Mixing Mediums: Where Cannabis and Art Collide

By: Jordan Lams

Close your eyes and envision art. What do you see? From oil paintings to sculptures to music and dance, humans love to create. That’s why Moxie thought it would be excellent to meet cannabis and art right at their intersection: the heart of community. 

Recently, cannabis brand Moxie set out on a mission to give back to the community. The team realized that art is at the heart of the community and often, art blends incredibly well with cannabis. With all of the twists and turns of this year, the team was looking introspectively at how important local voices are to communities everywhere. Art brings communities together, by enriching communities aesthetically, but also by contributing to the local economy, stimulating tourism and bringing in revenue. Art brings power to communities, often playing a key role in their success. It also gives fluidity to culture, blending distinct aspects of the community together to create unity. Las Vegas knows the value of art, as it exists in nearly every aspect of the city  emboldening and empowering people, pushing everyone to perform their mediums to the best of their ability. 

Moxie’s team decided to weave cannabis directly with art, as it already beautifully does on its own, through their most accessible cannabis line, MX. Each quarter, Moxie will spotlight a new local artist to highlight variation between different artistic flows and how each artist uniquely incorporates cannabis into their art. The local artists will explain, through their medium, where art and cannabis meet and merge their relationship to bring about a synergistic flow to the culture and how cannabis diffuses within. 

The campaign’s first artist is LA-based Upendo. Upendo, who is local to LA’s Watts neighborhood, uses cannabis to unleash his mind and quiet all the noise to focus on his creations. A self-described abstract expression artist, Upendo believes that it’s important for him to create art that’s unique to himself, with organic creative flows and a pop art twist. He utilizes multiple types of paints to create his projects including spray paint, pencil, marker, and acrylic. With Upendo’s fast paced style, he quickly creates pieces and then moves onto the next one calling his name. Upendo describes his relationship with cannabis as “necessary as a creative.” Like many other artists, he’s constantly dreaming up new things to do and create, and finds cannabis a beautiful medium, helping to get things out of his head and onto paper. In his experience, cannabis allows him to relax and participate in a ritualistic experience, generating a spiritual connection to “tap into outer space” and release his art. 

In accordance with the collaboration, Moxie will be presenting the artist’s merchandise and create a feature video depicting the artist’s background to breathe life into the campaign and pass along the artist’s creativity on a national scope, since Moxie’s products are unfortunately not available everywhere. The collaboration will also feature the artist’s works directly on Moxie’s MX line packaging. Since the artists have such a powerful relationship with cannabis, the packaging and merchandise will directly reflect the artist’s relationship with cannabis and its lasting impacts on their creations. 

Sense of community is incredibly valuable, and art’s convergence with cannabis is a perfect means of expression. It’s vital to keep up a local presence, to the community at large to have one of their own highlighted including their own positive relationship with cannabis. In fact, the first artists of the campaign were recommended and community sourced. The team wanted to highlight diverse creative styles and the selected artists’ designs work magnificently for cannabis packaging. 

Art lives in each of us and in the heart of each of our communities, which is a huge reason why it’s so important to support and uplift those who are talented in local communities. Moxie found artists by word of mouth and by following people they hear about who are cannabis users with diverse talents and abilities. All in all, the team wants to continue to shed light on the art that exists within communities and lift the voices of the local artists that power them. As they say, they try not to take themselves too seriously and want to have fun by bringing light to the intersection between art and cannabis and get the community involved and engaged. 

Cannabis may be legal in places like California and Nevada, but there’s still work to do in other states across the country. The power of art has driven abundant social issues to the forefront, and this local movement can help give inspiration to others, artist or not, to create and achieve big things. Though Moxie’s artists are only local to California, the ability to empower artists in individual communities is available everywhere. Talk to your local cannabis loving artists about how cannabis enriches their lives and its influences on their art. You might be surprised by what you learn. 

If you know of any fabulous artists working at the intersection of cannabis and art in California, give moxie a shout via email at info@enjoymoxie.com or by reaching out to them via Instagram @enjoymoxie! 

Jordan Lams is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of MOXIE. Mr. Lams oversees market expansion, operations, compliance and brand development. In under four years, Mr. Lams has expanded the Moxie brand from a self-financed startup to multiple domestic markets and product distribution in over 40 different countries. As one of the leading manufacturing advocates in the cannabis industry, he has advised California, Pennsylvania, and Michigan legislators  and regulators to develop responsible regulations for the entire industry. Lams has been recognized by High Times as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Cannabis and recently received recognition from Entrepreneur Magazine as a leader in the cannabis space.