A struggling artist renders his gratitude

James Hendershott moved to Costa Mesa three years ago with little money and no place to stay. An aspiring artist grappling with student debt and trying to jump-start a career, he relied on meals at Someone Cares Soup Kitchen while struggling to get on his feet.

His luck began to change almost a year later when he found a surprise in his new apartment. Waiting for him in the corner of his closet was an easel, complete with blank canvas and paint supplies.

“The timing was incredible for this to show up,” said Hendershott, who completed a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Arizona State University in 2003. “It was like a message telling me to get to work.”

And so he did. The 33-year-old recently completed a calligraphic mural centered on the rear wall of the soup kitchen that has fed him for the past three years. In decorative lettering, Hendershott painted the organization’s mission and vision statement so all visitors could see and appreciate its objective.

“The soup kitchen has done a lot of good things for a lot of good people,” he said. “They kept me alive and I did this out of gratitude.”

After Someone Cares Soup Kitchen’s board of directors updated the statement last year, Executive Director Shannon Santos wanted to present a tangible reflection of the organization’s purpose and goals and could think of no better way than to put them up on the wall. After seeing some of Hendershott’s oil paintings, she immediately knew he was perfect for the job.

“The guests have a very powerful message coming to them when they look up at the wall,” Santos said. “It’s a very moving, beautiful thing.”

Santos hoped to enhance the warm decor of the kitchen with the addition of Hendershott’s work, selecting the burgundy-colored paint for the mural to match the facility’s carpet and stand out on its warm yellow walls.

Though Santos anticipated having the mural up for Thanksgiving, Hendershott finished it just in time for Christmas, after putting about 20 hours into the project.

“James is quite the perfectionist,” she said.

While lettering isn’t his specialty, the artist is comfortable working with a variety of mediums. He spends most days in his room or at the beach painting landscapes, portraits and abstracts with watercolors and oils, though he has a love for sculpting.

“I consider myself a creator,” he said. “Whatever medium the art calls for, I will create it.”

Though he’s on his way to being financially stable, Hendershott continues to eat at the soup kitchen a couple of times a week.

He enjoys the food, opting to call himself a well-fed artist as opposed to a struggling one, and the company he finds there, specifically a group of older men he refers to as the Buena Vista Social Club.

“We talk and have a lot of fun,” he said. “They’re just old, seasoned dudes, real veterans of life.”

The artist plans to have a website ready later this month — www.jamesfineart.com — where he will exhibit and sell his work.