Cal State Fullerton alumni Ethan Javonillo took a leap of faith when he posted a photo of his custom artwork on Instagram. Months later, that single post led him to Brooklyn, New York to hand deliver his original painting to legendary film director Spike Lee.
Javonillo graduated from Cal State Fullerton in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Television Arts (CTVA) and a minor in Asian American studies, which influences his visual storytelling that is inspired by Lee.
The final touches of the piece were solidified in May 2026, with its completion posted to his Instagram, tagging both the New York Knicks and Lee on a whim.
Javonillo follows Lee on social media, so he knew he was active online, which inspired him to take a risk and tag Lee on his instagram post for his piece “The Garden.”
“I knew that he was active,” Javonillo said. “But it wasn’t on my mind at all that there would be a chance that he’d be interested in it like that. Just to have any chance of them noticing it, I just wanted to tag them.”
The following morning on Mother’s Day, Javonillo woke up to a message from Lee on Instagram asking plainly, “How much?”
“I just opened it and read it, and then I closed my phone again because I couldn’t believe it,” Javonillo said. “Then I logged in and wanted to double check if it was actually his account, or if it was like a scam or spam account.”
Once he realized the message was authentic, he shared the news with his family at a Mother’s Day lunch. The timing became even more memorable as the Knicks made an impressive postseason run that ended with their first NBA title in 53 years. Following their victory, Javonillo updated his piece to include “2026 NBA Champs.”
Determined to deliver the painting safely without risking damage during shipping, Javonillo flew to New York in October where he first visited Madison Square Garden with a large box to take photos before heading to Lee’s Brooklyn studio.
As two staff members opened the garage door for him at 10:55 a.m., one of them turned out to be Lee’s art manager, who agreed to take a photo of Javonillo outside.
“He was like, ‘Oh well, here’s Spike coming in right now,’ literally in his car pulling up and he’s like, ‘Why don’t you give it to him yourself?’” Javonillo said.
Javonillo was then invited inside, where he spent 15 minutes talking to Lee — meeting him was a surreal moment of validation for his career as an independent artist.
“The timing was really perfect,” Javonillo said. “If I had come five minutes earlier, or late, I think they really would have just taken the box and gone back inside.”
Courtesy of Ethan Javonillo
Growing up as a Los Angeles Lakers fan, his connection to the Knicks stemmed from his cousin who moved from Queens, New York to California. He commissioned Javonillo in 2024 to create a custom canvas in celebration of the Knicks.
“I felt like I had to go extra intent with it,” Javonillo said. “It was New York, so I had to go big.”
Growing up playing basketball on playgrounds as a kid and in high school, Javonillo’s piece was a deeply influenced perspective on community, culture and art. “The Garden” blends collage and street art styles, drawing inspiration from New York music, film directors like Martin Scorsese and Lee and iconic artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The collage method used to create the piece also reflects his background in cinema.
“The assemblage of images is similar to film, and how I juxtapose, and choose what images and how you want to contextualize them to make new stories or new meanings,” Javonillo said.
Javonillo is currently in post production on his next film, “An American Voice,” which follows a middle-aged Filipino American immigrant woman who enrolls in an accent training class to navigate workplace expectations while wrestling with cultural identity.
“Coming from, just a socially consciousness and having a background in ethnic studies, I was definitely aware of his (Lee’s) films. It’s the kind of work I want to make and the kind of artist I want to be, it was definitely based on his career,” Javonillo said. “Being an independent, smaller artist working on his own outside of the studio or being an outsider to the industry, he’s kind of been that inspiration to resiliency and stubbornness to keep pursuing.”
As a local Fullerton creator, Javonillo said his main lesson is to keep putting your work out there.
“You really never know, especially with social media and the amount of outlets we have today, you never know who’s going to see your work,” Javonillo said. “If you’re stubborn, if you have persistence, you can just keep getting better until the right people notice.”