A: My name is Rory Hawkins but I paint as Catlanta. It’s been a project I’ve worked on for a little over a decade now. It started as a three-legged cat character and kind of transformed into murals, large scale installations and also art scavenger hunts where I leave wooden cutouts of my cat character around town and invite people to find it. Through that, I’ve just been able to connect to multiple communities around the state.
Q: What initially inspired the kitten design?A: I don’t remember exactly. It was something I would draw in the margins of sketchbooks. At the time, I was working at PAWS Atlanta and I had two foster cats. I think it was based off of them and simplifying a cat to its simplest form, right? I was going to school for art, but people would comment more on that little cat that I drew in the margins. It seemed like it connected with people, and I just kind of adopted it and went from there.
Q: How does education impact your art?
A: My mom was a special education teacher and my dad was an art teacher. I do workshops every now and then and have volunteered with some organizations like Paint Love that bring art programming to nonprofits and children. I do workshops and work with school groups because I know it’s important to actually have the hands on experience and work with other people and see firsthand that there can be a career in the arts. It’s just always kept me willing and able to give back to the community because, you know, I watched my parents do it all their lives. My dad’s no longer with us, so it still helps me connect to him to go do some of these programs and understand where he was coming from.
Q: How did you come up with the design for the mural?
A: The initial request mentioned a few suggestions for what they’d like to see in the work. I wanted to do something cute and colorful, but I thought it would be fun to connect it with Tucker’s history with trains and come up with a few different fun characters. Since the path inspires motion, whether it be bike riding or walking or even unicycles, I’ve seen all sorts of stuff, I wanted to play with the idea of movement. It’s important to remember everyone in what you do and even though this is kind of cartoony, it’s also three feet tall. So the people that it’s going to be huge to are children. Why not try to inspire kids and show them that art can be fun and that it can be their size, too?
Q: What project(s) are you the most proud of?
A: It’s projects like these where I’m given more creative control that I’m the most proud of. There are a few restaurants I was given kind of free reign that I’m really proud of. And also just took me forever. There’s a restaurant called Spice House that I did the ceiling of, and it was a long learning process, but I was really happy with how it came out. In terms of public art, the sad thing is that a lot of the things you’re most proud of may not be there a few years down the road, especially in Atlanta with how much stuff is getting built and torn down and whatnot. A few pieces I was really proud of no longer are with us, but they still exist in photographs.
Q: What are your hobbies apart from art?
A: I like to grill and I’ve started playing disc golf this past couple of years. There’s a course that just opened up near where I live, and every day it’s jam-packed.
Q: Favorite sports team?
A: I like watching all Atlanta teams. I probably watch Atlanta United the most. I like the Falcons, but we’ve had a few rough years. I don’t know if I can say they’re my favorite team at the moment, but I’ll still watch.
Q: Do you have any pets?
A: I have a pet, but not a cat. I have a pit bull named Tank who is not too fond of cats. He’s a big boy and very sweet, He’s a little enthusiastic. He tries to be a cat, you know, he tries to get in my lap. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
