Whit Whitley (they/them) is a non-binary artist and entrepreneur living in Brooklyn (Red Hook), New York prior to returning home to Texas to care for their mother this past year.
Whit was born in Houston on January 7, 1969 and grew up in Spring, Texas where they began their studies in art around the age of 6 at a private art studio in Old Town Spring.
“Taking art lessons there is one of my most vivid childhood memories. I remember working hard because you had to complete all the pencil drawings before you could move to charcoal. You had to complete all the charcoal drawings before you could move to pastels. You had to complete all the pastels before you could move to oil paints. This was how it worked, and I loved it!”Â
At Spring Elementary, Whit won several prized Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo art awards. It seemed this budding artist was on their way! However, at Wunsche Middle School you could only choose one elective, and Whit decided on music. Whit dreamed of playing the trumpet—inspired by their Aunt Judy who played trumpet and served as the drum major of the infamous MOB, the Rice University Marching Owl Band. Whit had also picked up the guitar at age 8 and fell in love with making music and writing songs, following in the footsteps of their Texas front porch troubadour Grandpa “Pete” Whitley and Louisiana bluegrass radio stars Aunt Jesse and Uncle Dennis. Music was definitely in their blood.
Whit went onto become First Chair Trumpet in All-Region Band in one of the largest counties in the country. In high school, Whit won a highly coveted spot in the Houston Youth Symphony and began private studies with James Austin, the Principal Trumpet of the Houston Symphony. A few years later, Whit continued their music studies at the University of Houston and performed in the Wind Ensemble under the direction of Eddie Green. Oddly, Whit found themselves spending countless hours lost in the UH Baffler Art Gallery and Jenkins Art Library or hanging out with their then painter girlfriend in her studio at the School of Art.Â
After four years and right on the verge of completing their Bachelor of Arts in Music, Whit changed their major to English. In hindsight, this doesn’t make any sense. They could have switched to a Bachelor of Fine Arts and started their journey to becoming a working artist. But the detour into English wasn’t totally random. It was a subject they immensely enjoyed, and books had always been a transformative force in Whit’s young life. Somewhere deep inside Whit didn’t want a life as a working musician, and a life as a working artist wasn’t even on their radar.
Soon thereafter, Whit graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Minor in Applied Music Performance. They continued teaching trumpet privately and took a job teaching English. Whit loved teaching English and had many opportunities to infuse art into their classroom activities but continued to focus on the pursuit of music.
For many years, they wrote, performed, and recorded with several rock bands as a singer and guitarist. However, music began to fade into the background when Whit embarked on a Master of Science in Learning Technologies at the University of North Texas and started a digital marketing agency as a side-hustle. It grew into something special, and Start Smart Now soon became Whit’s full-time passion and business.
After a very long hiatus from any serious pursuit of visual art, Whit suddenly picked it up again in Lubbock, Texas while working on their PhD in rhetoric at Texas Tech University. Maybe not so surprisingly, they spent more time making art and hanging out with their artist friends than in class. Glassy Alley, a mosaic art studio and gallery, and Art For Goodness Sakes, a fine arts gallery and weekly gathering place for artists-in-recovery, became the center of Whit’s universe.
After leaving Lubbock, Whit struggled to maintain their creative practice in visual arts despite being featured in an international juried exhibit in Chicago. What could have been a momentous re-entry into the world of art was lost amidst many personal uncertainties and troubles that eventually led to relocating to Savannah, Georgia in 2020. It’s probably no coincidence that Savannah is home to one of the most sought-after art schools in the world, SCAD.Â
Just before the move, Whit took a 3-week trip to the UK during which they stayed in the artist enclave of St. Ive’s in Cornwall. It was there that Whit took a life drawing class at the historic and famed St. Ive’s School of Painting. That class most definitely reignited Whit’s lifelong passion for art. Those drawings are among Whit’s most cherished possessions. The trip included visits to the Tate Modern in St. Ive’s, Tate Modern in London, National Gallery of London, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Gallery of Ireland, Scottish National Galleries, and many independent locally owned galleries. It was a see-as-much-art-as-possible pilgrimage. Â
In Savannah, Whit turned that spark into a flame and along with that came a divorce from their wife of 10 years in the fall of 2021. The decision to leave the troubled marriage opened doors to long-dormant creative dreams.Â
Over the next 3 years, Whit wrote and recorded 17 songs that culminated in 5-song EP and 12-song musical memoir called Love Lost, Love Found about the losing and finding love again. That’s when Whit met writer, painter, and photographer Sam Hopwood and moved to New York to be with them.
Whit also started East Broad Records, an indie music label hellbent on doing business differently in the music industry. Whit has since signed 4 artists and 2 authors to the label and released 8 full-length albums, including their own. Whit is co-writing a book with music attorney Ryan Schmidt about the future of the artist/label relationship inspired by their own challenges and triumphs.
As Start Smart Now heads into its 25th year in business, Whit continues to be as excited as ever about helping self-made entrepreneurs build a business of their dreams .
Whit and Sam still reside in Texas but have plans for an upcoming move to California. Thankfully, there has also been time for a fall trip to visit Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul (Blue House) in Mexico City, and a summer trip to the French Riviera to experience all that the Côte d’Azur has to offer. It was upon returning from Nice, France, that Whit went on a “watercolor rampage” according to their mom. In less than 3 months, they produced almost 100 paintings in a wide range of sizes. Perhaps, this is just what happens when a dormant creative volcano finally erupts.