Rising Stars: Meet Chad Carothers of Hollywoodland

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Carothers.

Hi Chad, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My short story of where and how I am today, from where I was goes something like this – As with many kids growing up, you dream of what you want to be and I knew from a young age that I wanted to be an artist.

Spending my youth growing up on the East Coast my free time was skateboarding, learning to play guitar and drawing nonstop. I recall laying in bed at night absorbing magazines such as Thrasher, Maximum Rock n Roll and so on cover to cover highlighting the culture of California and it just clicked with me. It became my mental escape for home life, school and the drive to keep going.

A couple of weeks after graduating High School I packed up my car and headed west as so many other hopeful dreamers and transplants do in hopes of “making it”. Next was Art school for me.
I arrived in Long Beach, my first time living on my own, first apartment, first of a lot of things, but I was so excited to have arrived.

Art school only lasted 9 days…While I don’t condone it for everyone, higher education was not for me. I vividly recall sitting in a class and instructor addressing the room as to how many ways you can draw a sphere. I replied infinite ways and was shut down immediately stating in his class, there were only four ways. I gathered my things, walked to the admissions office and dropped out.

That left me to very quickly figure my life out at the age of 18 or my California dream would be short lived. At the time and all I knew is I wanted to create art for a living and that is what I did. My next chapter of life became my Art school education. Having seen surfboards with art on them while visiting the beaches on the East Coast, gave me the idea that would be fun to do while I figured out what’s next. I took a drive to Huntington Beach and stopped at the first Surf Shop I saw, Vartanian’s (no longer there) and met James who I explained I’d moved out here to create art and could paint surfboards (I’d never painted a board in my life) and to give me a shot. I had always been blessed with the “I know I can do it mentality” and felt confident I could in fact paint a board. I did, he loved it, referred me to another shop in downtown HB, Rockin Fig’s, where I met Fig, RIP and he got me in touch with Lost Surfboards. The next eight years of my life was spent painting surboards at Lost, traveling the world and creating artwork for many of the same companies I read about in those magazines I grew up on. It was a full circle moment. Somedays I would paint up to 12 surfboards working around the clock and looking back ,The work ethic, attitude and mindset I developed through all of that set me up for when I felt it was time to move on to my next part of life.

Over the next years I found myself growing my fine art and self-brand image, combining things I loved and figuring out how to integrate my art and creative mindset into collaborations. I took my love of cars and trucks to create rolling pieces of artwork, getting showcased in several publications and eventually landing my first magazine cover.

I continued to do special projects for brands, murals, art exhibits and stepped back into the world of customizing footwear and apparel as I had done through high school on backpacks, docs and Vans. It was a way to keep my skills in check, have fun and challenge myself on 3D objects as canvas.

The custom sneaker part accelerated very quickly as demand ramped up and one night late, I received a DM on Instagram from Adidas, which I essentially told to screw off as I figured scam as why would a company such as them be sending DM’s at midnight. Well, after a great laugh that led to a multi-year partnership with Adidas working with the Dodgers, countless athletes, celebrities, foundations and more.

Along the way I have been fortunate to have some great signature brand collaborations, art features, incredible relationships and so on. As an artist, seeing the final piece, the end result or the receiver of the art really reminds you why you do it. The feelings that are evoked by standing back and seeing a new piece, revisiting an old one, or becoming a conversation piece for a stranger to make their own judgement. All are great reasons to keep pushing to the next piece.

The main thing when I look back on these accomplishments is yes, I deserved them because I worked my ass off to manifest the opportunities through the years of hard work and self-motivation to get back up and try again. I never take any of it for granted.

Post Covid, our world felt isolated, dark and broken. It made me want to push to try and make a deeper connection through my body of work, use my voice mentality. I found myself creating more for my inner me and what would bring me a smile to paint or draw. I found much inspiration in hikes, nature and the surroundings of everyday objects through a new perspective. I went into a much more private sector of creating, no filming, no daily postings, really just reconnecting to that inner child that loved to scribble everyday. That put me into working on my first official art book, featuring a collection of pen and ink drawings of my sad robots, poems and thoughts.

As for where and what now these days, I find myself living under an icon, the Hollywood sign. It has presented all the good and bad inspiration you could ask for, which translates to the subject of new body of works that will be painted to tell the stories visually firsthand of day to day life under the sign.

Los Angeles and Southern California has an energy, almost magical, almost anxiety ridden that if you can figure out how to embrace and navigate, the creative opportunities are unlike anywhere else in the world.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As with any good come up story, the battles, the struggles and the hardships are what make the good side all seem worth it. We all have these stories.

From not knowing a soul on moving here, to navigating how it would all play out for me, those were all challenges that when I would trust my gut, worked out and when I fought myself on “thinking” it would be ok, those are the battles I lost.

Looking back over the years, of course financial stability as an independent artist with no steady 9-5 was a constant challenge, but in the same way kept me accountable to keep pushing, keep honing my craft and kept me going. Failure was never in the mindset for me and the delusional positivity I had, and have, really help.

One thing very important to me that I pride myself on was all the ability to choose to stay sober/straight edge through all of the years. The industry, people and places I surrounded myself with were abundant with any and everything you could want to partake in. The parties were sometimes out of a movie and the constant test of “just give in” was always present. Staying clear minded through the years allowed me to stay driven, focused and set on goals with my art and life. I am living proof you don’t need the extras to be creative and am very proud of that.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Depending on what part of my life and age you are, you may know me for my vibrant surfboards, custom sneakers or large-scale portrait canvas works.

I am most proud of each new work I finish as it infuses a little part of my soul into the art and lives on for the life of that piece, well after I will be gone. Every piece during the process of making it becomes a most hated and a most loved ensemble battling for what feeling will come on out the winner. Once completed, it is a moment to breathe and reflect on what you just created. That is when the proudness sits in till the next piece…

Sets me apart – I have an easily recognizable style, everything I do is freehand in any scale and I’d like to think I am unique as an artist and human being.

How do you think about luck?
Good luck , bad luck, it’s all the same. Luck fights fate and fate tempts luck. As much as I want believe in luck, really its being in the present with yourself and choosing to see the opportunity in front of you or let it go by.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chadcantcolor.com
• Instagram: chadcantcolor
• Facebook: chadcantcolorart
• LinkedIn: chadcantcolor
• Youtube: chadcantcolor