ABOUT CJ HUGHES

I am a mostly self-taught artist.  I inherited the gift of being able to draw what I see from my father, who liked to oil paint.  The first thing I ever remember drawing was a copy of the Marvin comic strip.  I gave it to my grandmother, and she posted it on her refrigerator, my first art show!

In junior high school I was graced with two wonderful art teachers that saw potential and gave me extra attention and tools.  By 8th grade I was winning dozens of art competitions a year including an honorable mention in a young artist show at the Arkansas Arts Center.

By high school I was so burned out from entering contests that I created very little art, even sleeping through my advanced placement art classes.  After graduating I tried the Art Institute of Dallas for a semester but found that they started every student at the elementary level, yellow and blue make green, and realized that with only two years they weren't going to be able to teach me much more than my amazing teachers already had.

Art was a hobby in my twenties until I was involved in a near fatal car wreck and spent six months in recovery.  During that time, I started my own online logo and graphic design business.  It bloomed into a full-blown website design business as well.  I moved to Nashville to pursue songwriting and wound up designing websites for Opry stars including Hal Ketchum and Billy Yates.  I even designed and hosted Chris Young's first website.  I also picked up a regular gig as "artist at large" for Michael Kelly Guitars.  I designed all of their original business collateral including their logo, headstocks, sound holes, and inlays. I even had the opportunity to design full guitars, from headstock to tailpiece.

Around 2010 I drew a chalkboard sign for my wife on a whim.  I began getting requests for them after posting it online and adding it to my Etsy store.  After a few months BBC America reached out and asked me to come to New York City and paint a mural in their corporate headquarters.  Chalkboard art quickly became my life, and I traveled to sixteen states installing murals at corporate headquarters and events.  I painted a 40' Jim Beam bottle at their distillery in Kentucky, I designed Hard Rock Cafe's first food truck, did commercials for Quaker and Wendy's, and even designed Christmas windows for Johnston and Murphy's flagship store on Madison Avenue in NYC.  Other clients included Amazon, Spanx, Frisch's Big Boy, Barclay's Center, SLS Casinos, ESPN/DISNEY, and Madison Square Garden.  Chalkboard mural work vanished after about eight years; I had built a business on a fad.  Once all of the major corporations and ad agencies had used chalk art in an ad campaign they stopped calling.

At about the same time my logo and website business faded away.  With the advent of free online logo makers and folks in other countries charging $30 for branding, I just couldn't compete.  Soon after I prodded my petal loving wife into opening a flower shop which quickly became our main source of income.  These days I drive the delivery truck and work at the shop; art happens in my off hours.  We are planning for me to transition into another business or art full time, but for now, I deliver flowers.  It's nice to see people's faces light up when they answer the door.

I've been infatuated with the wild west and cowboys since I was about ten and received a Time Life Western book as a gift.  I did one of my first book reports on Billy the Kid.  My want to draw and paint hillbillies comes from living in northern Arkansas as a kid and seeing all of the hillbilly souvenirs and visiting the Dogpatch theme park many times.  As for my love of hobos, that comes from the five or so years my mom dressed my brother and I up as hobos for Halloween because we were broke and baggy clothes and bindle sticks were free.  I also have a penchant for crows, old carnival signs, Victorian Christmas cards and antique lettering and showcard books.  Throw all of that into a number five washtub and mix in some paints and you've got the recipe for all of the ideas swirling in my brain.  Art is how I emote.  It's not as much as an obsession as it is a need and a conduit.  It's how I get the thoughts in my head to stop pinging the sides of my skull, I paint or draw them, they escape, and I move on to the next idea.

If you're here because of TikTok, Pinterest, etc. and like my art, I thank you.  It's hard to keep anyone's attention these days, I'm glad you're here.  Please reach out with any commission requests, personal or commercial.

Thanks for the look and listen, CJ Hughes