Today we’d like to introduce you to Blake Barash. They and their team shared their story with us below:
Blake Barash is an American Sneaker Artist known for customizing sneakers for athletes and celebrities worldwide. His style can be recognized for intricate detail, bright colors, and contrast. Blake and his team have painted custom shoes for Bruno Mars, LL Cool J, Chrissy Tiegen, Mark Cuban, Halsey, Daniel Tosh, Billie Eilish, Tyler the Creator, Zedd, Bryson Tiller, The LA Chargers, Arizona Cardinals, Pittsburgh Steelers and many other professional athletes, Olympic medalists, and world record holders. Each pair of shoes is a personal statement.
How It All Started
In 2010, Blake worked at a large national bank as a credit analyst. He would drive to work and walk into a high-rise building in Irvine, CA, where he worked a 40-hour week. He would arrive at his cubicle, get some coffee, and begin working on spreadsheets. While it was considered a good job with great benefits, there was no creativity involved. But after hours, Blake was constantly painting and customizing clothing and accessories for friends. He amassed a custom hat portfolio that he was selling on MySpace at the time. In 2010, Etsy, Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace were in their infancy. Selling products online was in its infancy. Amazon stock was at $140. (Now at over 10X that!)
Transition Into Shoes
In the summer of 2010, Blake got a call from a friend living in Santa Monica, CA, who told him that TOMS was looking for an ar5st to customize apparel and gave him the link to apply and send in his portfolio. The team at TOMS in Los Angeles reviewed the custom hats and apparel Blake had painted and hired him to paint custom shoes at “Style Your Sole” events around California on weekends. Blake loved the creativity involved and the interaction with this new clientele. He traveled from San Diego to San Francisco, painting shoes LIVE for people. Quitting his bank job mid 2011, Blake decided to take his life in a completely new direction.
Open For Business
Blake had been taking pictures of the shoes he painted, documenting his favorite ones. His learned about Etsy, a relatively new online marketplace to sell handmade goods, and decided to list some of his custom hand-painted shoes on the website and see if anyone would buy. Blake took a few weeks to gather the pictures and post them up. He added sizing drop-down menus and put them all at an affordable price. From his very his first year, Blake was successful, making more selling custom shoes than at his corporate job. Custom painting sneakers was the new career, and there was no turning back.
New York Times & Celebrity Clients
B Street Shoes was gaining a large following among custom sneaker enthusiasts. In June 2015, The New York Times visited Blake’s Shoedio in Costa Mesa, featuring his work in the Arts section. On the morning of July 3, Blake woke up to more than $10,000 sales on his website and tens of thousands of views. This was a turning point in exposure that brought a new fan base. Celebri5es like Bruno Mars, Mark Cuban, and The Los Angeles Chargers started to take notice of Blake’s custom shoes. Though he already had his custom-painted shoes on thousands of people’s feet around the world, the new audience catapulted B Street Shoes to a different level. Around the same time, the NFL ushered in the era of My Cause My Cleats. The football players were allowed to wear custom-painted cleats to represent a charity of their choice. The LA Chargers worked with Blake and B Street Shoes to custom paint cleats. After the game, the cleats were auctioned off and raised money for charity.
Loving Life and Work
Now, instead of the cubicle, Blake starts his day with an early morning surf session. Afterward, he makes the short commute to his Shoedio, and with the B Street team, he spends the day creating custom artwork, from sneakers to murals, working with clients to help them tell their stories.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Some of the struggles along the way have included learning about motivation vs discipline. As a creative, you cannot rely on being inspired every day. Inspiration leads to motivation. But it’s rare to find someone who wakes up inspired every day. Instead, you must learn to have discipline to create every day, even when inspiration is fleeting.
Other areas of struggles along the way have been with finding balance between client work and personal work. I feel it’s important for all artists to find time to create for themselves. This will guide their career, lead to more fulfilling work, and help them along the way towards self-realization.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar with what you do, what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m most known for producing a lot of custom sneakers for athletes, celebrities, and corporations. The thing that separates B Street from other sneaker artists is we work as a cohesive team that has compounding experience that can be seen in the quality of the work.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
The characteristic that I feel is most important to my success is having gratitude. This question is about success and who measures that. I feel I am successful because I am happy and get to do something I love. I’m always growing and have built an amazing team around me. What I have now might not be what a deca-millionaire would want, but it’s definitely something I wanted 5 years ago.
Contact Info:
- Website: bstreetshoes.com
- Instagram: @bstreetshoes
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuK4EMnJEs6FlMfTGsARzA
Image Credits
Blake Barash
