Ahead of the release of our Artist Series Bandanas, I spoke with each artist involved to find out what this piece of art meant to them, how they’ve adjusted to our collective new circumstances, and what’s next.

First up is Greg Ito, who uses symbolism and strategic colors to make you feel something. Though it features no words, Ito’s painting that we’ve printed onto the Artist Series Bandana tells a vivid story, one of loss but also redemption and strength.

As with all of the pieces in this collection, a portion of the profits will be donated to a charity of the artist’s choosing. Greg Ito has selected Direct Relief as his beneficiary, a foundation whose mission is to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies without regard to politics, religion, or ability to pay.

You can watch our entire conversation in the video below, as well as read some of the things Greg said that really stuck with me.

On the pandemic:

It’s hard, you really don’t know how to navigate it. You see the rest of the world speeding up and getting things closer to normal. We’re just a little slower, I guess. [Laughs]

I started with these smaller pieces and made a bunch of paintings that were the size of a piece of paper. I was thinking about how during a pandemic, with these big shifts, people migrate. So I was thinking about these small, spiritual objects that tribesmen would carry with them along these migratory journeys from one place to another. I wanted to make my version, these small images that people could bring with them. I feel like a lot of people are moving, a lot of fear in the air. It’s really scary, you know?

With all of the social injustices going on, it was a double tsunami of fear. It’s been really unstable. All of these creative forms are really important for people because they gravitate toward images that help them cope with what’s going on or [give them] things to look forward to in the future.

On fire:

One of the paintings that didn’t make it into my Frieze show is this round one, with an image of hands on fire and a heart. Fire is both creative and destructive. Growing up in LA, we see wildfires all the time. It’s destructive and it’s sad because people lose their homes, but it allows for new growth. The landscape totally changes. We’re kind of in that moment right now, where everything feels like it’s on fire. These hands are how I was feeling.

Before Frieze, I wondered what I was doing wrong. I was struggling and working so hard. It got to this point before that fair where I had literally a hundred dollars in my bank account and my wife was like, “Don’t worry, you’re working really hard and it’s going to pay off. Just think positive.” She always boosts me up like that. I walked through that fire and I came out transformed.

And right now, with people’s jobs being incinerated, that fire is followed by a new passion. It allows them to go back into their fashion line or other creative stuff, now that they have the time. It’s really dope. And you want to support it. We want to know where our money goes. We’re more connected to our contribution to culture.

On moving on:

We all have to accept an L once in a while. It’s a struggle but as long as we have people together and everyone is sharing good energy, we’re building — on a personal level and the larger scheme of things as the world we want to live in. It’s a beautiful thing. Some of my images can seem haunting, but they’re masked by this crisp style and a soft-but-rich palette of colors that show these scary things in a different light.

My wife and I are moving right now, looking for a bigger home. And the house that I’m in is kind of like the house in the painting. I love this pad. It’s so cheap, it’s an old little spot we painted and fixed up. But it’s not conducive to us raising a family. It doesn’t have the amenities I would need for a baby. So, we’re going through that and these are the things I think about when I’m painting. Change, and needing to leave this place I fell in love with to go on this new journey. It’s scary but also beautiful. In the end, it’s all good. We keep marching forward.

I learn from the history of my family being incarcerated in the Japanese internment camps during World War II. They lost everything. They lost their homes, their businesses, their American sense of honor. For generations. A whole community thrown into these camps, dispersed out into the middle of nowhere. To see the resilience that my family had to come out of there, to rebuild, move forward, and grow, is a huge inspiration.

On his Artist Series Bandana design:

You can see two separate symbols, and they create a narrative. And the narrative’s operation is to invoke an emotional response. If you look at this painting next to an old Rothko painting, he does these color fields where he’ll use a blue fuzzy square over a red fuzzy square with a purple background, and that will create an emotional response because these colors fields are tied to emotional connections. So, I wanted to do the same thing, but engraining my symbols and my imagery and my style into the formula. Our stories are never finite, they’re forever changing and evolving and growing. A house burning could trigger traumatic memories of losing your home, or a past relationship, or losing a dream project. Or it could also be a sign of new beginnings. These symbols take on their own life depending on the person.

With the companion pieces, the story is never finite. Life is short but it’s also very long. It’s nice to have these works where you put one painting next to another one and the story can change, almost like chapters.

I wanted to take the bottom register, the house on fire, and pair it with this hand that’s running through a garden. The garden is flowers that are growing from the fires. Below, there is a locked door that’s red and that symbol is connected with the keyhole on the guy’s sleeve. Freeing himself from the past.