The New York Times - USA (2020-06-28)

2 MB THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020

David Ben David is the founder and cre-

ative director of Sprayground, a

streetwear line known for its art-inspired

backpacks and collaborations with celeb-

rities like Spike Lee and Shaquille O’Neal.

Since the coronavirus outbreak, however,

Mr. Ben David has added masks to his

collection. He is also volunteering: Every

Sunday, he teams up with the Lower

Eastside Girls Club to distribute food and

Sprayground apparel, like masks and

hoodies, to New Yorkers in need. Mr. Ben

David splits his time between Manhattan

and Teaneck, N.J. Before the pandemic,

he and his family spent weekdays in New

Jersey and weekends at his Midtown

apartment. For now, they are adjusting to

life as suburbanites. Mr. Ben David, 33,

lives with his wife, Rina, 32, and their four

children: Aden, 11; Liana, 9; Elisha, 7;

and Tehillah, 4.TAMMY La GORCE

SET THE MOODI’ve trained myself to wake up

in sync with the sunrise. I like to see the col-

ors. It helps me as a creative person. My

moods are like the weather: If it’s cloudy,

it’s going to be a bad day. If it’s sunny, it’s

going to be great.

RITUALSI’m Jewish. I pray three times a day.

Pretty much I have some coffee and then I

pray, and then I read The New York Times

before the kids get up. I let them stay up one

night a week, and that’s Saturday night,

which gives me some peace when they

sleep in on Sunday morning before the cha-

os sets in. When my youngest daughter gets

up, we make sloppy pancakes together.

THE SHIPPING BLUESThe rules are changing

every day when it comes to shipping and

importation. When we were able to get our

hands on tens of thousands of masks to give

out, FedEx and UPS weren’t shipping

masks anymore, so I had to work through

other shipping places. It was practically like

smuggling.

PERSONAL DELIVERIESOne of the people on

my team knows one of the employees at the

Lower Eastside Girls Club, which is how we

got together with them. They thought it was

a great idea. There are these big cloth tote

bags I make, and we decided we’d fill them

up with food and add in some of our comfy

clothes, like hoodies and joggers. Some of

the food comes from companies that agreed

to donate, and some of it we’re buying.

Lately we’ve been buying organic rice and

pasta. Sometimes the bags are packed and

ready to go on Sunday; sometimes I’m still

packing them early in the morning with two

of my team members, Sandflower Dyson

and James Ferrell. When they’re full, we

bring them to the girls club.

WATER THERAPYIn the late afternoon there’s

this place I love to take the kids to in Engle-

wood called Flat Rock Brook. There’s a

beautiful stream with rocks, and the kids

like to cross over. Some of them fall in and

get their feet or butts wet, and then they cry

and we have to leave. I’ll hose them down

before dinner.

EVERYBODY GET DOWNRina likes to cook, so

she’ll prepare dinner for us. I’ll get every-

body down on the floor painting on these big

canvases. I don’t want them getting sucked

into an iPad or TV. Since the virus, I’ve had

to get more creative to keep them busy, so

I’ve bought supplies from Amazon like Pop-

sicle sticks and glue and a bunch more Le-

gos. Also I’ll challenge the kids to come up

with bag designs, put them to work.

JUMPSUITSI end off the night preparing for

the week. I go to my office and work on this

program called Asana, which is artist man-

agement software. It’s also my time to be

creating. Each season we’re producing 150

different art pieces. But lately I’ve been

working on a jumpsuit that has a face cover

mask, a cool Tyvek suit, because I’ve been

seeing people walking around in those

white suits, and it doesn’t look cool or fash-

ionable. I’ve gotten a lot of requests to im-

prove it from a fashion standpoint. I’ll listen

to tribal beats, or something low-frequency.

Then I pray one more time before I go to

bed, maybe around midnight.

SUNDAY ROUTINE

DAVID BEN DAVID

Who Is That Mask Man? He’s a Designer

PHOTOGRAPHS VIA DAVID BEN DAVID; ABOVE, ADEN BEN DAVID

Readers can follow David Ben David on Twitter

and Instagram @davidbendavid.

Face coverings were

a timely addition to

a streetwear collection.

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