Meet Kevin Meeker | Custom Sneaker Artist & YouTube Content Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kevin Meeker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kevin, why did you pursue a creative career?
I remember always either getting in trouble or getting praised for doodling in class. Whether it was just drawing a band logo for a friend, or making little comics about absurd situations from school, I’ve always just enjoyed making things. When I hit Senior year of High School and college was something I wanted to pursue, I was lucky/cursed that I lived about 3 minute walk from the now defunct Southwest University of Visual Arts. I did one year of Graphic Design before switching to Animation, which is what I got my Bachelor of Arts degree in. A degree that worked out so well because I now work at a bank. Even feeling like an artistic failure at times, my friends from art school and I still run a silly YouTube channel where we make videos watching and reviewing bad movies we find for $1. Even if we only average a few hundred views per video, I still get the same rush I did when I was 13 making my friends laugh with silly drawings that I do getting comments from people across the country saying they liked the video.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I have two main artistic outlets that take up 90% of my free time.

I run a YouTube channel with my best friend where we watch and review bad movies we find for $1 at garage sales, record stores, Goodwill, etc. We started the channel in college as a way to just challenge ourselves to do extra animation practice because we felt we weren’t being challenged enough, so we would do little 4 Hour Animation challenges, where we would write, storyboard, voice act, animate, render and upload a small piece of animation in 4 hours total.
Over time, as we finished art school and didn’t find jobs in our field, we still kept the channel as just a silly outlet to be creative with each other. We would play video games, do sketch comedy, interview friends, talk with strangers on Omegle.com. Eventually this turned into the series we do now called $1 Bin of Doom. Using puppets and making our videos look like a found, old VHS tape, we make our own local and punk rock version of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but way raunchier and with way more Arizona references.

I’ve also been customer sneakers for years now, then about a year or so ago, decided to finally bite the bullet and buy all the equipment needed to start making them as my own. Using acetone, masking tape, vinyl cutters and leather paint, I love taking a shoe model like a Nike Air Force 1, Adidas Superstar, Air Jordan 1 and customizing them for myself or for friends. It’s really fun to sit and talk with friends about what inspires them, or something they are really passionate about, and getting into the head space of a professional at Nike/Adidas/Jordan, coming up with a concept that conveys that in the form on a shoe. A lot of custom sneaker artists you see can and will just paint a portrait of Kobe Bryant or an anime character, and that’s great if you have the portrait skills I do not have. I love trying to convey this concept as little as possible. If someone wants a sneaker designed by the Transformer Bumblebee, it would be easy to buy a shoe and paint the transformer on the side. But my ultimate goal is to design something that feels like it would be an official Nike/Adidas/Jordan release. Using colors, simple logos, storytelling to have a shoe inspired by their passion, not just a direct image of it.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Oh boy, I may be the worst guide for someone visiting Tucson. If an out of town friend came and, like you said, asked to see everything we have to offer, we could maybe kill two or three days doing all the main ones: Pima Air and Space Museum, Reid Park Zoo, Saguaro National Park. After that, I start to panic and get all sweaty. Depending on the season, I would take them to some sort of college sporting event, the UofA hockey team, check out Old Tucson, the Flandrau Science center does laser light shows, those are amazing. We would also have to go to the National Handball Hall of Fame, located conveniently behind a Circle K off not major streets, and get your picture in front of the T-rex on Speedway and Kolb, and the Good Burger mobile on Broadway and Kolb.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My dad was a huge influence in why I was able to pursue art as a potential career path, and fostering a love for sneakers and being creative. My dad was an upholsterer for Learjet/Bombardier for decades and would do classic car interiors in the meantime for extra cash and because he loved it so much. He never told me to do something safe because he wanted me to feel the same thing he felt working on cars.

In terms of my love for sneakers, I grew up a fat kid with really wide feet, so having to always get Triple E wide New Balances (way before New Balance was cool like it is now), I was always very jealous of people who could buy off the shelf Nike or Adidas shoes and wear them. New shoes was something my dad was always asking if I needed, always buying for me for birthdays and Christmas. My dad passed before he got to see me lose 100 lbs and be able to fit into regular sneakers, so I think it’s just something that always reminds me of him and they’re a great gift to give to friends and family as well.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meekersneakers/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2AiYdCFbxT2NdCwRno-zQ