Artist and CEO of Paint Out Loud LLC
From Orange City Schools to colorful art that really rocks
After losing everything in a house fire in 2005, Orange City Orange High School graduate Neal Everett Hamilton immersed himself in painting, using raw materials he’d found in the house where he was temporarily living. With unorthodox tools, such as trowels, knives and half-used cans of house paint, Hamilton created a distinctive style of painting that combined his passion for music with vibrant visual art.
“For the first time in my life, I felt that all my experiences and creative passions had finally found a home in my portraits of music icons,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton, who now lives in Atlanta, has created custom pieces and painted guitars for some of the world’s top celebrities, including Carlos Santana, Dave Navarro, Paul McCartney and more. His art can be seen at www.nealhamilton.com and on display at two Cleveland-area art galleries. His love for art started early in life and blossomed during his time at Orange High School.
“My parents moving into the Orange City School District was my first big learning lesson dealing with diversity,” Hamilton said. “The three-hour (commercial art) class was my best moment. I had a really good teacher and learned how to apply raw talent toward something that would eventually become a career move.”
Hamilton also had raw talent in track and field. He ran on the school’s championship team and graduated in 1975.
After high school, Hamilton worked as an industrial designer with Artist Studios Inc. in Cleveland and then formed Live Wire Studios in the 1990s. From 1996-2006, he was chief photographer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he covered live performances and captured the images of celebrities like President Bill Clinton, Aretha Franklin and Tiger Woods.
“When I was working at the rock hall, I stopped doing art,” Hamilton said. “After the house fire, I saw a blank canvas in the basement. Without paint brushes … I emerged and created art at the worst point of my life.”
From tragedy to triumph, and with help from Orange City Schools along the way, Neal Hamilton’s art now colorfully enriches lives all over the world.
Educational Inspiration
“Bob Tackett was one of the Orange High School art teachers. … He was cool and flexible but very tough,” Hamilton said. “He showed us fine-tuned art techniques. I compiled them, and they are part of my art today.”
While at Orange High School, Hamilton also drew inspiration in an unconventional way from his sometimes-anonymous classmates.
“Every once in a while, I would get a detention, and I would draw on a desk because I was bored,” Hamilton said. “I would draw musical icons, and the next person who sat in the desk added on to the drawing and so on. By the end of the week, you would see a true piece of art.”
Giving Back
“I paint my images of guitars as a charitable company that raised over a quarter of a million dollars in a few years,” Hamilton said. “That (idea) has really taken off. … Kids in the schools are painting on miniguitars, and they’ve told me I’ve been inspiration behind that.”
Current as of 4/16/2024 8:23 am