Voyage ATL - Daily Inspiration: Meet Christopher Hall
Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Hall.
Hi Christopher, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Life’s journey can take you to some unexpected places. It would be nice if I could follow this up with something thought provoking, but right now, nothing comes to mind. To start, I was born with a crayon in my hand. It confused the doctors. Born to paint! There hasn’t been a time in my life where I wasn’t doing something creative, making art, writing, or making music. Sometimes this would get me into trouble, but I was mostly a good kid. I grew up in Gwinnett County. I spent the 90’s and aughts in Athens, GA, where I studied visual art and literature at UGA and was briefly a rock star. Next, I moved to Philadelphia where I studied at Tyler and earned my MFA. I tried to book a petting zoo to let loose in my graduate exhibition during opening night, but they were all booked. Probably best that this was the case.
Many ups and downs and success and failures later, I’ve found myself in my tenth-year teaching art at Kennesaw State University and at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center. I have an eight-year-old nephew who used to think I taught dogs how to paint. Since then, I’ve unexpectedly found myself working with horses, but no plans to teach them how to paint, not yet.
I have my own art career outside of academia, but at present I choose not to participate in the gallery system. The days of wandering from art opening to art opening, the ever-evolving movable feast that is gallery hopping, I’ve walked away from it. It wasn’t healthy. It felt superficial. Instead, I am pursuing my own path. For all intents and purposes, I guess I am an outsider artist with an art degree.
When I walked away from the gallery scene I had to find something new to focus on. Those things ended up being horses and travel. Both helped with getting peace of mind, the latter helped shape a new career direction. Following the worst of the Covid days I began taking a lot of road trips. I reignited my love for the South, its mythology, the land, all the odd out of the way quirks and curiosities. I began documenting my journeys with photos and writing, and this has led me to where I am today.
