Artist and Designer Cody Hudson on His Creative Approach, Working with Jordan Brand and What He Loves About Chicago

The Wisconsin-born, Chicago-based visual practitioner Cody Hudson’s work is a testament to the potential of curiosity. Throughout his career, he’s followed his intuition more than any set strategy, seeking always to add different skills to his toolkit and to exercise different creative muscles. The result is a body of work that spans painting, sculpture, prints, site-specific installations, large scale murals, record sleeves, gig flyers—the list goes on. Tying it all together is a sense of perfect imperfection. Hudson’s work is never too precisely executed, always bearing uniquely expressive hand-hewn touches—evidence that someone has been there, that this was made by a person rather than an algorithm.

A sample of recent projects are a testament to his versatility. They include a solo show of paintings and steel sculptures at David B. Smith Gallery in Colorado called “I Came Home;” contributions to a group show at Somerset House in London called “Mushrooms: The Art, Design, and Future of Fungi;” and an installation called “New Forms” at Fool’s Gold Records’ Brooklyn shop. Beyond the artwork, Hudson is also a partner at Land and Sea Department—a project development studio that also owns and operates Chicago landmark restaurants and bars like Longman & Eagle and Lonesome Rose—and a partner in Letherbee Distillers. He is, suffi ce to say, a person of many interests.

Hudson has done his fair share of work in fashion, too, beginning with designing T-shirts for his friends’ bands, and more recently working with Nike and Jordan Brand on several different projects. Just last week, Hudson’s fi rst collaboration with Jordan Brand launched part of their Chicago-celebrating 8x8 project. To commemorate the launch of Hudson’s contribution to this project, he has designed a large-scale sculpture for Notre, a fashion and sneaker boutique located at 118 N. Peoria in the West Loop. The sculpture will be on view at Notre until February 2. Hudson has also designed a series of prints, currently for sale at Notre, in support of StreetWise. All proceeds from these prints will be donated to the magazine. Notre visited Cody for a chat at his studio.

Cody Hudson

Photo by Reed Schmidt

Notre: I’m familiar with a bunch of the different projects that you do, and the aesthetic of your work, but I don’t know too much about your background. You’re from Wisconsin, right?

Cody: Yeah, I was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, basically the first city over the Illinois border. We were in the middle, so we could go up to Milwaukee to skateboard at the Turf, and later on go to punk shows, and also go down to Chicago to go to warehouse parties and raves.

Notre: I have an long-standing streak of never not getting along with someone I’ve met from Wisconsin.

Cody: Well, that’s a good thing. Wisconsin is pretty mellow—it’s not a bad place to be from.

Notre: When did you make the move to Chicago?

Cody: The first time I moved here was about 23 years ago. Then I moved around for a few years and in between every move would end up moving back to Chicago. I’ve been here nonstop since 2001.

Notre: What kept you coming back?

Cody: I’d run out of money so I’d travel for a job, then once I was out of debt I’d want to go back to doing my own thing, and I would move back to Chicago, knowing that was my home base. All the times I moved were for jobs. I’d get an opportunity in New Jersey, or Miami, or Vermont, to design for a clothing brand, or a magazine, or snowboards, and then after awhile, I learned some new things, I’d go back to Chicago.

Notre: When did you start Struggle, Inc.?

Cody: Mid '90s. I needed a name to put on rave flyers I was making. I was designing them for parties, and didn’t want to put my own name there.

Notre: The Midwest has an amazing tradition of rave flyers, especially from that era.

Cody: The main stuff I did was around ‘94 to ‘99. I was right in the middle, so most of my clients were either Milwaukee or Chicago. It was great to work for both cities at the same time.

Notre: Was doing those flyers the first platform you had as a visual creator?

Cody: I had done some mixtape covers for friends. I made a T-shirt for one of my brothers’ bands, or I’d make stickers and ‘zines for our skateboard crew. But, rave flyers were probably the first ones where I really realized that this stuff gets out there and people really see it. I’d go to Gramaphone and there’d be a big stack of them and I’d be like, “Oh, yeah! I made that.” That was the first time I started to see it more out in the world.

Notre: How’d that feel?

Cody: It was very exciting at the time, especially being pretty young, still trying to kind of figure out what you want to do in life. And doing graphics for a scene that I was a part of was a pretty great experience. The first flyer I designed was for a party I was helping throw. I designed it to save some money, as I had just gotten a computer. But I quickly realized I liked the graphic design more than I liked throwing parties. The work doesn’t look at all like what I’m doing now, but it definitely was all a part of the path that helped me get here. I got that same feeling when I started doing record cover designs later on, and same for skateboard graphics and clothing designs. It’s always cool to see something you made on the street.

Notre: There’s a line in the bio on your website that just says, “Big fan of circles.” Which, I would agree—also probably my favorite shape. What is it about the circle that appeals to you, if it’s something you could even articulate?

Cody: It’s such a simple symbol, but it’s also so universal and can kind of mean anything. Anything and nothing, all at the same time, and everyone who looks at it is going to think something different about it. It’s the circle of life. It’s the Earth. It’s everything around you. It’s a black hole. It’s the end and the beginning of everything. It’s the first thing you see when you open your eyes, and the last thing you see when you close them.

Notre: I want to push you more about what kept you coming back toChicago—what makes it such a unique city?

Cody: I really like the people here. It’s got great food, great art, great music. I spent enough time in New York and LA, and like them both, but not being on one of the coasts, it’s just a different mentality. And it’s a city that’s really embraced me and given me an opportunity to make a living doing something I love. I met my wife here, both my daughters were born here. To me, Chicago really has become my home.

Notre: What do you think the Chicago or the Midwest mentality leads to,in terms of visual production?

Cody: I think there’s just this honest nature about Chicago and the Midwest, which is something that I try to push through in my work—not necessarily try to make everything perfect, or hide how it was made, or to take shortcuts. There’s a very Midwestern work ethic, as well. Not chasing the hype. You’re working, you’re doing your thing, and you want the world to see it, but, at least for me, it doesn’t seem like that’s always the main goal. Chicago is more about the work and less about putting your face out there and being the person in front of the work.

Notre: When it comes to the work with Jordan Brand on the 8x8 project,how did that whole relationship come about?

Cody: I’ve worked with Nike quite a bit in the past, but this is the first time I’ve worked with Jordan. This one was really exciting, obviously, because of the connection Jordan has to Chicago.

Notre: In terms of the collection itself, and the look of it, how did you approach it? What were you trying to bring to it?

Cody: I was thinking about this whole “Unite” campaign, uniting the city, all these train lines coming together at all these different locations throughout the city. I started thinking on that and cutting up paper shapes. I wanted to keep it abstract, but also resonate with Chicago. The stars and some of the stripe-like elements feel like deconstructed elements from the Chicago flag, but then also can represent landscape-style elements. I like when people can look at something and bring their own thoughts to it instead of me saying, “Well, this is exactly what this means.” So, in my head, there’s little bits and pieces there that all connect, but someone else will look at it and bring something totally different to it. I’m excited about seeing what it means to other people. And then the big message, “All One.” That’s a combination of a couple different references, the hippie feeling of “All One Or None” meeting more of a “One Love” hip-hop mentality, and trying to bring this whole city together with one of the stars in between a heart.

Notre: You’ve described yourself before as a “professional amateur.” What does that mean?

Cody: Everyone is so different in how they work. I’ve been around, doing everything for a long time, but I’m still figuring out what that even is—coming to the studio every day and thinking, “What am I going to do today? Am I going to make a sculpture? Make a painting? Or design an album cover, or a poster, or paint a mural, or just make some doodles?” It’s a low-key setup, but one that can generate almost anything. So, it’s professional in the sense that this is how I’ve been making a living for the last 20 years, but at the same time, I still sometimes question if it’s even a real business. It’s just me, sitting in the studio, kind of doing whatever I want, and somehow that’s actually turned into my job. Which is pretty wild to think about.

Notre: Given the whole “Unite” nature of the 8x8 project, is there anyone in Chicago, whether it’s another designer, or an artist, or a restaurant, that you really love and want to shout out?

Cody: So much good food here—Lula Cafe is my neighborhood favorite for sure. I have a soft spot for a Manny’s pastrami sandwich. Artists like Kerry James Marshall, Jose Lerma, Ryan Travis Christian, Gladys Nilsson, Karl Wirsum, Judy Ledgerwood, Nick Cave, Anna Kunz, Stephen Eichhorn, Alice Tippit, Robert Burnier, and Sonnenzimmer, to name a few, make this a good city to be in. So much good design, as well, with people like Bill Connors, Other Studio, Drew Ryan, Normal Studio, and Chuck Anderson doing good work. I could keep going with this list for days, so I think it just shows Chicago is a pretty great place to be right now.