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In this episode of the Uptown Voices podcast, Led Black and Octavio Blanco sit down with artist Tom Sanford, who shares his journey as an artist in New York City. Tom discusses the importance of community in his work, his artistic influences, and the impact of hip hop culture on his art. He reflects on his controversial Tupac project, the evolution of his artistic expression, and how his love for the Knicks has influenced his work. Tom also shares insights on navigating the art world, the business of art, and his future aspirations.
Takeaways
Takeaways
Community is central to Tom's artwork.
Tom's art reflects the vibrancy of New York City.
He aims to paint what he loves and celebrates.
Art can be a medium for exploring cultural identity.
Tom's Tupac project sparked discussions on race and appropriation.
He emphasizes the importance of hard work in art.
Tom's journey includes both struggles and successes.
The Knicks fandom is a significant part of his artistic expression.
He values authenticity in his work and interactions.
Tom's future projects include collaborations and community engagement.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Tom Sanford and Community in Art
03:06 The Inspiration of New York City
06:02 Artistic Style and Expressionism
09:02 The Last Slice: A Deep Dive into Art
11:48 Tom's Artistic Journey and Early Influences
14:53 Cultural Identity and Hip Hop Influence
17:58 Provocative Art: The Tupac Project
23:52 Navigating Cultural Appropriation in Art
27:02 Sustaining an Artistic Career in NYC
29:55 Becoming a Knicks Art Influencer
36:57 Art and Basketball: A Unique Intersection
39:48 The Heart of Knicks Fandom
42:54 Authenticity in Art and Culture
44:57 The Evolution of Knicks Merchandise
49:52 Creating Art in Real-Time
57:47 Community Engagement and Future Projects
59:46 Hip Hop Influences and Personal Favorites
Creators and Guests
What is Uptown Voices?
A podcast focused on the Uptown neighborhoods of Inwood, Washington Heights and Harlem. Our neighborhoods have a voice and we want to be heard and felt. We love Uptown.
Each episode will elevate the people here who are making a difference in the life of this community. We’re also committed to “real talk” that seeks solutions that improve the quality of life in our beautiful Uptown neighborhoods.
Tom Sanford (00:00)
I just love being here. I love the people and I want to celebrate that because, you know, a while ago I decided I really only want to paint stuff that I love because I've only got a short period of time to do this.
You know, unfortunately we only have a short period of time. So you might as well spend your time doing what you love about the people that you love and the people that inspire you and uptown New York and New York City generally is that. It's all
Octavio Blanco (00:15)
Yeah.
Led Black (00:27)
That's dope.
What up everyone, it's Led Black on the Uptown Voices podcast. Another episode with my brother, Octavio Blanco. And we have a very special guest with us today. Artist extraordinaire, a Nicks art influencer, if I could call him that. Just an all-around dope dude, you know what I'm saying? Tom Sadford. Tom, what up brother? How you doing, man?
Tom Sanford (01:18)
I'm doing fantastic, lead. It's great to see you Octavio. I'm so happy to be here in uptown voices, you know, ⁓ I've lived up here in the neighborhood for a long time and now I feel like I'm, finally, I'm finally are true residents. I'm on the preeminent uptown podcast.
Led Black (01:36)
man, that's beautiful brother. Thank you so much, man. you know, Tom, I've been a fan
Octavio Blanco (01:36)
Thank you. Thank you. you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Led Black (01:42)
of your work for a long time, brother. Like, and it's just so funny because one of things that I get from your work and from you is community means everything. You know what I'm saying? I could just, I see it. Like when I look at your
I'm like, I might not know that person, but I know that person in that picture. You know what mean? Like, and you're like, your artwork just like pops. like.
It
resonates, And again, you get this feeling of joy, but also community joy. Like, why is that important to you? Am I completely off about you and community?
Tom Sanford (02:13)
No, no, you're absolutely right. And I'm very happy that you picked up on that. know, like for me, you know, I've lived in New York for most of my life. And, ⁓ you know, for me, New York is my great inspiration.
It's not the easiest place to live, but you're never going to be bored here. Like if you, you know, you can walk down the street and find inspiration for 10 paintings. You know what I
Like, and the characters and the
the people that you meet every day are just what makes this city so electric. Sometimes it's not easy being here, it's expensive,
everything's a little bit more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be, but I would live nowhere else because it's just so invigorating and particularly uptown.
I've lived in Brooklyn a little bit.
I lived ⁓ for a while a little bit downtown from here. I'm at 142nd Hamilton Place these days. And I've been in this particular place for 15 years. But there's no other area of the city I want to live in. know,
least certainly north of Morningside Heights, is an actual neighborhood where you see the same people every day. You know, I
Led Black (03:25)
Right, yep.
Tom Sanford (03:29)
live on a block where there's probably more people live.
on this block and lived in my hometown. And most of them I know. you know, like I've raised children here and, ⁓ you know, and I know every time they walk the subway, they've got eyes on them, you know, and I'm just, I just, I just love being here. I love the people and I want to celebrate that because, you know, a while ago I decided I really only want to paint stuff that I love because I've only got a short period of time to do this.
Octavio Blanco (03:37)
Yes.
Led Black (03:38)
Yeah
Tom Sanford (04:04)
You know, unfortunately we only have a short period of time. So you might as well spend your time doing what you love about the people that you love and the people that inspire you and uptown New York and New York City generally is that. It's all love.
Octavio Blanco (04:07)
Yeah.
Led Black (04:20)
That's dope. Now,
like, is there a name for your style of art? You know, what would he call it? have you even thought of a name of it yourself?
Tom Sanford (04:29)
Well, I sometimes call it like, ⁓ sort of like garish surreal expressionism, know, pop expressionism maybe. You know, I think that's really the job of potentially someday an art historian if I'm ever lucky enough for an art historian to pay me any attention. ⁓ you know, the
Led Black (04:46)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Sanford (04:52)
common denominator of my work is it tends to be paintings of people and places. I think it's ⁓
pretty pop culture influenced.
a lot of detail. This stuff is often a little bit kind of ⁓ more ⁓ textured and maybe a little bit more, in a sense, ugly. But I don't think of it as ugly. It's just like more stylized than the real world. Because I just think that's just... The thing about...
that makes it different from other visual mediums is people, it takes a long time to make and people will look at it for a few more seconds than they might look at it as a photograph.
So I wanna pack as much information in there as I possibly can because ⁓ people have a lot of stuff to look at and if they happen to look at my
stuff, I'm honored and I wanna give them a fuckin' eyeful.
Led Black (05:51)
Well, you definitely do that because your stuff is like electric. It like vibrates off the page. And you have a piece right now in Noma's exhibit called The Last Slice, I think. And it's like so deep and maybe some people don't mind not even get some of the stuff. Tell me more about why is it The Last Slice and some of the elements of that.
Octavio Blanco (05:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (06:01)
Yeah.
Yeah, so at the time I made that painting a little while ago. I think that one might be from 2016 or so.
But I was painting on still, I decided to paint still lifes. It was actually around a little after the time I met you, because you ⁓ came and gave me a beer for my 99 beers on the wall thing. And so these still lifes came out of a series of paintings where I asked friends and neighbors to bring me beer and we'd share a beer together and I'd make a beer painting.
Led Black (06:28)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom Sanford (06:42)
based on the beer. So on this one, I kind of decided to do a
Led Black (06:43)
Yeah, I remember that.
Tom Sanford (06:48)
still life that incorporated all of the bad habits that I'd had. It wasn't that bad a kid, but as a kid, a lot of drugs and
alcohol, a lot of young people do, screwing around and wasting time. And so at the time, I thought of it
Octavio Blanco (07:00)
Yeah. ⁓
Tom Sanford (07:09)
as like kind of like sort of hopefully saying goodbye to all that stuff like it was like
one piece of pizza in the pizza box that's the last slice and there's a sort of an arrangement of all sorts of other ⁓ Kind of empty calories around the
pizza, you know There's there's some pills and some drugs and some weed and like that because they use condom in there some ice cream all sorts of all sorts of stuff that
Led Black (07:32)
Hahaha!
Tom Sanford (07:37)
You know, we probably should go easy on, but you know, we're human beings and human beings kind of like pleasure. So ⁓ these things give you pleasure until they don't.
Octavio Blanco (07:49)
Yeah,
yeah, they can be fraught, right? ⁓
Tom Sanford (07:53)
Absolutely. A lot of pathos.
Octavio Blanco (07:55)
Exactly. I love that you say that right now you're only painting things that you love and I think that's important. But you know, like all artists, they go through phases, right? There's like the period where you might be doing artwork like you just described. That's a little bit more introspective. So can you tell us a little bit about your journey in your painting and what's been, if I was to be an art historian, I was going to look at your work and I want
to sort of like see Tom's journey. What would I be learning? And then also, you you mentioned the youth. Were you aware when you were a young person that art was in your future or did you have no idea?
Tom Sanford (08:40)
Well, you know, I always painted and drew. Particularly, I drew a lot when I was a kid. If you were to ask my dad this question, because I've heard him being asked this question, what he says is like, most kids start drawing when they're three years old or so, but Tommy, he calls me Tommy, Tommy just kept on going. Most stop when they're about eight, but Tommy just kept on drawing. so, you know, I think...
Way back what happened for me, and I think this is probably the story for a lot of people who get ⁓ interested in an art or some sort of skill that's similar to this. ⁓ I wasn't particularly good at drawing, but when I was in kindergarten, I think it was, there was a class drawing competition, and I happened to win the class drawing competition. Not that my piece was all that great. I do remember it. I drew a parachuter.
And the teacher said that I wanted, I got some little prize. And so I got the idea in my head that I was pretty good at this and I should probably go with it. And so I just kind of kept on doing it. And it was always sort of my identity in my class. It like I was the guy who'd make a drawing for a class project or if someone wanted a drawing, something they might ask me to draw that thing or do a caricature for them.
But I didn't really think I'd be an artist because I grew up in Westchester County, at least for middle school and high school. I lived in England when I was young until I was 12. my parents are not English. They're American. My dad was moved there for work. But anyway, when we came back to the States, I lived in like a pretty kind of conservative, boring Westchester County town. Like basically,
All the moms and dads there were like doctors or lawyers or bankers, like kind of white collar type people. And so I just kind of figured that's what I was going to do. And I went to college and I was an economics major initially. And the thing was, I really wasn't interested in it beyond that I figured that there was a job at the end of the rainbow with that kind of... ⁓
Octavio Blanco (10:40)
Mm-hmm.
Led Black (10:52)
Right.
Tom Sanford (10:54)
with that kind of major. Little did I realize when I started doing economics, it's a really abstract field and it's not really finance or business. It's more about behavioral economics. ⁓ But anyway, I was doing econometrics and statistics and I was a decent math student in high school but by that point, most of this shit was over my head and I kind of got by by copying homework.
Led Black (11:00)
Yeah
Theory, yeah. ⁓
Octavio Blanco (11:06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom Sanford (11:23)
That sort of thing. wasn't doing very well, but the main reason I wasn't doing very well is I was taking some art classes. I allowed myself to take one art class a semester and during my junior year I ran into this art professor, a guy named Archie Rand, who ⁓ just had a profound effect on me. He immediately realized that I was doing a lot of ⁓ extra work in the class and I was probably spending
Octavio Blanco (11:23)
You
Tom Sanford (11:51)
you know, 40 to 50 hours a week of my art homework, which didn't leave much time for anything else, you know? So he kind of inspired me to take art really seriously. And he made me aware that it was, it's a possible thing to be an artist. It's not an easy thing, but it's a real and honorable thing to do with your life. And so I just, kind of decided during his class, that's what I wanted to do when I became an art.
Octavio Blanco (11:56)
⁓ wow.
Tom Sanford (12:21)
major with an econ minor and you know it doesn't matter where you go to school be it Columbia University or ⁓ I don't know like the Maryland Institute of Art or any place you get done with school with an art major you basically have two choices you're gonna flip burgers you're gonna make art you know and so I I wanted to make art and so
Luckily for me, and this was the critical thing in my life as far as having an art career in my opinion, I was very lucky in that my parents paid for my college. And so I did not have loans to pay back. And that is an immense advantage because it meant that I could do part-time jobs. And back when I got out of college, I moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn where I shared a loft with
Led Black (13:04)
Right, makes a big difference.
Tom Sanford (13:13)
with a couple other friends. was paying $450 a month in rent to have a, you know, to be like living in a loft in Bushwick. Back then, Bushwick was just a bunch of stray dogs and burned out cars and like street prostitution. You know, it was it was a pretty gnarly place. And but but it was cheap and I was able to like work two or three days a week and make enough money to get by. so.
Led Black (13:23)
Yeah.
Octavio Blanco (13:29)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (13:40)
That's my full disclosure. was very privileged to not have to pay for my college. I did have to pay for my graduate school, but luckily for me, I got pretty smart and decided to go to Hunter. And Hunter was the best deal in education. I was able to go to Hunter and get a free studio, you know, as part of the tuition, but my tuition was $1,100 a semester. So that meant $1,100 for six months of studio, which was the cheapest studio in New York City.
Octavio Blanco (13:43)
You
Led Black (14:02)
Wow.
Octavio Blanco (14:03)
wow.
Led Black (14:09)
Bye.
Tom Sanford (14:10)
And so that was another critical key thing. it gave me, you know, time to do jobs that would help me with my art. what I was doing to make money was mainly working for artists, doing like odd jobs for them and helping with their paintings a little bit, but more just like kind of doing gopher kind of shit, you know, like procuring marijuana for an artist, it my job, know, stuff like that.
Led Black (14:35)
That's hilarious. ⁓
Octavio Blanco (14:35)
Hahaha!
Tom Sanford (14:41)
So that's kind of what I was sort of the beginning of my journey. And this isn't really addressing my work, but I do want to say one thing. When I was in, that led me kind of to like living uptown eventually. When I was in college, I needed a summer job because I needed spending money because there was beer to be bought and things like that. And so...
⁓ My roommate in college, his father worked for Anheuser-Busch and he was able to get me and my roommate Ted jobs on Anheuser-Busch delivery trucks. And I was on the, well, I was on the uptown route where we did Washington Heights, Inwood and ⁓ yeah, basically just Washington Heights and Inwood. And so I got really familiar with ⁓ Northern Manhattan and learned a lot and just like fell in love.
with the energy and vibe of the neighborhood. know, because the guys who were the drivers, I was kind of like the stock boy, essentially. I would take, put the beer on the hand truck and bring it into the bodega or the bar or whatever the case may be. And so I kind of learned a lot about bodega culture in uptown Manhattan. I could pick out a bodega that mainly sold drugs.
Octavio Blanco (15:52)
Ha
Led Black (15:57)
That's a science. ⁓
Tom Sanford (15:58)
or whatever, I was taught by the drivers, you like you look at the Goya cans, if those
Octavio Blanco (15:58)
hahahaha
Tom Sanford (16:03)
labels are faded, you know they are not selling them. You know that this is a drug spot. So I learned a lot. But anyway, ⁓ so I think, if I'm being too long winded, you can just kind of go like this. But, okay, well, so,
Octavio Blanco (16:03)
Yeah. Yeah. How much dust is on that shelf?
Led Black (16:06)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
No, you're good. You're good. You're good. This is fascinating. Go ahead. Keep going, brother. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Octavio Blanco (16:21)
No, no, no, no. This is really interesting stuff.
Tom Sanford (16:26)
I got out of college and I needed something to make art about. I ⁓ knew that it was important for a young artist to make work that was kind of controversial, touch on taboos, to get people interested in the work. And so what I realized at that time, this was like the late 90s, early 2000s, and ⁓ I think I was exactly correct that like,
the biggest issue and the most important cultural force in my life and my country's life was race. I grew up in the suburbs, but I was a big fan of hip hop music. I also like rock and roll and punk rock and all that shit too. But I identified that what was cool in our culture was not being made in Bronxville, New York. It was being made here. And it was being made by
brown kids, not by white kids. And I loved hip hop and I knew that this music was really cool. And so I wanted to make work about my relationship to hip hop music. Because I was, by my nature, my kind of, but because of where I came from in my race, I was sort of an outsider. And so I wanted to make identity art essentially about being a white kid who venerated hip hop music.
and ⁓ realize that the culture that I was being sold through MTV was kind of something that was being taken from certain neighborhoods and getting packaged by MTV and in a sort of unconscious, unscrupulous way and sold to me.
And so what I started doing, and I'll send you images of this stuff, guys, because I know you wanted some images to put up on the screen. I started making what looked like kind of Renaissance paintings, but they were of sort of hip hop current events.
Led Black (18:19)
Mm-hmm.
Octavio Blanco (18:19)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (18:27)
Like, I made a series of paintings about the hip hop revenge killings of the mid-90s. And you know, yesterday I was watching the P. Diddy documentary, so I'm getting all sorts of new information.
Led Black (18:36)
yeah, the reckoning, wow.
Octavio Blanco (18:37)
Yeah, I saw that too. Yeah, the reckoning. Wow.
Tom Sanford (18:41)
that would have been
Octavio Blanco (18:41)
⁓
Tom Sanford (18:42)
useful in these paintings.
I did a painting of Tupac getting shot in Las Vegas, but it was based on a Roger van der Weyden, who's a ⁓ Northern Renaissance painter from
16th century. A version of one of his famous paintings, but I painted it as Tupac getting shot. He splayed out on the hood of ⁓ I guess it was a Mercedes. ⁓
Led Black (18:56)
Fascinating.
Tom Sanford (19:09)
or BMW 500 series or something that he got shot in and shook nights there and snooped and feening shit cores in the...
Octavio Blanco (19:10)
BMW, yeah. And a lot of those Renaissance
Led Black (19:11)
Yeah.
Octavio Blanco (19:16)
paintings, a lot of those Renaissance paintings are very violent. those Renaissance paintings, if you, you know, we got the Cloisters right up here. If you go into the Cloisters and you see some of these paintings, it's all about stabbing and death and beheadings and it's really violent stuff. So it's interesting.
Tom Sanford (19:34)
Yeah,
the world was a lot more violent back then, believe it or not, I think. ⁓ But so I started making these paintings. I was making
Led Black (19:38)
Maybe.
Octavio Blanco (19:40)
Maybe, I don't know.
Tom Sanford (19:44)
icon paintings of rappers. Maybe I do an icon painting of Jay-Z or Biggie or whoever. I was interested in the time. So
tried to make them as close as I could. ⁓
to in a Renaissance style, but I couldn't escape my own hands, so they always had a of a slightly
affect to them. But to me, they were about the subject matter, but my identity was the critical part of the work,
it was sort of a taboo for a white kid like myself to be
depicting people of color in art, particularly within the art world. I don't think that hip hop fans really cared about that, because I...
Over time, I started to get a little bit
Led Black (20:28)
Right.
Tom Sanford (20:30)
for this. And the reason I got notable was, if I've been doing this for a little while, I sort of wanted to raise the stakes. So I decided around the seven-year anniversary of Tupac's death that I would do a project. And I was in graduate school at the time, and kind of conceptual art was something that a lot of people were doing. So I thought I would do a kind of conceptual project where I would try to turn myself into Tupac.
And I would do this in a very superficial manner. I decided I was going to take a couple of months leading up to the seven year anniversary of Tupac's death, a week before he died, of course, his shooting. And I would try to make myself like Tupac in some very superficial ways. So I started to exercise a lot, and I was trying to lose weight. I probably was about
Octavio Blanco (20:58)
Ha ha!
Tom Sanford (21:24)
you know 190 pounds when I started this but on Tupac's driver's license it says 153 pounds so I wanted to get down to 153 pounds and I got some piercings like nose piercing and ear piercings like the same ones he had I started to do some kind of sort of meaningless daily rituals like I would drink some Hennessy I would smoke some weed you know because like these were two things Tupac liked to do I would and Tupac's favorite
Led Black (21:31)
Wow.
Octavio Blanco (21:33)
⁓
Hahaha!
Tom Sanford (21:52)
food was buffalo chicken wings, so I'd eat some chicken every day. You know, obviously, like, sort of stereotypical and kind of racially coded things, but like, the point was to like, try to emulate my hero. And in actuality, I was more of a biggie guy being like an East Coast guy, but I felt like Tupac was much more iconic visually.
Led Black (22:14)
Right.
Tom Sanford (22:15)
And so I started to things like, you know, get tattoos. And I had a blog.
where I was writing about being Tompoc,
sort of white version of
Octavio Blanco (22:26)
Ha ha ha ha!
Tom Sanford (22:30)
oh yeah, thanks. And the funny thing about it was, back then, this was in 2003,
Led Black (22:28)
Tompaka's hilarious.
Tom Sanford (22:38)
the internet was not as big as it is now. And so I had this blog called Thug4Life.
And if you Googled Tupac back then,
would come up with me on the second page of Google results. ⁓ And of course, when fans of Tupac would do that, and they'd find me, they'd be
Led Black (22:51)
Wow.
Octavio Blanco (22:52)
⁓ wow.
Tom Sanford (22:58)
because I wasn't what they were looking for. And in fact, I look like this white rap carpet bagger. I recorded a version of ⁓ Hail Mary at a friends recording studio. And eventually, I started
Octavio Blanco (23:00)
Ahahaha
Led Black (23:09)
That's hilarious.
Tom Sanford (23:12)
to be, the media kind of picked up on me. ⁓ MPR sent Madeleine Brand to interview me and then
I ended up on MTV with Sway and I was on the cover of the LA Times, all sorts of shit. And my theory on it was back then there was
Led Black (23:23)
What?
Tom Sanford (23:30)
whole ⁓ sort of like group of TV shows.
Like where they on like MTV and VH1 where people would be emulating and trying to transform themselves into stars that they worshiped. And I kind of fit into that. But and I was approached by VH1 I think it was about being on one of these things. But they went as soon as they talked to me they realized that there was like a political agenda in my thing. Because like what I was trying to do was kind of trying to sort of ⁓ horribly like.
Led Black (23:54)
Right.
Tom Sanford (24:01)
When people would find me, they would criticize the project and all their criticisms were right on. Like I would say, you could never walk a mile in Tupac's shoes. You know, if you ended up in Clinton Correctional, you get killed. And that's true. You know, was obviously a fake gangster and the issue of me being white, you know, of course, this was the issue. know, like, and so, because my feeling was that while
Octavio Blanco (24:02)
Ha
Led Black (24:25)
That was the point, yeah.
Tom Sanford (24:31)
what I was doing could be conceived as being racist. ⁓ It was coming from a sincere interest in the culture. And I was trying to get my head around these guys that I worshiped, but I ended up looking like a skinhead from American History X. I'm covered in these kind of bad versions of Tupac's tattoos, and I got a shaved head. I look like fricking Ed Norton, you know? ⁓ But that was the point.
Octavio Blanco (24:50)
Right.
Led Black (25:00)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (25:00)
You know, like by
Octavio Blanco (25:01)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (25:02)
trying to be kind of like be a wigger, I was doing something that could come off as very, very racist. And so it was about this tension and this problem we have in our society. And my attempt to, in a very ignorant way, try to, you know, be involved in this culture that I loved. And I do think that while, you know,
white kids in the suburbs who do dumb shit like drink 40s like I used to do when I was a kid and like you know maybe talking to Bonnix a little bit I didn't do that too much I wasn't that ignorant but they actually in the fullness of time they actually help a small bit of healing like I don't think we have Barack Obama without Tupac Shakur you know because I think that
Like for me, I really didn't know people of color when I was in high school, but I learned about Harlem from like Big L songs, you know? And it's not really a true representation of what's going on here, but it made me aware that there is this place that has such a rich culture. It made me interested. And I chose to move here and raise my children here.
Led Black (26:08)
Yeah, right. ⁓
Octavio Blanco (26:09)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (26:27)
And my children are certainly not as stupid as I was. They have all sorts of different friends from different places, different cultures, different races, different ethnicities. And I think it takes generations to heal these wounds.
Octavio Blanco (26:43)
And
they're not total outsiders in the same way that you must've felt when you basically transplanted yourself here. You must've felt like a complete outsider. it's, wow, you know what? It is hilarious when you describe the things that you were doing. They're fucking funny. But ⁓ it's also like really, really deep when you actually put your mind to thinking about what you were trying to say and you're basically putting up a
on society and ⁓ kind of like looking at like you're playing with this idea that there's love for the art and then there's also ⁓ cultural appropriation and when does love for the art and
prevail over like the cultural appropriation and you did that in such an imaginative way and I also should commend you because one of the big complaints amongst people in the arts is that artists who are talented usually end up wasting their talents ⁓ doing commercials and doing things, you know, doing a lot of you know, commercials and this and that. Not to there's anything wrong with like...
earning a buck, which is important. But you actually have been, you know, working with these ideas. And I think it's so ⁓ important to tell the audience why ideas like this ⁓ should be valued, you know? I certainly do value them. ⁓
Tom Sanford (28:24)
Well,
I really appreciate your generous evaluation of my work. And yeah, that is what I'm going for. ⁓ I wouldn't do a project like that. That was the sort of thing that only a young artist would do, because I really took a lot of shit, frankly. But it was difficult. But it's probably the work I'm most proud of.
Octavio Blanco (28:45)
Yeah, I'm sure you did.
Tom Sanford (28:53)
Because I really think there was something at stake.
Led Black (28:55)
You know what I find also kind of fascinating how early on this was, right? Cause you were doing like provocative art, right? They kind of beyond the wall, right? It's beyond the wall, right? And it's touching people and it's getting, so it's almost like Banksy before Banksy in certain ways, know, which I find super interesting. But can you do the rest of the interview in a British accent since you were there till you're 12? You...
Octavio Blanco (28:55)
Yeah.
Hahaha!
Tom Sanford (29:18)
You know, when you move
to the States when you're 12, you lose your accent real fast because you get made fun of it for a lot, a lot. I can make like a stupid cockney accent, but I really can't do a British accent that's any good.
Led Black (29:24)
Really? So yeah. ⁓
Octavio Blanco (29:26)
Hahaha
Led Black (29:31)
⁓
So my question is, where, does it go from, that stunt basically allow you to make a living from art? What was the process from that point?
Tom Sanford (29:42)
Yeah,
was around that time that I was able to kind of, because I started to get a fair amount of attention. I, you know, I did, one of the cool things that happened with the Tupac thing is that this photographer, a guy named Prescott McDonald, who was, he lived in Brooklyn and he was like a real legitimate hip hop photographer. He had photographed, you know, 50 Cent for the Source.
members of the Outlaws, if I remember correctly, other rappers too. And he found me and he kind of volunteered to help me with some photography.
so...
Octavio Blanco (30:18)
were trying
was he like, was he getting your messaging? Like, or was he just like, this is fun. I mean, it was, yeah.
Tom Sanford (30:25)
No, no, I think he got it. know, because when
people would see this stuff, they would often email me or comment in the blog and I would address all of the emails and comments. you know, unless I did also get a lot of comments from like skinheads and they'd call me like a racial traitor and I wouldn't really bother with them. But like the hip hop fans, I would I would try to explain my position and almost always once they understood what I was doing, they thought it was really cool and I kind of on the nose. But, you know, I didn't want
Led Black (30:42)
Right, right,
Octavio Blanco (30:42)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (30:54)
in how I presented it to be too didactic because I thought that would undermine the point of it. Because if you weren't sort of shocked by it, I don't think it would have been very effective. But to Led's question, I did sell some of those photographs a little bit after the fact. But when I did that, ⁓ attention started to come to me. I started to sell the hip hop paintings. And by the time...
Octavio Blanco (31:03)
Yeah, absolutely.
Tom Sanford (31:23)
So this project happened in 03, and I think by mid-04, I was able to make enough money that I was able to quit my various jobs working for artists and PA'ing on commercials and stuff like that. And I wasn't making tons of money, and I've never made tons of money, but I was making enough money that I didn't need to work like an honest job. I could kind of do what I wanted to do.
Led Black (31:36)
Sad job, right?
Tom Sanford (31:52)
So yeah, I was lucky for that. And I managed to keep it going.
Led Black (31:54)
Yeah, cheers to that.
Octavio Blanco (31:55)
True wealth. mean, as an economist,
that's true wealth, right? Like you can, you could probably speak to that. ⁓
Led Black (31:58)
Yeah, to that, right?
So that means you have 20 plus years now of doing art. You know what mean? That's a fucking accomplishment to have in New York City. Like, beautiful.
Tom Sanford (32:06)
Yeah, and
Octavio Blanco (32:08)
Absolutely.
Tom Sanford (32:09)
Well, thank you
very much. It is an accomplishment. It's just tough to keep on going. But when people ask me about career aspirations, my only career aspiration is I can do this until I die. I don't need to be particularly famous or celebrated or anything like that. Of course, I'm certainly not against it. But really, the...
Led Black (32:21)
Hahaha!
Octavio Blanco (32:32)
Hahaha!
Tom Sanford (32:33)
I get to get up every day. I'm excited to get out of bed every day. I go and I do what I love. And it's not that there aren't frustrations in my life. There are plenty of them. But the fact that I don't have to sell my time to someone else is just the greatest gift.
Led Black (32:51)
That's a
gift and a half. And it's funny because we were just having the conversation with my wife and I, but that's what it is, right? We're giving our time to the, and they decide it's X amount per hour, right? And again, it's funny because I have a daughter, my youngest is an artist. You you devote hours upon hours to your work. You know what I mean? And you don't quantify it, which is beautiful. And the fact that you can live in New York City, kudos to you, brother, kudos.
Tom Sanford (33:13)
Well,
yeah, that's the thing. If I was to total up the hours I've spent on art in my life and I was to, you know, divide the money I've made by the number of hours, I make a minimum wage, but I really don't give a shit.
Led Black (33:23)
minimum way, yeah. But
Octavio Blanco (33:24)
Hahaha!
Led Black (33:27)
you know what I love about your art though, like again, it's something that now I see that like, all that Tupac stuff makes sense now. Like it makes sense for what your art was, because your art, it's always been, when we first met, right, you reached out to me about the beer event, right? Do you remember what beer I had? Let's see if you remember.
Tom Sanford (33:46)
Yeah, it was like, it was purple. It kind of had like a New Orleans theme or something like that.
Led Black (33:49)
Yeah, was a beat
of Purple Haze. was a beat of Purple Haze. You know what mean? But what I loved about that, so Octavio, he reached out to a bunch of different people and you picked a beer. And then I went to his studio and we chopped it up and it was beautiful because that's art that goes beyond just something on the wall, you know? And I think that's really amazing.
Tom Sanford (33:54)
Yeah.
Led Black (34:08)
And kudos because you were the Uptown Art Show Poster winner this year, which is really, yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool.
Tom Sanford (34:13)
I was, yeah. Yeah, that
was really cool. In recent years, I've
to do iPad drawings. I got Procreate on my iPad maybe four five years ago, and ⁓ I've really fallen in love with it. And yeah, it was really cool to get to... I've entered the poster contest before, but I tried just to use old paintings of mine. That didn't work very well. But now that I can really make an image quickly on...
It's not that quick, something that would take me weeks to paint, I can make in a couple days on the iPad. And yeah, such an honor. so ⁓ I'm trying to be more involved with ⁓ the Northern Manhattan Artists Alliance, because I think it's a really important thing that you guys are doing. Artists, they need a lot of help, because as you know and as your daughter will find out,
You know, it's not an easy thing to make this into a career and you need a network and a community behind you to support you. That's the most, it's in some ways more important than the work you're making is to have that community and that network that supports you.
Led Black (35:22)
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. And it's funny because this year with Noma, I was also not on the read. So I feel like we had another bond between you and I. You know what mean? But you're right about what makes Noma and the resources. But also the young artists can see an artist like yourself. Right. And they can see Tom is doing it. Look how he's been doing it. So I think you're an inspiration to a lot of those younger artists as well.
but how did you become a NYX art influencer? Like how did that happen?
Octavio Blanco (36:55)
Yeah,
take us through that.
Tom Sanford (36:55)
Yeah, it's funny because in recent years, know when people ask me what I do I usually go to I'm a semi-professional Knicks fan ⁓ So Yeah, I'm a few I'm a few notches down from spike
Led Black (37:03)
Like there's Spike and then I'm over here. What? That's so cool.
Octavio Blanco (37:03)
Hahaha
Yeah
Tom Sanford (37:11)
But I did sell him a painting recently. So that was cool. Yeah Yeah, yeah, Very quickly that there's that
Octavio Blanco (37:14)
Really? Oh, that's
awesome.
Tom Sanford (37:21)
used to be ⁓
a little art gallery at Slam Magazine in Long Island City. What had happened is that they have a space there that's an
office and there was a storefront of their building and for a while they were using it to fulfill their merch operation. But they started to outsource to some other company and they had this space and so they turned the ground floor into an art gallery. I think it's actually now closed but they did a show about the Knicks.
like I guess about a year ago.
And so I made a painting of Spike and so Spike came to the show. I wasn't there so I didn't get to meet him, but he bought my painting, which of course is like a massive career highlight.
Led Black (37:58)
wow!
That's
Tom Sanford (38:03)
not only, yeah, but like Spike is probably my all time favorite director. He got gained particularly is a
Led Black (38:03)
wonderful, what?
Octavio Blanco (38:04)
Yeah, that's amazing.
Tom Sanford (38:13)
that I've watched like thousands of times. I love, of course I love...
Led Black (38:17)
Do the right thing.
Tom Sanford (38:20)
Sorry. Yeah, do the right thing. And the
Led Black (38:20)
Do the right thing is amazing. Yeah.
Tom Sanford (38:23)
new one, based on the Kurosawa movie, I'm forgetting the name, but with Denzel. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, I think it's a very good movie. I love that movie. Anyway, ⁓ so back to becoming a kind of a semi-professional Knicks fan. Over the years, I've...
Led Black (38:28)
Yeah, yeah, I forgot the name of it. Yeah, it just came out.
Octavio Blanco (38:29)
⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ha
Tom Sanford (38:43)
made a lot of paintings of NYX players just because I paint about New York City and I've been a big NYX fan since like, you the early 90s. But
a few years, maybe four or five years back, there was an art gallery down the Lower East Side called My Pet Ram and the guy, Marcello Ricci,
who ⁓ runs the place is a big basketball fan. He's actually a Lakers fan, but he wanted to do a show during the playoffs about basketball. And so he asked me if I'd make a painting, and of course I wanted to.
So I made a painting of Clyde. And luckily for me, someone bought that thing pretty quickly. But then it ended up getting on Knicks Twitter, which is a pretty
little ⁓ corner of Twitter. And another
Guy who was not really an art collector, but like a big Knicks fan saw it and he he wanted to buy it But it wasn't available ⁓ So he got in touch with me and he asked me if I would do a commission and turns out this guy has three kids and
he's named them their middle names after like the three great Knicks of the 1972 team so their middle names are Reed Monroe and
Led Black (39:47)
What?
Tom Sanford (39:51)
the three kids and so he
Led Black (39:50)
Wow, that's crazy.
Tom Sanford (39:54)
Yeah, yeah, crazy. And so he asked me to make a painting of the players. And of course I wanted to do that, not only because I was going get paid, but I would have made that painting without getting paid, you know? ⁓ So I made the painting, and it turns out this guy's a season ticket holder, right? And so if you're a season ticket holder, you have like an agent assigned to you by Madison Square Garden. And I guess he told the agent, the ticket agent, lady or guy or whatever, about the painting.
Led Black (40:02)
right.
Tom Sanford (40:20)
She told Madison Square Garden Network about this thing. And if you watch Knicks games, you're aware that they do these little commercial spots where they kind of profile sort of crazy Knicks fans. Like maybe like a guy who, ⁓ you know, drives the A train. He always makes announcements when he goes through Madison Square Garden station about who the Knicks are playing. Or, you know, some guy who might have gotten a Knicks tattoo or whatever it is. And so they sent a film crew over to this guy's place. He lives out in Long Island.
Led Black (40:38)
Right.
Octavio Blanco (40:39)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (40:50)
And ⁓ so they're filming the kids and they film him and his wife by the painting. And they ask him, like, who made this painting? And he says, this guy, Tom Sanford. And it's like, we should probably go and find Tom Sanford. And so they came to my studio and I had a few Knicks paintings there. ⁓ And ⁓ so they made a commercial about me. And around the same time, Ewing Athletic, Patrick Ewing's old sneaker company, became aware
Led Black (41:03)
Wow.
Tom Sanford (41:19)
of some of my older Knicks, my older Patrick paintings, and they wanted to do a sneaker. so just like all these little Knicks things started to happen, and I kind of decided I should lean into this because one thing I really like is kind of getting outside of the art world and making my art operate inside of a real culture. And the Knicks fandom is, in my opinion, a real organic culture, you know, where people, like, you know,
Led Black (41:46)
Facts,
Octavio Blanco (41:47)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (41:49)
When there's a big party on 7th Avenue after a game, it's not the Knicks organizing that, that's the fans. And Knicks fans, they have to be pretty dedicated to stick with this team after all the bad seasons we've had. And so there's this real grassroots love that I think is like the beating heart of New York City. To me, the Knicks are the most New York of all teams.
Octavio Blanco (41:56)
Yeah.
You
Led Black (42:16)
Right.
Octavio Blanco (42:17)
When the Knicks are winning, it is a whole different energy.
Tom Sanford (42:17)
You just look at the Knicks fan base. looks a lot more like
the city than any other fan base, in my opinion, just like the people who like the Knicks. It's all races colors and creeds ⁓ and their dedication to the team is phenomenal. ⁓ it just so happened that I started doing this, like it was before Jalen.
ended up on the Knicks, but Randall was already on the team, so we were on kind of upswing. And so was a really good time making Knicks are, because people are real interested, you know? ⁓ And so it just has led to a lot of opportunities. And also my son, he's 12 years old now, but at the time when this started, he was like seven or eight. And he loves to play basketball. And I love to play basketball, but I suck at basketball. I was a high school wrestler.
Led Black (42:45)
Right.
Octavio Blanco (42:45)
Yeah,
yeah.
Tom Sanford (43:05)
So like I can just basically rebound and foul people. That's all I can do on the court. But Simon, he's kind of nice, you know, he's got a little handle. He can shoot a little. ⁓ And so, but he's never been interested in art, but he's really interested in basketball. So we could kind of have this thing together where, you know, like I occasionally I get to like, you know, do some art for
Led Black (43:09)
Hahaha!
Octavio Blanco (43:09)
You
Tom Sanford (43:26)
like, I did some art for John Starks. And so I brought Simon along and he got to meet John Starks.
Led Black (43:29)
What? That's so cool.
Tom Sanford (43:33)
And I'm gonna be in the upcoming Clyde Frazier
made by Mike Tolan, the guy who did ⁓ the Jordan, you know, dance stuff.
Led Black (43:37)
What? That's so cool.
Tom Sanford (43:43)
And so Simon came and he got to like hang out with, you Simon's like a young point guard. He got to ⁓ hang out with debatably New York's greatest point guard. know,
Jalen is gonna make a case for becoming that greatest point guard. But for now, at least until Jalen gets a couple titles.
Clyde's still our greatest point guard. Anyway, ⁓ so it allowed me to have this thing that I really love. I love to make art about, and I love to involve my son in. And so it just works on so many levels for me. And frankly, if you're going out and you're socializing the art world, people just talk about real estate and complain about the art market. I don't want to do that. I want to talk about the fucking Knicks.
Led Black (44:02)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Hahaha!
Octavio Blanco (44:26)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (44:27)
I like to be in the Knicks world more than the art world, you know?
Octavio Blanco (44:31)
Yeah, it just speaks to the authenticity that you bring to your work. I think that, you know, me and lead, I've think I've talked to you lead about authenticity, because I also think that you bring authenticity to what you do. And I think that's what makes you so successful uptown lead. And I think that's what also is so, ⁓ you know, positive in the work that you do, Tom, because authenticity goes a long way if you weren't if you weren't bringing the love for what you're trying to do.
people would see right through it, but it's impossible not to see the love that you bring to the work that you do. And I do think that you got lucky with this Knicks team because not only are they on the upswing, but they're so dynamic. I mean, look at Jalen and his, you know, the movement that happens with his hair and his braids and look at heart, like the way his facial, like his facial expressions at every game are like hilarious. The guy is like a canvas on his, and it's on his own, you know?
Tom Sanford (45:19)
the
Yeah.
Led Black (45:27)
Yeah.
Octavio Blanco (45:31)
and Carl Anthony Towns, he's Dominican. ⁓
Tom Sanford (45:32)
And he has no filter either. Yeah, no, I'm
Led Black (45:33)
Yeah. ⁓
Tom Sanford (45:36)
so glad that we have a Dominican player on the team. I was a little ⁓ upset when we lost Dante in particular in that trade, but I think Kat needs to be a Nick. ⁓ I love Julius too, and I think that he was a great Nick in the beginning of this run. I think he should get more credit than he does for the turnaround of the Knicks. ⁓
Led Black (45:43)
Me too, me too.
Octavio Blanco (45:44)
Yes, yes.
Led Black (45:48)
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Octavio Blanco (45:49)
Yes.
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (46:01)
He wore his heart in his sleeve and he sometimes alienated the fans because he was a little too emotional. But ⁓ yeah, having Kat on this team. And one of the cool things is, you my son sometimes works out at a basketball practice on the weekends at Bloomingdale School down 105th Street, this program called Make A Play. you know, Kat, when he was like 13, he was going to make a play, you know? And so...
Led Black (46:28)
Wow, that's amazing.
Tom Sanford (46:30)
Simon gets to like, that's incredibly empowering for a kid, like knowing like I'm playing in the same court that these guys played on, you know, like I should take myself seriously, you know. ⁓ Kion Anthony had played at Make-A-Play 2. ⁓ You know, it's just like, it's just cool to be in the basketball culture of New York. You know, I can take Simon over to the Rucker and, you know, we can watch like Rucker games right here, you know.
Led Black (46:51)
Right. Walking in the footsteps, right?
Tom Sanford (47:00)
⁓ We don't get up to dike as much because that's a longer trip for me.
Led Black (47:03)
Yeah, a little further down, yeah, further up, yup, yup. And let me ask you question, how
did the t-shirts thing, because like, the t-shirts are moving, man. I love the artwork, I love how on social you guys marry the artwork with hip hop. How did that come about?
Tom Sanford (47:18)
Yeah, so I'm actually wearing one of, this is probably my most popular t-shirt that I've made.
Led Black (47:20)
Yeah, I love that. I love that one.
Tom Sanford (47:23)
So this is a thing called Bacher Backpages, like Knickerbacher Backpages. And it's this guy, Stephen Delakian, who ⁓ he's
up in Inwood for years. ⁓ He's this incredible artist in his own right, ⁓ who I guess maybe like five or so years ago, was, what happened with Stephen was he was,
thinking like, I'm paying way too much time playing like 2K and I wanna be an artist. So he decided to teach himself Photoshop and other art, you know, softwares. And during the pandemic, he started to make like posts on Instagram after each Knicks game.
And initially they were like the back pages of the tabloids. He do like a spoof back page.
about what happened in the game, sort of like the onion meets the daily news or something like that. And so it would be like some jokey headline about like who scored or like what player got, you know, I don't know, got a facial or whatever it was. and, then people started to say to him, you know, his comment, you should make these into t-shirts. And so he started, he was selling some t-shirts, but then he wanted to have some more artists involved to have a broader, ⁓
Led Black (48:16)
Okay.
Tom Sanford (48:42)
range of what he could do. also, Steven, he can draw a little bit now, he's been working on it, but he's more of a photo collage guy. And so he was like flipping ⁓ photo album covers. He might take a Jay-Z album cover and make it into a Jay-B, like Jalen Brunson album cover or something like that. But he had some ideas for things that needed to be drawn.
so initially, he wanted to do a version of the Action Brunson
⁓ Rare Chandeliers cover for
⁓ the the Knicks Cav series I guess the first Knicks Cav series a few years ago Where we ended up beating them and so he asked me because he'd see me on the Knicks commercials And he'd see my paintings if I'd be interested in doing it I was like, know, absolutely this sounds great And so I made this smoked Cavaliers t-shirt with him and it did pretty well We I don't know we sold maybe a couple hundred t-shirts or something like that
Octavio Blanco (49:26)
Hahaha
Tom Sanford (49:39)
And that was really great. But then in the next season, he came up, this was his idea, Captain Clutch. you see, you hear Captain Clutch, all the radio announcers talk about all the time, it's Stephen Delacian, it's him. And so Stephen was like, we're gonna make Captain Clutch, but we're gonna do it like Captain Crunch. And so can you draw, do like a version of Captain Crunch cereal box? And so I was like, yeah, absolutely, this is a great idea.
Led Black (49:46)
Love that.
Wow.
Tom Sanford (50:05)
And we, I made that, and at the time, Steven was doing most of the font stuff on my illustrations. Now I've gotten better at fonts, so he sometimes does the fonts on mine, but sometimes I can do them myself. ⁓ And so I made this, and this one really popped off, you know, like I think it's our all-time highest selling shirt, but we've had a lot of really popular Knicks t-shirts. And anytime you go to a game or even watch on TV, you're gonna see people like sitting by the court wearing our t-shirts, which is like, just blows our mind. And you know,
Octavio Blanco (50:21)
Yeah.
Led Black (50:33)
So cool, yeah, for sure.
Tom Sanford (50:35)
Pat has bought like 19 of our shirts. Leon Rose has bought our, well actually his daughter has bought our shirts. Members of the Brunson family have bought our shirts. So we've never officially worked with the Knicks and for like intellectual property reasons, because all of this stuff, maybe I shouldn't say this, but none of this stuff is licensed at all. But I think the Knicks are smart enough to realize that having an organic,
Led Black (50:46)
That's so cool.
Octavio Blanco (50:59)
Yeah.
Led Black (51:03)
Yeah,
organic fandom. Yeah, for real.
Tom Sanford (51:04)
fan culture is
valuable, you know? And so if we were like really making tons of money, I'm sure we'd get the cease and desist, but it's still kind of small potatoes in the scheme of things. You know, we do sell a lot of shirts, but it's not like NBA money.
Octavio Blanco (51:07)
But... But the next...
Led Black (51:23)
Right,
but I'm blown away by how prolific you are though. It's like the game is over and then you got artwork for, like how do you do that? I mean, the game's over. I'm like, shit, how did Tom do that? Like how you turning it around so fast?
Octavio Blanco (51:24)
Right.
Tom Sanford (51:36)
Well, so what
I have to do, because my stuff takes a little while to make. Like it takes me, it probably took me like two days to make this illustration. So I've got to try to predict things. So if we have like a playoff series coming up against Boston, I don't know if you remember, but I made that flip of the liquid swords covered, liquid swords. So I made that way in advance because we knew that season that if we were to go anywhere, we had to go through Boston. So we might as well make something about Boston.
Led Black (51:53)
Yeah, I love that. Yeah.
Tom Sanford (52:06)
Or like I, you know, I might make one about, I made like a one about, actually, so last season during the Indiana series, I made like a wrestling poster one that was ⁓ Brunson choking out Tyrese Halliburton because in game one, Tyrese did that Reggie Miller choke thing. So was like, fuck that. We've got to get that choke back from him. So.
Led Black (52:20)
Yeah, he did the, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Octavio Blanco (52:20)
Hahaha
Yeah, yeah.
Led Black (52:27)
That's right.
Tom Sanford (52:28)
I made that and we sat on it for a couple games and we dropped it after we got a win against. Of course that series didn't end up going our way. So I have to go and do things in advance. this year I made a Garbage Pail Kid version of ⁓ Deuce McBride, like dropping deuces. ⁓ Which that one, it's kind of specific to people our age, because younger people don't really know about Garbage Pail Kids. But that one kind of works with older people. ⁓ And I got a Mitchell Robinson one that's kind of like...
Led Black (52:48)
Right, right.
Tom Sanford (52:56)
I won't talk about it too much, but it's kind of in the pipeline. So if Mitch ever has a decent game, we can drop that. And we've got some ideas and stuff I want to get done leading into the All-Star break. But Steven is different. ⁓ He can work a little faster than me. And also, he's like a night owl. I wake up very early in the morning. I get up at three or four in the morning, and my best hours are before my kids wake up.
But Steven is really good at working late at night. So after the game, he'll hone in on what the storyline is, and he'll spend two, three, four, five, six hours, whatever it takes him, to make something that he can drop that night or the morning after. ⁓ And the poor guy, he just busts his ass. Because Steven also, he's actually a professional photo illustrator. And so he's just working his ass off, the poor guy. But he's a genius.
Octavio Blanco (53:23)
Wow.
Led Black (53:38)
Gotcha.
I love the Brunisher t-shirt. I
love the Brunisher t-shirt. ⁓ bought one, yeah. Yeah, I bought that. So where can people go to get these t-shirts?
Tom Sanford (53:54)
⁓ thanks, thanks. That's what I did. Yeah. Yeah, we've been doing some comic book ones. Yeah.
Well, they should follow Bokker back pages on Instagram and there's a link to the shop there. And so you can order them online and they sometimes take a little while to fulfill. We use a third party fulfillment company, but we also do pop-ups. So like when we get to like critical times in the season, like for instance, during the playoffs, you know, things are happening. We release new shirts and people want to wear them to the games. So it's important to be able to get them because sometimes when you order them online,
If there's a big backup with a lot of orders, it sometimes takes two, three, four weeks for the shirt to show up. But we want our fans to be able to like wear them to the game. So there's this place down on Orchard Street, which is called ⁓ Nowadays ⁓ Creative Labs. And we became friendly with this guy, Harvey, who runs the place. And he's a really cool guy and lets us just take over the store and do pop-ups. And they have what's called
Led Black (54:58)
so cool.
Tom Sanford (54:59)
a DTG, you actually have several DTG printers, which are printers that just print directly to a t-shirt. So we can print to order as people come in. So someone comes in, they say like, I want the Brunisher or I want the Nova Knicks t-shirt or like the Josh Hart Milkman t-shirt or whatever it is. And they pick out the blanks, like the kind of t-shirt they want because Harvey stocks like some high-end t-shirts or some more mid-range t-shirts.
Led Black (55:18)
Hahaha
Tom Sanford (55:29)
⁓ And then, you know, they pick out their design and we can print it for them on the spot and, you know, they can go from there to the game. ⁓ So if you follow Bokker Backpages, or if you follow me, uberkunst, U-B-E-R-K-U-N-S-T, you know, we announced this stuff ⁓ on our Instagrams. We got to build out our TikTok, frankly, but I think we do it there too a little bit. ⁓ But yeah, Instagram, Bokker Backpages is the place to go.
Led Black (55:37)
That's awesome.
Octavio Blanco (55:38)
It's whole world. It's a whole economy.
Led Black (55:53)
Nice.
That's awesome.
Tom Sanford (55:58)
⁓
and come to our events. And we also collaborate with some of the Knicks content creators. ⁓ The Knicks OmniFan girls are great friends of ours and sometimes when they do a pop-up, like Knicks party, come and we'll sell some t-shirts. We also collaborated with ⁓ CP the franchise, ⁓ KFTV, which is probably the biggest ⁓ Knicks content platform that's fan created these days.
And so we do pop-ups at their watch parties. So we just try to be involved in the culture. it ⁓ just adds another thing that people can do when they come to a Knicks party is they can take a look at our stuff and talk to us about the Knicks and maybe buy shirt.
Led Black (56:42)
It's funny because with fucking Trump, know, at least we have the Knicks. You know what mean? Like at least we have the Knicks. You know I'm saying? Like, is this our year? What do you think, Thomas? Is this our year?
Tom Sanford (56:48)
Yeah. Yep.
Octavio Blanco (56:48)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (56:54)
OKC is really good. They're really good team, but I think it's our year. I think we can do it. I think we're coming out of the East and, you know, seven game series injuries. You never know what happens. And I would never bet against Jalen Brunson. That man is incredible, you know, and as a father of a kid who plays basketball, who doesn't have any ⁓ superhuman athletic gifts.
Led Black (57:09)
Never, never, never, never.
Octavio Blanco (57:11)
Yeah,
he's a...
Tom Sanford (57:19)
I love to be able to point to Jalen because Jalen is the best point guard in the league. And it's not because he's the fastest or like the most gifted. It's because he's the smartest player on the court and he works the hardest and his footwork is impeccable as they say. he just shows kids and he never does the wrong thing. He always says the right thing. He's always gracious. He's a gentleman.
Led Black (57:22)
That's right.
It's the heart. Yep.
Octavio Blanco (57:32)
He's
He works.
Led Black (57:42)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Octavio Blanco (57:43)
I mean...
Tom Sanford (57:49)
But he's a fierce competitor, you know, he's just... Yeah.
Led Black (57:50)
He's also super small. He's super small, right? Like you know,
he but he's not scared and he uses his body in a way that's very interesting
Tom Sanford (57:59)
Yeah, no, he's strong, but you can tell he is strong as hell. He's a tough motherfucker.
Led Black (58:02)
Yep. Yep.
Octavio Blanco (58:03)
Yeah. And he recognizes
that it takes the work, that it's the work. I think that's his catchphrase, that the magic is in the work. So I mean, he knows that ⁓ he has to work hard and he has to practice and he has to make sure that he's doing. Now we're coming up on time almost, so I wanted to ask.
Tom Sanford (58:10)
Mm-hmm.
Well, I would just say that that's the
exact same advice I would give to a young artist. When kids used to ask me, like I did teach a little bit at a college level for a few years, maybe 10, 15 years back, when they would ask me like advice, I always told them the most important thing I did for becoming a professional artist was being a high school wrestler. Because you learn to work hard, you learn to be humiliated to lose.
Octavio Blanco (58:24)
Yeah.
Hahaha
Tom Sanford (58:45)
You're
gonna lose a lot in art and you're gonna be humiliated and it's not glamorous. You gotta be willing to put in the work and you gotta take your licks. And Jalen knows that and any artist who sticks with it knows that. But anyway, sorry.
Octavio Blanco (59:01)
Yeah,
Led Black (59:01)
No, I love that. I think you're 100 % right.
Octavio Blanco (59:02)
no, that's good. I want to give you a chance to talk about before we start to wrap things up here, I want to give you a chance to talk about what's next. I know that you're doing stuff in the community. I know you were working with a a local bit of paddle. What's that about? Like what's the.
Tom Sanford (59:18)
yeah, ⁓ well
yeah, I've doing a fair amount of commissions. I like doing commissions because I like money. ⁓ like so there's a new ⁓ paddle, padel is how they pronounce it, club that's opened up, know, next to the mink building down on 126. You know where that halal chicken place is where they slaughter the chickens for? For you it's kind of like close to that.
Led Black (59:25)
Hahaha!
Octavio Blanco (59:26)
⁓ Money's good.
Led Black (59:43)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (59:48)
Pedale, it's a little bit like Pickleball, but it's a really cool little facility. And the guys who run that found my work because I have a painting at the Bo's Bagels on 16th Street, which I lend to them for free bagels. I love Bo's Bagels. And so they give me all the bagels I want. Anyway, these guys, Evan Brown, he saw my painting there. It's a painting of ice spice. And ⁓ he asked me if I might be interested in doing some work.
doing some work with them. And so we're working out the details, but I'm going to make some art for their club. I also, I just finished a commission painting for the new Joe's Pizza location, which is down. It's going to be down in Times Square next to they already have one in Times Square, but they do so much business. They're opening up another store next to it. So I just finished that. I've I am I, you I want to do a show of Knicks art before the season ends, but I keep on
Led Black (1:00:20)
That's cool.
Wow.
Octavio Blanco (1:00:36)
Wow.
Tom Sanford (1:00:45)
having things come up that like, you know, like commissioned paintings and things like that, which I kind of need to do because, you know, you guys are both fathers, you know the responsibilities of a family. so I, yeah, and like Bushwick Bill said, I ain't with being broke, you know. ⁓
Led Black (1:00:55)
facts.
Octavio Blanco (1:00:58)
Truth.
Led Black (1:01:01)
You can't
Octavio Blanco (1:01:02)
Hahaha
Led Black (1:01:02)
be broke. You can't do be broke. You got too much responsibility. Tom, I gotta ask you as a hip hop head, like who's your favorite MC? Favorite MC in your favorite group.
Tom Sanford (1:01:06)
Yeah, yeah, no, exactly.
Man that's that's tough and you know I'm a 90s guy you know like Who would I say is my favorite MC of all time actually you know who my favorite MC is who's not a New York guy is Andre Nicotina from Oakland you know that guy You guys check out Andre Nicotina I love I love Dre dog Andre Nicotina, but as far as New Yorkers go obviously big L You know I'm I love biggie ⁓
Led Black (1:01:17)
Me too.
Octavio Blanco (1:01:18)
Yep.
Led Black (1:01:27)
I've never even heard of that.
Big out,
Tom Sanford (1:01:40)
Wu-Tang, guess Capadonna maybe from the Wu-Tang, ⁓ my favorite there. Yeah, I think so. I like Ghostface, I love Ghostface. Yeah, yeah, I love Ghostface. You know, I love them all. ⁓ you know, maybe, you know, this is an obvious answer, but like, you know, the Illmatic album is probably like my favorite, you know, single album.
Led Black (1:01:43)
Capitan is your favorite Woo member? Over ghost face like Methadme?
Octavio Blanco (1:01:47)
Hahaha!
Led Black (1:02:01)
Love that album. Love it, love it, love it.
Tom Sanford (1:02:05)
You know, back in like the early aughts, like I would always be like a Nas guy as opposed to a Jay-Z guy. You know, I just felt like he felt like a little more authentic to me. Not that I dislike Jay-Z, I think he's a great rapper, but like I think Nas is a little more interesting to me. But I love a lot of Jay-Z's stuff. Who else? You know who, I was just in Miami for the art fair and I'm at this party.
Led Black (1:02:10)
Me too, me too.
Octavio Blanco (1:02:14)
Ditto. Yep.
Led Black (1:02:15)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (1:02:31)
And I'm walking through it, I'm wearing this great Yankee hat I picked up recently. It was like a day of the dead hat that had all the skulls all around it. And the guy who's like the hype man for the DJ, he's like, yo, he's on the mic, he's like, yo, I love your hat, someone's bringing some style to this thing. And I'm like, yeah, thank you. And he's like, but it should be a Mets hat. And I'm like, nah, nah, nah, not Mets, I'm uptown, you know? ⁓ But then, I didn't recognize him, but then five minutes later, he's... ⁓
Led Black (1:02:41)
Okay.
That's cool.
Octavio Blanco (1:02:53)
Hahaha!
Tom Sanford (1:02:58)
Pop Goes the Weasel comes on or maybe it was Gasface or something but it was fucking MC Search and I always loved MC Search and so
Led Black (1:03:03)
Whaaaat?
Octavio Blanco (1:03:03)
⁓ yes, he's, something's
going on with him. He's all over social lately. He's doing, he's.
Led Black (1:03:10)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (1:03:10)
Yeah, well since
seeing that I've noticed that he is, but that's my way of saying that of course like ZevLoveX, know, MF Doom was one of my favorites from back then. ⁓ yeah, I love Dayla, of course, and I love Tribe as well, you know, I love all that positive stuff. Yeah, actually we're gonna...
Led Black (1:03:17)
Wow. Yeah.
Octavio Blanco (1:03:18)
Yeah, MF Doom. What about Dayla?
Do you like, go with...
Yeah, yeah.
Led Black (1:03:28)
That's so cool.
Octavio Blanco (1:03:28)
Yeah.
Tom Sanford (1:03:31)
This is a little secret of, and I hope, I'm not gonna tell you exactly what we're doing, but we're definitely doing ⁓ a tribe flip. It's gonna be what we anticipate being one of our biggest shirts this year. But we're gonna hold onto that for maybe All-Star or something. Or if we get to the NBA Cup final.
Led Black (1:03:41)
⁓
Octavio Blanco (1:03:43)
I
Led Black (1:03:46)
Okay, you heard it here first.
Octavio Blanco (1:03:47)
And we can't forget
KRS. We can't forget KRS either. That's like, we can't not mention him.
Tom Sanford (1:03:52)
yeah, sure, sure.
Yep,
yeah. you know, being from Westchester, you know, I've always had a soft spot for DMX and for... Who else? don't know about there. Well, definitely DMX, but...
Octavio Blanco (1:04:03)
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Led Black (1:04:03)
The locks and Jadakiss. Jadakiss, right? Yeah, Jadakiss
too. Jadakiss is from Yonkers. yeah, yeah. Well, Tom, thank you so much, brother, for being on the show. This has been such an excellent show. I learned so much and you're so positive and you represent Uptown very well. Thank you, brother.
Octavio Blanco (1:04:08)
for sure.
Tom Sanford (1:04:11)
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah.
Octavio Blanco (1:04:13)
Both
of them. Both of them.
It went by so quickly. Yeah.
Tom Sanford (1:04:24)
yeah, I did.
Well thank you guys. And as do you, again, I'm so honored to be like an honorary, you know, I think of myself as a real New Yorker, although I've only lived up here for 30 years, you know. But I'll tell you, there's been members of my family on this island of Manhattan since about 1650, so I think I'm a real New Yorker.
Led Black (1:04:36)
That's a long time, you a New Yorker.
Octavio Blanco (1:04:38)
Yeah, you're an uptowner.
Led Black (1:04:47)
Yes sir, yes
Octavio Blanco (1:04:48)
I you
are too. I think you are. Absolutely. Thank you very much.
Led Black (1:04:48)
sir, yes sir. Thanks Tom, appreciate it brother. Talk to you
Tom Sanford (1:04:52)
Alright guys, see