Meet Lebaron Murray of Art X Association in North Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lebaron Murray.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Lebaron. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Damn, where do I even begin lol…..Born and raised in the city of Chicago, where I was lucky to realize my talents at an early age. I have an older cousin who I used to naturally copy everything he did because I thought that man was the coolest thing since sliced bread. He did art then so with me looking up to him, I just naturally followed the same path. Eventually, we had our Great-Grandma who was my guardian at the time have a stroke right in front of me and eventually passed away soon after. The family didn’t take to that well since she was our Big Mama and he took it super hard and lost his passion for the arts. But I kept going because besides video games that were my only other outlet to get through her passing, along with my Great-Uncle Pete who passed five months later minutes after dropping me off at school and my Great-Aunt Ann four years later, all guardians of mine.

Eventually, I ended up in So Cal after graduating 8th grade (My family saw promise in me and wanted to get me out of Chicago for high school so I can have a better life) and I was more than willing to go after seeing so much of California through Nickelodeon and MTV lol. After graduating HS in San Diego, I came back up to Ventura County (My first home and HS were in Moorpark where I only stayed a year and I was hellbent on getting back to my original friends) and just took it day by day, no plan at all lol. I did, however, put myself in college and while there, I kinda exposed the fact that I did art to many around me. Before it was one of those things where I didn’t necessarily hide it, but it was more of an “If you know you know” type of deal. But being at school four days a week and working there too, I would draw in my spare time and eventually folks would see it in passing including faculty and students.

Enough people told me to pursue it full-time but I never took them serious, it was one of those things where the right person had to talk me into doing it. But a combination of things happened to make that a reality. In the Summer of 2010, July 4th to be exact, my best friend of my whole life was shot and killed in Chicago getting his car robbed. Four months later right before Thanksgiving, my mother was raped and beaten and left for dead in an alley where they found her after 2-3 days smh.

And then six months later in May of 2011, my condo caught on fire due to me leaving a window open while a candle on the shrine I built for my mom blew over and torched my entire room and then traveled throughout the crib. Lost everything I owned up to that point including almost all of the art sans for one sketchbook that was in my backpack. That Summer 2 of my friends let me stay with them while my condo was being remodeled (thank goodness for fire insurance lol) and while there, one of my best friends who knew I did art bought me some supplies randomly and one day I was just chilling and decided to actually use the material with no real plan on what I was going to make. I used my friend’s garage as my art studio lol and just used art as therapy to get through the whole last year of tragedy.

After I moved back into my home, I started to post my art on Facebook where things really picked up for me, especially with more folks getting to see what I did and it not being a mystery anymore (Most thought I was just jokes jokes jokes and had little to no substance, didn’t even know I had real talent). I discovered Etsy and the ability to sell art online through them. I wasn’t the most organized person then (Still not to an extent lmao but no one is perfect), but I made it work through my own research, not being scared to try new things and a little bit of trial and error. Also made my own site and social media had took off back then with Instagram being fairly new to the game and Twitter being around for a couple of years. With those avenues, it brought more attention to me and also brought on more folks who told me to pursue art full-time.

That day finally came in 2014 when an old friend of mine recommended me to be an illustrator for a book by an author and influencer by the name of Melissa Molomo, creator of the Say What’s Real brand. After doing that first big project more and more things started to come into play and I really started to see that I actually could do this thing full-time. That, along with doing art shows over the years of 2012-16, moving away from Etsy to having my own site through Big Cartel and using no 3rd party to produce my art, I really started to know that this is my life now and I was DOWN lol. Ended up with a business partner who got me into an office/showroom in the Fashion District of DTLA and nobody could tell me NADA then lol. But eventually, that too came with a little bit of tragedy.

After a good bit of time in DTLA, in February 2017 after being at a new office for a few months, my partner and one of his new partners end up stealing my art from me and moving out never to be seen again. I only found out because my roommate at the time wanted to go by there to pick up a couple of pieces I was supposed to display in a dispensary I was in talks with and when he got there he found the place cleaned out and then my original partner lying about how it went down saying his things got jacked by the other guy too (they were still working together smh lol). Instantly broke into tears when I found out.

This guy that stole from me literally watched me make all of the stuff there, many sleepless nights where we bust out airbeds to crash on just to keep the momentum going, many nights of being up until 7-8 AM watching each other do our thing and learning from one another also. That was such a major blow that it was worse than the fire I previously mentioned. Art had become my lifeline, my love, my wife, literally it was first before anything and anyone and one of the people I trusted the most took that away from me. It literally broke me, and I had many things prior to that could have did that but the one thing I was using as therapy for all of those other tragedies end up getting taken from me. Instantly lost my whole motivation for being me, for living, for loving.

I tried to get out of the funk many times throughout the next 1.5 years, but I couldn’t get over that. It affected my relationships with some of my friends, I tried to do art but I end up messing up some of my relationships with clients too just not being myself. Love life also went up in flames, but that wasn’t anything new, I was used to the disappointment already lol. Eventually, I dialed back and took a hiatus from everything and barely scraped by while doing so. Finally started to work on my mental health and after being reacquainted with old friends as well as meeting new ones in my journey out of depression, one of my boys convinced me to finally come back into the mix and bring some of the art I was working on out to the public again.

I completed my first 36×48 sized canvas and made my first IG post after 1.5 years on November 14th, 2018, the day after the 8th anniversary of my mom’s murder. I was very transparent as to where I had been, what I was going through, the help I got and what folks should look forward to in the future and I received an outpouring of love that I wasn’t ready for lol. I tried to respond to everyone too but it was just too overwhelming lmao, but I told myself recently that since the one year anniversary of that post is coming up I will finish responding to all of the folks I haven’t yet.

Fast forward from then until now, I have been heavily back on my grind, still dealing with trial and error but that’s normal because I am learning still every day and trying new things. Just this year alone I’ve done ten shows this past Summer thanks to my girls Shion and Z and my man Baca who saw the talent in me and blessed me with opportunity after opportunity after opportunity (the most shows I’ve done in a year before 2019 is 3). I was able to get my art inside a retail shop by the name of the B Side Shop, located in Covina, CA. Been working exclusively with helping some of my friends get their respective brands off the ground or in some cases spruce up their presentation and give it a new life. Started working more with apparel doing custom shoes, jackets, bags and soon I’ll be doing some of my own again. Mental health is better and after a bunch of moving, I’m finally settled and no longer have all of my stuff scattered around different storage units and garages in LA lol and FINALLY feel like I can create again.

Has it been a smooth road?
Along with everything I mentioned before in my Harry Potter book-sized life story, it was just a tough period. I know I shouldn’t compare my life or anything to anyone else’s, but it was hard coming out here from Chicago where I didn’t really have my mother in my life even though she was “around” and I knew her. And I, unfortunately, don’t have the privilege of knowing my father, never even met him, don’t even know his name. I have always struggled with the fact that there is a whole half of me that I have no idea about. A whole line of family just lost. And I would love to get to know them one day if I could.

A lot of my friends’ parents have taken on those roles for me though which has been nice, especially around the holidays. And don’t get it twisted, that’s not a knock on my family back home in Chicago at all, I love them the death. My mom’s sisters held me down and still continue to do so. Hell, a couple of them you could mistake for being my mother in general just from the relationship we have with one another. But being so far away from home, can’t help but to wish I had what my friends who still have their parents have, especially around holidays. I struggle with the fact that my future kids will never meet their grandma and will only know of her through the stories me and the rest of my family will tell them. And their grandpa being a non-factor sucks too, but they will have a host of aunts and uncles in both my siblings and also my close friends who I consider my siblings in their own right.

Love is another struggle. Especially in this age of social media. I rarely feel like I’m good enough for love and when I do, it almost always blows up in my face. Hell, the worse is when I’ve tried to use my talents to court love and even that don’t work lol when many will tell me or suggest to do so. It really sucks putting your all into something for someone you really like or in some cases love and then end up watching someone else reap all the benefits of it from doing nothing or very little. That’s another thing that added to my depression I previously mentioned. But my time will come, ain’t no rush on that for sure lol.

The art though, my main struggle came with having no plan when I quit my retail job to do it full-time. I didn’t have much saved up and I definitely had no room to screw up. Eventually, when my partner stole my art, I had to recoup that stuff somehow but like materials can be expensive. I’ve had my support system lookout for me when they can but even then it’s still been a struggle. Any moment they can flip the script and in some cases, it has already happened, more often than not. And it seems to always happen when I’m about to hit a big break and then everything is postponed. But that’s life, no ones are perfect and I deal with it while continuing to spread the love even when it’s not being reciprocated.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Art X Association story. Tell us more about your art.
Art X Association is a brand/movement created to help bridge together artist of all different spectrums and help them see everything in a whole new light. Helping to bring out the imagination in all. There are so many things bubbled up inside the minds of the masses, my goal is to help bring that out of the people for the people through art. Art X Association started off as just me doing art under a different label, Dope By Association, a conglomerate of sorts filled with different creative talents specializing in music and entertainment. I was the artist/graphic designer/comedian of the group.

Eventually, everyone went their separate ways because of life just taking everyone in different paths. I wasn’t ready to let go of Dope By so I decided to make Art By Association as a homage to my days with my Dope By friends, that way they are always with me every step of the way even without being there. The X you see in the name now is just a play on measurements, like how canvases come in sizes like 12×12 and 24×36, the “x” is pronounced “by” so it’s just another way to pay homage to the arts.

Art X Association in its current state specializes in many forms of art, from paintings on different types of mediums, to graphic design by the way of logos, flyers, cover art, all the way down to calligraphy and chalkboard art for cafes, restaurants, bars and weddings, and most recently art on shoes and jackets, with no shortage of creativity or slowing down. As you can see, there isn’t one specific thing my brand covers because I don’t like to pigeonhole myself into doing one thing. That is a gift and a curse lol. But it is literally in the name, Art X Association. And I’m happy that I can be a guide for other artists, a link of sorts. Like I said before, I want to bridge the gap between artist of all different spectrums and mediums. And I’m proud to say I’ve done nothing but continued to grow. Throughout everything I’ve been through, I’ve never been scared to try new things. Everything I’ve done hasn’t come from taking a class or anything, it is literally just my desire to do better and be better than I was yesterday. And I’m happy when I can inspire others to do the same.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
In the next 5-10 years, with the way social media is set up, I see more artists realizing their passions through being inspired by other artist as well as all of us gaining more exposure as more and more outlets open up for us to be able to showcase our abilities. Becoming known after we are 6 feet deep will be a thing of the past with the way people are carving lanes for themselves. We literally have all the tools we need to put ourselves on. I also think with the way folks aren’t vibing with Instagram’s antics with switching things up all of the time and making it harder for small businesses to prosper, I believe a new platform will come through to give struggling artist and small businesses hope again.

With a lot of my art, you can see heavy animation influences in it as well as plays on things of the past mixed with current pop culture. I believe more will follow in the same path, playing on nostalgia and making themselves as well as others more comfortable with sharing parts of their lives they like to keep hidden because of the chance of being ashamed someone would diss them for liking whatever it is they are passionate about. I also believe there will be a rise in artist’s period. With so many talented people already out there, I really feel like it’s only a matter of time before someone is inspired by another artist or several and decide to pick the pencil (or whatever their tool of choice is) up and start creating whatever their heart desires. Just like my passion in art was birthed through watching my older cousin draw along with many trips to the public library to print out images of Sonic the Hedgehog and Dragon Ball lol, there will be many more that will follow the same or a similar path whether it’s from looking at my art, or many of my other peers.

Pricing:

• Custom paintings 11×14 and above starting at $100
• Custom shoes (any size) starting at $100
• Custom jackets starting at $150

Contact Info:

• Website: artxassociation.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: instagram.com/lebaron.murray
• Twitter: twitter.com/iamlebaron

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