30 Nov 2021 Celebrating Artistic Excellence: Ellen Hobgood

Posted at 9:59 PMh in Features by

By Donna Lampkin Stephens

Ellen Hobgood has found her happy. And she has embraced it. Hobgood, 55, owner of Ellen Hobgood Gallery and Associates in Heber Springs, has painted Santa Clauses since her middle school years, maybe even before. But the Santas have taken off over the last 20 years, having been featured on Arkansas Children’s Hospital Christmas cards three times (2003, ’19, ’20), on ornaments, tins of Lambrecht Gourmet Toffee and as commissioned paintings.

Photo by Mike Kemp

Why Santa?

“(Christmas has) always been a happy time, and so I’ve always done cheery, happy colors, as decorators would say,” Hobgood said. “They told me to calm my colors down on my paintings. But now I’ve found my happy. It’s something I’ve always done. 

“Many people have tried to summarize why I paint Santas and Christmas, and I don’t think I’ve come up with a reason. It just feels good.” Hobgood was born in Dallas but moved to Arkansas as a child, first to Mountain View and then to Heber Springs when she was 11. She remembers always being an artist. In her early teens, she took lessons from local artist Glynda Turley, and learned to paint with acrylics. She became a professional artist at 14 or 15, selling her pieces to pay for more classes.

After graduating from Heber Springs High School in 1985, Hobgood went to work for her mentor, Turley, at her gallery and gift store, staying for nearly 12 years before spending the next seven doing mural wall paintings. After completing nearly 300 of those, though, she was burned out.

She rediscovered her fire as a street painter at Salon Art 411, where she found her niche with Christmas themes, especially Santas. “That’s what I’m known for,” she said. “I paint them year-round. I do commissions, but people need to get to me in the earlier part of the year to get them for Christmas.”

Hobgood and her husband, Ricky, have three sons: Jeston, 28; Skyler, 22; and Evan, 20; and four grandchildren. Her gallery, which features 48 local and regional artists, is heading into its 20th year. “It’s very hard to say no to someone, but we can’t take everyone,” Hobgood said. “We want the fine art as much as possible, the unique. We try to not have craft-like items. It thrills me to see artists sell their work for the first time, or, as a gallery owner, to sell their piece. That’s almost as exciting as selling my own.”

She said she was very proud to have owned a local business for so long.“Over the years I’ve seen war, I’ve seen the recession, now the pandemic,” she said. “We’re not finished with the pandemic yet. You don’t ever say you’ve made it through. Right now, I’m healing from spine surgery, but (the gallery) is what keeps me going.”

Hobgood credited Debby Henson, one of the gallery’s artists who has volunteered as her assistant for more than 10 years.

“She helps me with branding and packaging; she kept the gallery open for our Christmas open house, takes work back and forth,” Hobgood said. “We have clients from all over. My paintings have gone all over the world, especially my ornaments, gift cards, the toffee. I hand-sign everything that goes through the gallery. We really like people to feel good about their purchases.

“It’s been quite an adventure.”

While Christmas is her favorite time of the year, Hobgood said she had to get inventive to avoid burnout.“I’ll paint a Santa, and then to feed my soul, to keep my creative spirit going, I’ll do something else,” she said. “If you paint the same thing over and over again, you can get repetitious.”

She has no clue how many Santas she has painted. “I tried numbering them, but I lost count,” she said. What hasn’t been lost, however, is her evolution as an artist. “My technique has gotten stronger,” she said. “The detail is much different. As a person, you evolve anyway. People who have some of my older pieces come into the gallery, and they talk about how the depth, the strength of colors and layers have really grown.”

For more information, visit ellenhobgoodgallery.com. The gallery is located at 101 S. 3rd St. in Heber Springs.

Donna Stephens
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