Richard at the Sofitel in Beverly Hills. Credit: Courtesy Aiden White/Rubenstein Public Relations

How Richard Hutchins, the homeless artist, became a viral internet sensation

Homeless Artist Richard Hutchins

Life for Richard Hutchins hasn’t been easy. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, he grew up in Techwood Homes, one of the first federal public housing projects in the United States, before moving to Los Angeles. In LA, he eventually found an art studio where he could act on a passion for painting, which he’d had since the age of 6. But he struggled there too, later landing in a Los Angeles County jail.

While in prison, Hutchins spent his days painting portraits on envelopes, experimenting with what was available to him — toothpaste, Kool-Aid, and the colored dye coating of Skittles and M&Ms — and using a paintbrush made from his plucked beard hairs. “The first picture I drew was in the cotton field,” he said. “I come out of the cotton field of Georgia.”

Hutchins had previously done work for Muhammad Ali, Richard Pryor, but his studio burned down, and his talent wasn’t getting the appreciation it deserved. It didn’t take too long to become homeless because of losing his studio. He walked the streets and lived on beaches before ending up in homeless shelters on Skid Row.

Hutchins had been living on Skid Row for six years when, this past Easter Sunday, he encountered Charlie “Rocket” Jabaley, rapper 2Chainz’s former manager, at a grocery store in Los Angeles. Since then, Jabaley and his company, the Dream Machine, have helped transform Hutchins’ life.

When they asked him what his dream was, Hutchins replied: “My dream is to walk into a museum one day and see one of my paintings hanging on the wall.” After an initial conversation, Jabaley took him to an art store and purchased $2,000 worth of supplies to get him painting again. Then, Jabaley and his team created a website for Hutchins to sell his work, including the 250 envelopes he had painted while in jail. (Some of those envelopes were later donated to institutions, including the UC Santa Barbara Library.)

Four hours after the website went live, Jabaley and his team had sold $50,000 worth of art. Jabaley later organized an exhibition for Hutchins at the Sofitel Los Angeles hotel in Beverly Hills, where hundreds of people showed up. Hutchins sold even more paintings that night, including one that went for $23,000. To date, Hutchins has made more than $200,000 from art sales, with notable buyers including Oprah Winfrey, 2Chainz, Steve Harvey, and Will Smith.
Jabaley started the Dream Machine to help others realize their wildest ambitions. “This is what I feel is the new age of philanthropy,” he said.

Now that Hutchins is off the streets, he plans to help Dream Machine with its mission wherever he can. But, he said, his “destiny” now is “to go back to Skid Row.” “I remember the night I slept in a firm good bed. It was a wonderful experience,” he said. “But I am not comfortable until everybody around me is comfortable, which means the people that I left behind.” Hutchins plans on paying his good fortune forward: “I’m just not sitting around spending money. I am trying to make things happen; I am going to make things happen.”

The night after his Sofitel exhibition, Hutchins went to Skid Row and gave all the money in his pockets to people living on the streets, he said. In the future, he hopes to launch a fundraiser for breast cancer research in honor of his late mother and to start a foundation in her name that will help clean up Skid Row and put kids through school.
“The money that we have raised and continue to raise, I am going to use … to at least try to make the world a little bit better place to live in — especially on Skid Row.”

Rocket, on the other hand, is a former music executive who also was dealt a challenging hand when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the height of his career. It made him realize life is too short not to follow your true passion.
“So, all of my dreams come true, in more ways than I could ever imagine,” Rocket said. “So, I said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna dedicate my life to making other people’s dreams come true ’cause my dreams saved my life.'” And now, Rocket’s dreams are saving Hutchins’ life. Their two worlds collided by chance at the grocery store parking lot.

Rocket is big on social media. When he took a liking to Hutchins, Rocket documented the experience, so that others could also meet him, and decided to use his connections to help Hutchins get on his feet. Rocket’s 3 million TikTok and 500,000 Instagram followers fell in love with Hutchins’ art. Rocket would share some of the paintings Hutchins made while he was in jail.

Like Rocket was for him, Hutchins is now hoping to be somebody to lean on for someone else.

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