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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cThe Garden.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that he was active,\u201d Javonillo said. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t on my mind at all that there would be a chance that he\u2019d be interested in it like that. Just to have any chance of them noticing it, I just wanted to tag them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following morning on Mother\u2019s Day, Javonillo woke up to a message from Lee on Instagram asking plainly, \u201cHow much?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just opened it and read it, and then I closed my phone again because I couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d Javonillo said. \u201cThen I logged in and wanted to double check if it was actually his account, or if it was like a scam or spam account.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once he realized the message was authentic, he shared the news with his family at a Mother\u2019s 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 \u201c2026 NBA Champs.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s Brooklyn studio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As two staff members opened the garage door for him at 10:55 a.m., one of them turned out to be Lee\u2019s art manager, who agreed to take a photo of Javonillo outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was like, \u2018Oh well, here\u2019s Spike coming in right now,\u2019 literally in his car pulling up and he\u2019s like, \u2018Why don\u2019t you give it to him yourself?\u2019\u201d Javonillo said.<\/p>\n
Javonillo was then invited inside, where he spent 15 minutes talking to Lee \u2014 meeting him was a surreal moment of validation for his career as an independent artist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe timing was really perfect,\u201d Javonillo said. \u201cIf I had come five minutes earlier, or late, I think they really\u00a0would have just taken the box and gone back inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Ethan Javonillo<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like I had to go extra intent with it,\u201d Javonillo said. \u201cIt was New York, so I had to go big.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing up playing basketball on playgrounds as a kid and in high school, Javonillo\u2019s piece was a deeply influenced perspective on community, culture and art. \u201cThe Garden\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
The collage method used to create the piece also reflects his background in cinema.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d Javonillo said.<\/p>\n
Javonillo is currently in post production on his next film, \u201cAn American Voice,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing from, just a socially consciousness and having a background in ethnic studies, I was definitely aware of his (Lee\u2019s) films. It\u2019s the kind of work I want to make and the kind of artist I want to be, it was definitely based on his career,\u201d Javonillo said. \u201cBeing 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a local Fullerton creator, Javonillo said his main lesson is to keep putting your work out there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u00a0 really never know, especially with social media and the amount of outlets we have today, you never know who\u2019s going to see your work,\u201d Javonillo said. \u201cIf you\u2019re stubborn, if you have persistence, you can just keep getting better until the right people notice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal State Fullerton alumni Ethan Javonillo took a leap of faith when he posted a photo of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[196203,163,165,164,2308,187780,81761,34380],"class_list":["post-508532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-alumni-success","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-art","tag-csuf-success","tag-ctva","tag-spike-lee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}