big difference in my career. With art, it was always something I could do whether I was sick or injured.

Art was the real true outlet for my creative expression. Because I think that anything you do is an outlet. It’s the same thing. It’s you. It’s just a matter of plugging yourself into you. You’re you. Your expression of you is the same person in your poetry and your music and whatever you do. It’s just how high of a level can you take that to? To where you’re going to be an eloquent, articulate dialectician with what you do. Know what I mean?

That’s the difference. My music would probably be very Bua if I did music. But I’m not that great at music. So you’ll never know that. You’d be like, ‘Oh he sucks.’ It’s just taking your craft to a high level.

That’s a really long answer to what can be said as, ‘I’ve pretty much been doing it my whole life.’

At this point you can walk into any poster store and see a poster of yours. But I’m assuming it wasn’t always that way. You started out at a skateboard company and you did some freelance. What was the tipping point when you’re like, ‘Wow. People know me.’

It just happened gradually. I didn’t realize people were familiar with my work until ’99. Once I had a web presence, people started hitting me up, telling me that my paintings meant a lot to them. I never even knew people cared. Maybe I thought people just liked my work because it went well with a couch. Which people still do. But I never realized the impact of my work until I had a web presence and people were able to get at me.

You’ve had a lot of success in the hip-hop industry. What’s your feeling when you see McDonald’s use hip hop as a mass marketing thing?

It’s the same everywhere. They use anything to pull in kids. I need a kid with break dance moves. They’ll pepper anything with street stuff to attract the attention of the mass market. Any of those things just feel so fake to me. McDonald’s is a horrifying company. Horrifying company. I haven’t eaten meat in 9 years. Everyone up here is vegan. That’s a company I won’t even work for. Do I sell out and work for companies some people consider evil? Probably. You can’t avoid that.

I worked for EA Sports. Is that a good company? They were good to me. But they probably do some pretty fucked up shit. You have to pick and choose according to what you believe in. If McDonald’s gave me a billion dollars, I wouldn’t work with them.

I grew up a block away from McDonald’s. I used to eat at McD’s every day of my life. I ate at KFC and McD’s every day of my life. But now, because I have a luxury, I would never eat there. I don’t support it. There’s no company worse for me than McDonald’s. They do some pretty fucked up shit.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned throughout your life?

Really believe in yourself. To do what you really believe down in your heartstrings. It’s a hard thing to follow. As much as my kindergarten teacher pushed me, I had a lot of people who tried to stop me from painting. Including the chairman of my high school of music and art. He told me to stop painting because I wasn’t good enough. That’s pretty discouraging.

Just to really believe in yourself regardless of what people say. But be open to the skeptics. Because there are a lot of kids who are like, ‘I have arrived.’ You’ve already shot yourself in the foot. Because chances are it’s not a great painting, and you’re not giving yourself room to grow. So you’ve pretty much hit a ceiling. You have to be realistic and self critical. But at the same time, know in your heart that that’s what you want to do.

I’ve always been realistic with where I’m at. Even in high school, I was like, ‘Man, that kid’s so much better than me. How do I get to that level? How do I attain that creative and technical prowess?’ That’s one of those things. You’ve got to know it. You’ve got to feel it. You’ve got to want it.

But at the same time, you’ve got to be realistic. That’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned because I’ve had a lot of obstacles to overcome in that area.

Art is a frustrating thing. You imagine something, and you put it on paper. Was there ever a feeling of failure? And how do you overcome it?

Every day I had a feeling of failure. The worst is when you have a vision of something and you’re not able to articulate it because you don’t have the skills.

Every time someone is really great at something, they want to do something else. Like Shaq wanted to be an actor. Michael Jordan wanted to play baseball. You can’t get any better than Michael Jordan. That’s crazy shit.

There was this painter who was one of the greatest of all time and would show up in galleries and play the violin. He thought he was a great violinist. People would leave the show because he was so bad.

You know, Michalangelo at 87 said he was just beginning to learn how to draw. On his 87th birthday he said that! Michael Jordan at 35 said he was just beginning to get into the matrix of basketball. 35! People also realize it never ends.

What’s great about art is that it’s not like dance. If you’re 20 and you’re in dance, your career is pretty much on the downswing. Gymnastics, you’re on the downswing at 17. With art, you can go a long time. That’s what great. That’s what I like about art. It’s hard to choose something physical, like athletics. Baseball you can be a little fat and slow.

Art is very, very deep. It never ends. All the different mediums of expression. It’s so deep that you can’t even scratch the surface in a lifetime. Picasso and Michalangelo might be the only painters that explored the most.

If you could tell college kids one piece of advice, what would that be?

Be open to the possibilities and be positive. A lot of the people I hire, yeah they’re talented, but it’s their attitude that gets them in the door. You’d be surprised how many people hire people because they like them. People like you, they want to work with you. Just be positive and do something you want to do. Don’t get stuck in what you don’t want to do.

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