What began as a youthful fascination with newspaper comics led Moses Hudson to a lifetime devotion to art.
And this past month he has been the La Grange Art League’s Artist of the Month, coinciding with February being Black History Month.
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“It’s great to acknowledge the contributions of all people, whether they’re people of color or not,” he said while mingling with about 50 visitors at an artist’s reception held for him Feb. 24.
Black History Month, officially recognized by President Gerald Ford in 1976, is the United State’s Government’s way of honoring African American people and the historical events relating to their community, while recognizing generations who have succeeded while struggling with adversity just to achieve full status a citizens.
Hudson reminisced about growing up in the Stateway Gardens Housing project in Chicago’s Southside Bronzeville neighborhood, where he discovered the Sunday comics as a young boy — Dick Tracy was his favorite.
That sparked his interest in art, which in turn led to classes in commercial art in high school.
Those classes led Hudson to a career at Montgomery Ward, a prominent Chicago department store that now operates solely as a mail-order operation. After a career at Montgomery Ward in the advertising department, he spent 13 years serving as Program Manager of DePaul University’s Continuing and Professional Education Department.
And eventually, Hudson was able to devote himself full time to the art that he loved.
“It’s only natural that I would return to art since it has been a constant way to express myself,” he said. “To stretch my artist boundaries, I now have taken specific topics and let my creativity go and run rampant.”
In the League’s news release announcing his exhibit, Hudson left no doubt that the work he produced was directly influenced by his personal experiences.
“The pieces I have made are a result of my reflections on my experience being an African American male in the United States of America. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into my soul.”
Indeed, one of the pieces at the exhibit was an untitled acrylic representation of an African American man in a Super Hero outfit; another is of profile an African American woman with earrings the shape of the continent of Africa.
Being a regular instructor at the La Grange Art League, Hudson hopes to inspire the next generation of artists.
He specialty is comic illustration, and while teaching them the basics of the genre, he tries to give them solid guidance and advise as they continue with the form.
“I encourage them to never stop experimenting,” Hudson said, stressing that art criticism often misses the point of what art is supposed to accomplish. “Art is not supposed to look a certain way. It should take somewhere you haven’t imagined. I stress color and perspective, then give them a scenario and they can come up with a story.”
For Hudson, his experience in the world of art is a family affair, with his wife Rolanda also being a working artist and teaching mixed media and acrylics at the La Grange Art League.
“This is very exciting,” she said.
Rolanda Hudson has been involved in 30 shows in the Chicago area, most with her husband in attendance.
She talked about checking his work at some of the early shows, and being impressed by the quality, but also perplexed by his reluctance to show his own work.
“Why aren’t you showing this work,” she would ask him.
She’s glad he finally started showing his work, but she joked that she told him ” now don’t you start getting better than me.”
Gallery Manager and art teacher Donna Skonning was happy with the turnout.
“We had a lot of people come out to see his work over the month,” she said.
Skonning said with the Art League being member-driven, the object was to have four exhibits every year from outside artists.
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And she noted that while February was “typically a slow month,” Hudson’s exhibit fit nicely with the League’s efforts to foster diversity, equity, ad inclusion.
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.