Back to Basics
By Ameena Qayyum and Surane Weerasinghe
After tagging the streets of East Harlem for years, muralist James De La Vega – part philosopher, part graffiti artist – wants to go global.
He is setting his sights first on Latin America where, he says, children need to hear his message that dreams are achievable.
De La Vega, of Jewish American and Puerto Rican descent, still hews to the slogan that first earned him recognition: “Become Your Dream.”
His vision is to continue inspiring and motivating people – young and old – to follow their hearts.
“’Become Your Dream’ is a message that will speak to children in any part of the world,” says De La Vega. “It can be translated to different languages. It’s a reminder that must always be there to people who find themselves in dark places.”
But it has not been an easy journey for the artist.
In 1999, he was a recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant and has had his work featured at Christie’s Auction House.
In 2005, he opened his own shop in the East Village, which he called a “museum,” to sell his artwork, with his iconic messages printed on T-shirts and tote bags.
When the lease ended in 2010, he closed up shop and took his brand online, selling new items at merchandising website cafepress.com. A year later, he collaborated with fashion designer Tory Burch to design a line of limited edition handbags.
“It’s real nice to see he’s still doing something great,” says friend Robert Morales.
Ever since, though, there has been relative quiet.
It’s left people wondering what he’s up to, although many still fondly recall the days long before he was an icon.
“I remember when I was 15, Jamie must have been only 5 or 6,” says Robert Morales, who was friends with De La Vega’s older brother Richie. “These days I walk around, there’s usually stuff written on the sidewalk in chalk. ‘Create Your Dream,’ that sort of thing. You lose touch over the years, but it’s real nice to see he’s still doing something great.”
While his success might lead some to believe De La Vega had gone mainstream, the artist, now 45, says he’s instead gone back to the streets, where his story began.
He just finished a mural on the wall of Sofrito, a Puerto Rican restaurant on 57th Street near First Avenue. Stroll down and around Third Avenue, and you’ll catch his scribbled quotes on walls and sidewalks.
“I’ve returned to working on the streets again and doing the art in public,” said De La Vega, addressing his need to re-establish his presence throughout Manhattan. “I’ve done Spanish Harlem, I’ve done Harlem, I’ve done the East Village. To me, the Upper East Side is in between all of it.”
He also undertook a collaboration earlier this year with Cigar Inn, a cigar shop carrying men’s accessories, designing t-shirts and bags with his iconic fish imagery.
De La Vega’s murals can be found throughout Northern Manhattan.
His drive continues to provoke inspiration.
Iris Medina has worked as a crossing guard on the corner of East 96th Street and Lexington Avenue for more than 30 years. She recalls walking a pre-teen De La Vega across the street to and from his junior high school, PS 198.
“When I look at [his work], I smile, you know? I’m happy for him that he did something for himself, being from this neighborhood,” says Medina. “I don’t know anybody that’s gone and done the same thing like him. ”
And De La Vega is taking his message across all platforms: from sidewalks to social media. He’s active on Facebook, and his Twitter handle is @DELAVEGAPROPHET; often, he reverts to the third person when talking about himself.
“In my opinion, De La Vega is one of the most important artists in the United States,” he said during a recent interview.
He maintains his goal has always been to strengthen and empower young Latinos and other minority communities. He criticizes today’s hip-hop and rap artists, arguing that they too often display attitude and recklessness, which sets a bad example, particularly for young kids listening to their music.
His most recent project is an effort to combat those influences with the “New Young Lords Party,” a movement about empowerment for all.
Likening it to the Black Panther Party, De La Vega says the group began in the 1960’s as simply the “Young Lords Party,” born to inspire and change the dynamics of society for Latinos and Puerto Ricans across America.
De La Vega’s mural of Celia Cruz.
The movement faded in the early ‘70’s, but De La Vega has sought to reignite its spirit.
“You have to work with people and build them up slowly,” says De La Vega, a graduate of Cornell University’s class of ‘94. “You can’t get discouraged.”
Frances Negrón-Muntaner serves as the Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Columbia University. She says the average age of the original Young Lords
was about 18, but Puerto Rican teenagers as young as 15 held prominent roles.
“As an organization,” she explains, “they were able to change the way Puerto Ricans were perceived by the city, as well as the way Puerto Ricans saw themselves.”
Part of the ideological shift was a result of the group taking concrete action, such as advocating for and obtaining breakfast programs, affordable healthcare, and drug treatment facilities.
“They even conducted house-to-house research on lead paint, which led to a change in the law for what was tolerable for houses in the city,” says Negrón-Muntaner. “It would be difficult in this moment to reproduce what was going on then. But I do believe studying what they did is of tremendous value. We’re still learning from the Young Lords.”
“I’ve returned to working on the streets again and doing the art in public,” says De La Vega.
De La Vega says he’s committed to changing the impoverished communities in America by expressing his ideas and philosophies through his art.
Judging by the responses of those who don’t know his trajectory or history, his determination seems well placed.
Twenty-year-olds Henry Ramson and Christian Mooney study fashion marketing at the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (LIB).
They’ve only lived in East Harlem for two years, but they know De La Vega’s guerrilla displays well.
“Especially as a street artist, it’s inspiring,” says Mooney. “We try to create stuff with fashion and we want to get people’s attention.”
Ramson said he appreciated De La Vega’s philosophy, but his strategy is what really he prized.
“When you keep seeing things in repetition, from his street things to ads and billboards, it sticks with people,” said Ramson. “The more you see it, the more it gets embedded in your everyday life.”
You can follow De La Vega on Twitter: @Delavegaprophet and can find more from the artist at http://www.cafepress.com/delavegaprophet