Obadiah Hunter

I’ve always known from an early age that I wanted to be an artist and an oil painter. Ever since my grandmother bought me my first set of oil paints while I was still in high school. After falling in love with art and especially oil painting I moved from St. Johnsbury to Burlington Vermont and my spent summers painting street scenes around downtown. I was successful at selling paintings on the street and it began to give me confidence in my new life’s passion. I convinced myself that shortly after my twenty first birthday that I would dedicate myself full time to my oil paintings. The only way I saw to do that is to try to make a living on nothing, but my paintings. I believed there was no great reward without great risks and to be living your passion regardless of the outcome was to be living the dream. I started asking the question what to do? Where to go? How can I begin my journey?

I became responsive to any clues I could garner from the outside world. I really had no plan I needed some guidance.

I saw a moving van one day with saxophones on the side saying, “New Orleans, all that Jazz” Or something of that affect. It was only the very next day I was asked while painting on church street, “You know if you love Church Street, you’d flip out painting in New Orleans”, completely out of the blue as the man walked away. I began to give this the only actual idea a thought and had heard that the famous and beloved clarinet man who played here on this same street and finally made his way to New Orleans as it was a lifelong dream of his. So, this going to New Orleans idea began to gain momentum and it was all I had. The very next day I walked into a pizza parlor to grab a slice and the first song I heard on the radio was Rambling Man, by the Alman Brothers and when the verse, “I’m on my way to New Orleans this morning.” It was the last sign I needed this must be fate I told myself, New Orleans is my destiny and my first stop on my journey as a working artist.

Within the next week I bought a Greyhound ticket for New Orleans from the old bus station that sat on the corner of courthouse square right behind the Burlington City Hall. I met some friends for Brugger’s’ bagels just across the street and waved goodbye to my only friends and life I knew for my new adventure. I felt good and was sure with all the signs this was the right thing to do, and it would be in my best interest to do nothing, but paint on the street every day and see if I can somehow make it all work out. I firmly believed at the time that if you followed your passion in life, it would always work out. The universe would come to your aid and things would only get better living a life only following your passion, maybe I was young and naïve? But it was good to maintain a positive attitude it was all I had. My money wouldn’t last long I would have to get to work immediately once the bus arrived. Without hope and faith in general I was doomed from the start.

With my paints, brushes, easel, and a pack on my back; I left on the road to somehow make this come to fruition starting with a bus trip to New Orleans, then from there it continued around the world. After starting to travel one thing led to another and the vagabond life just kept gaining more momentum. In this book are some of the paintings, places, and experiences of over twenty-five years of painting and traveling around the world my journey. New Orleans was the catalyst to Central, South America, Europe, Northern Africa, S. East Asia, and The Philippines, throughout my artistic adventures, always with my easel, canvases, and oil paints in tow, looking for the next scene to capture and locals to talk to. Come follow me on my journey as we look back at two decades of oil paintings and some of my not only life’s work, but a life dream that actually did come to fruition.