Meet Quentin Southall

Today we’d like to introduce you to Quentin Southall.

Hi Quentin, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
My name is Quentin Southall and I’m a professional sneaker artist out of Richmond, Virginia. I customize sneakers, paint electrifying artwork, and design custom apparel. Having always been artistic, I am also currently a Division I basketball player at the University of Richmond. When I was younger I took art classes at the Torpedo Factory Art School in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia before I took a break from drawing and painting to focus on my athletic career. As I continued to improve as a basketball player, I was fortunate enough to become team captain of my high school varsity basketball team and go on to be recruited by the Richmond Spiders to play Division I collegiate basketball. At the conclusion of my high school senior year basketball season, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the remainder of the school year and left me with little to do. I was eager to put my creativity to use and bought a small sneaker painting kit to begin customizing some of my old personal pairs.

Gradually, people reached out to me wanting to buy some of the sneakers I had painted for myself, and then others began asking me to design and paint their sneakers. When the pandemic slowed down and I moved into college during my freshmen year, I had no desire to stop the momentum of my small business that I had grown over the span of a few months. Balancing my academics, my basketball and travel schedule, and my sneaker business took time to get accustomed to, however, I had the desire and initiative to excel in all these areas at the same time. Now, I’ve created over 200 custom projects and grown my own sneaker customizing business to give my customers an avenue to express themselves in any way imaginable. I take custom orders and also sell personal sneakers and apparel projects. I have painted pop culture icons, public figures, movie and comic book characters, album covers, rappers and singers, abstract designs, social movements, brand mash-ups, and much more. I have customized Jordans, Nike Air Maxes, Nike SB Dunks, Nike Air Force 1s (the most popular), soccer cleats, football cleats, slides, running shoes, and many others. This year, I had my artwork showcased at Gallery 5 art gallery meanwhile I was in Buffalo competing in the NCAA March Madness tournament.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There were definitely shortcomings along the way. One of the biggest issues I had was my official Instagram page where I shared that most of my artwork was taken down by Instagram by allegedly “too many broken community guidelines” early in March of 2022. Looking back, I believe this was due to an update by Instagram that unfairly reexamined all the music I had used for my short videos on my page and consecutively hit me with copyright community guideline strikes that took my page down. This happened right when my basketball team, the Richmond Spiders, won our conference tournament for the second time in school history and clinched a berth in the 2022 NCAA March Madness tournament. Suffice it to say, I had a lot of things going on at this point in my life and while I had this immense joy for being able to play in March Madness, I also was dealing with the seeming demise of my small business. At that point, I had just over 2100 followers, and Instagram was the only avenue I had to widely reach my customer base and share my artwork on a large scale. Losing that unfairly was disappointing and it was exacerbated by the fact that Instagram would come to take months before ever responding to any of my appeals.

However, this was a learning experience. I created a new page and spent time re-uploading my artwork and I realized was able to curate the look of my page better now that I’ve had all this experience from doing it for years. My new followers were more engaging and I grew a lot faster than previously after all my followers started to find their way back to my page. It showed me people really believed in what I was doing and still supported me and my artwork, even through my ups and downs, and I was thankful for that. Now, my new page has been growing rapidly and the nucleus of my supporters is back and more engaging than ever. Some of the smaller issues I had along the way were rising sneaker prices, dealing with untrustworthy customers, and investing in some expensive machinery, as well as struggling with time management. For example, when I began my business, the price of a Nike Air Force 1 Low was $90, but because of recent inflation, COVID-19, and rising shipping expenses, the price has risen to $110 currently.

This increase in price affected me across the board and caused me to also increase my prices to offset the rising price of the shoes. I’ve also dealt with a number of untrustworthy customers, for example, some customers would order a custom sneaker and I would spend my time customizing said sneaker, and then they would never follow through with reaching back out to pay or pick up their sneakers, incurring a loss of time and money on myself.

I’ve also dealt with resellers who specialize in buying up Nike’s stock of desirable sneakers and reselling them for a profit which also causes me to raise my prices begrudgingly. Finally, time management has been a huge learning experience for me: having to balance my academics at a top 20 business school in the nation, playing Division I basketball, traveling during the season, running my custom sneaker business, and being able to meet those deadlines across the board. Ultimately, through experience and a lot of trial and error, I believe every poor experience I’ve had with a customer or a supplier or with a particular order has also been a learning experience that I feel I’ve come out better for.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I create custom sneakers! Mainly, that means purchasing a sneaker, preparing it by, painting a design or art piece on the sneaker, then sealing it with a protective top coat. I’ve created over 200 custom projects at this point. I paint and customize sneakers, paint and design apparel, and handcraft sneakers from scratch. I have painted pop culture icons, public figures, movie and comic book characters, album covers, rappers and singers, abstract designs, social movements, brand mash-ups, and much more. I have customized Jordans, Nike Air Maxes, Nike SB Dunks, Nike Air Force 1s (the most popular), soccer cleats, football cleats, slides, running shoes, and many others.

I am most proud of my ability to leverage the natural talent I possess and turn it into something I can share with the world and with other people. Knowing people enjoy and wear my artwork on a daily basis gives me the desire to keep creating and keep inspiring. The thing that sets me apart from others is I am not just a student, I am not just an artist, I am not just an athlete, I am more than the sum of my parts. I do what I love and I don’t sacrifice anything to do so. Even though some days are more stressful than others, I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone else’s.

What does success mean to you?
I believe our society places too much weight on material goods, prestigious titles, and an “idyllic lifestyle”. I believe those things can be an aspect or consequence of one’s success but don’t necessarily define it.

Success is finding happiness in the elements of your life you love most and living with self-actualized freedom and fulfillment. Living a personally fulfilling lifestyle and treasuring the joy you derive from a hobby or a job or traveling or being with family or friends is a success.

Pricing:

• Custom Sneakers: $150-$250
• Custom Apparel $35-$200

Contact Info:

• Website: www.qscustomsneakers.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qscustomsneakers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/qscustomsneakers
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrLJ20kwQbjetFXWQLW55fA
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/quentincsouthall/