Through the One for One movement, TOMS Shoes provides shoes for underprivileged children in the United States and around the world. For each pair of shoes sold to a customer, a pair is donated to a child in need. TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie recently wrote on HuffPost Impact about the seemingly endless opportunities to make positive change.
This summer, Incubus front man Brandon Boyd teamed up with TOMS Shoes for the Collaborative Canvas Project. Together, Boyd and friend, model/artist Kristin Jai Klosterman, created unique works of art on massive canvases, that were then cut in pieces to create 100 limited-edition pairs of TOMS shoes. Boyd and Klosterman each painted an individual canvas and collaborated on the third.
The shoes made from their art were debuted in L.A. last week. Causecast caught up with Boyd at the launch party:
Check out the full interview via Causecast:
Causecast: Can I ask you why you feel compelled to be active? Also, why should you or anyone care about someone in another continent when it doesn't directly affect you?
Brandon Boyd: I think the best way to answer that question is with a very simple answer. It's probably sounding a little hokey, but honestly what I believe and how I think...I think that we are all from the same place, going to the same place, and we're different in a lot of ways culturally, but when it comes down to the brass tax, we're not that different. So I think we're really here to be in service of each other. So if we have ways that we can help each other, and be entertained at the same time, make each other smile, or clothe each other and stuff like that. It seems like a really good idea to me. So it's about being in service of your fellow man. Art is a really good way to do that.
Causecast: So you feel that art and music are great means of driving social change?
Brandon Boyd: Absolutely, I think art has always been a catalyst for social change, and I think even more so than ever before, right now, it's in. There's more art in the world now, which is amazing. I think it's really cool when people decide to dedicate their lives to such pursuits. It speaks to that higher form of communication that I like to talk about a lot.