Famous Cadey
Young Benton artist lands magazine cover
When 8-year-old Cadey Hill decided to send a piece of her artwork to a national magazine, she had no idea that it would end up with the cover.
“She has taken art lessons with Debra Johnson in Bryant,” said
Hill’s mother, Mache. “She had been working on a lion painting with her off and on for two months or so. When they did finish it, her art teacher felt like it was really good and thought it was an amazing painting.”
Johnson asked the Hills if it would be okay to submit the painting to the magazine.
“She told me a little about Hutch,” Mache said. “It’s a magazine that features childrens’ art from all over the country. Basically, you just sub
mit and see if they want to publish your art. They picked it and said she was getting a feature in there, then they called me later and said she had the cover.”
First published in 2008, Hutch is created by editor Peter H. Reynolds in conjunction with the Dedham, Massachusetts, based The Blue Bunny Bookstore and the non-profit foundation,
The Reynolds Center for Teaching, Learning and Creativity. It features works of art, stories, poetry, book reviews, travel logs, interviews and other creative proj
ects submitted by children across the country.
Kids from ages 5 through 12 are invited to submit contributions for the publication. Each issue has a central theme and the submissions are requested to be focused toward positive values.
“She worked really hard on the painting,” Mache said.
The issue that features Cadey’s painting is entitled, “Small Pleasures and Hidden Treasures: What Makes Your Heart Happy?”.
Mache added that they kept the fact that Cadey had made the cover from her until the issue was delivered to their home.
“She was super excited,” Mache said. “She could not believe that she was on the
cover.”
Cadey’s “Psychedelic
Lion” is a painting on canvas with acrylics.
“It’s really bold and bright,” Mache said. “She really enjoyed the abstract aspect of it.
Cadey’s favorite activity is to draw, but she also enjoys piano along with playing outside with her dog and riding her bike.
“She draws all the time at home,” Mache said. “She uses pens, pencils, crayons. She will use some charcoal sometimes. She’s still playing around with that and figuring those out. She will do water colors and paints. Art is her thing. She just loves to do art a lot.”
Mache said she began saving Cadey’s drawings early on.
“It started when she was 4 or 5,” Mache said. “I started realizing how good they were. I have two other kids and they never drew like that
at that age. I started watching more of what she was drawing and started encouraging her to watch Youtube videos and tutorials to give her ideas then she just started drawing like crazy. That’s when I knew she needed some oneon-one art lessons.”
Cadey is a student at Howard Perrin Elementary and will start third grade in the fall.
Mache added that Cadey was so thrilled after learning she had earned the cover that she wasted no time in telling people about her achievement.
“We ended up going to Kirkland’s just after Cadey learned she was on the cover,” Mache said. “We were checking out and Cadey told the lady checking her out, ‘I’m kind of a famous artist now’. It was just hilarious and the girl high-fived her. It was pretty cool.”