Neighbor Featured Artist #24: Dell Hughes

Dell Hughes’ Talent Transforms Passionate Interests into Fine Art

In looking back over the list of 23 artists who’ve been featured under this byline, it is an understatement to describe the group as one of amazing diversity. When I was first asked to write this column, the name of the publication in which it appears, The Greeneville Neighbor, suggested an irresistible approach. The introduction of artists who are also among our neighbors in this community has made it possible to feature talented folks from the West Coast to upstate New York. But there is great satisfaction in turning the spotlight on the locals, those gifted individuals who are so much a part of the permanent community fabric that their talent is at risk of being taken for granted. Greeneville has benefited richly from the talent, dedication, and passionate energy of Dell Hughes. If you have attended a local theatrical production in the last twenty years, or visited local galleries and museums, or observed a Civil War reenactment, you have seen Dell’s wonderful work whether you realized it or not. So permit me to share with you some perspective that will enable you to give Dell Hughes the appreciation he has earned in Northeast Tennessee.
Most of our featured artists displayed an early talent for art, but Dell takes the cake in the “precocious” category. “I remember seeing a Mobil Oil sign with a Pegasus drawn on it,” he says. “I drew the winged horse and showed it to my mother. She didn’t believe I had drawn it so I turned the paper over and did it again. She still has that picture in a small frame. I was two and a half at the time. I’ve been drawing and painting ever since.” Even before starting school, Dell was defining his own artistic tastes. “I was reading and drawing pictures from comic books before I started the first grade,” he says. “I collected only certain types of comics with certain styles of artwork. I am a realist. The artwork had to be as detailed and as realistic as possible.” Throughout his life, Dell’s career and intense varied interests have both shaped and been expressed by his artistic efforts. Drawing and painting have broadened out into theater and film, sculpture and writing. A veteran of Vietnam, with service in both the Navy and the Army, Dell took up residence in Greeneville in the late 1980’s after a transfer from his work in Army recruiting. Born in Bradenton, Florida, of parents from South Carolina, Dell says he “never felt comfortable in the flat, hot terrain” of his native state. Early vacations in the mountains were a revelation. “I felt like I was coming home.” He met his wife Jane (who will be featured for her own artistry in this column) as his date for his high school prom. They married in 1970 and together made the move to Greene County in 1989. Dell’s affinity for the mountains proved to be no coincidence. As it happens, his family had roots in Northeast Tennessee, with branches from the Hughes family tree living in the area since before the Revolutionary War. Hughes Tavern, owned by Dell’s family, was a meeting place for John Sevier and the men planning to carve out a new state from the North Carolina territory west of the Appalachian Mountains. In Dell’s case, ancestry has taken the form of more than just a geographic attraction. “My family owned and operated a trading community near Cumberland Gap. They not only sold goods but made them, which is probably where my creativity comes from.” The variety of media in which Dell is proficient he attributes both to this genetic heritage as well as his technical work in theater, motion pictures, and reenacting. “Getting involved with theater groups and the movie industry allowed me to see that there was an outlet for my interest in creating things that did not exist and recreating things that did.” This talent was even useful in Army recruitment, for which Dell created a life-size John Wayne figure in complete battle gear, which traveled with him to schools and colleges. The result of his varied interests and love of detail has been work in an amazing array of creative forms. “I can turn my hand to metalworking, woodworking, tailoring, leathercraft, painting, and sculpting to create a piece of some historic period,” he says.
Theatergoers in this area have appreciated Dell’s talents, both as a performer and in his technical wizardry, for years. His love of history has found an outlet in reenacting drawn from several segments of America’s past, which has taken the form of both performing and craftsmanship. “For many of my interests in reenacting there is involved a duplicating of items: clothing and equipment that is no longer available.” But this affection for earlier times has also found expression for Dell in the form of fine art. In collaboration with artist/historian Dr. Robert Orr and popular local artist Joe Kilday, Dell co-created historic-themed murals for the Nathanael Greene Museum, including a panoramic image of Greeneville in the 1860’s which has appeared on a museum-fund raiser postcard and on the cover of Orr’s biography of Andrew Johnson. Sculpturally, Dell has brought forth busts of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and of Andrew Johnson, the latter featured as part of the Andrew Johnson Bicentennial Celebration Collection at James-Ben: Studio and Gallery Art Center. It is these pieces that reflect Dell’s current emphasis and future direction. “I have really been doing more and more sculpting,” he says. “I enjoy recreating people in miniature and even life size. For the last three years I have been selling 12” articulated recreations of the characters from the old TV series Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Girl from U.N.C.L.E.. I hold the copyright on these figures and have sets of them in nine countries and more than half the states in the U.S.” This variety of expression defines Dell’s course in the future and is also something of a life plan. “I guess I’m more of a pseudo-Da Vinci in that I do art and also design gadgets and build stuff,” he says. “My art and theater keeps me young and active. I plan to retire at the age of 237.”
Such anticipated longevity gives Northeast Tennesseans a lot to look forward to from Dell Hughes. His work, featuring the Andrew Johnson bust for the Bicentennial Celebration Collection, is available with great pride at James-Ben: Studio and Gallery art Center.