Q&A with Cotton Ketchie

Artist, author and life-long Mooresville resident Cotton Ketchie took a break from re-writing one of the four books he’s currently juggling to chat in his Landmark Galleries in downtown Mooresville.

His paintings first caught my eye when I saw the beautiful renderings of some of my favorite North Carolina spots like Pilot Mountain, the Blue Ridge Parkway and Carolina Beach. 

Ketchie just released his book, “Memories of a Country Boy,” and is gearing up for the annual Cotton Ketchie Arts Festival coming in August. 

Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

How did you get the nickname “Cotton?”
I was a cotton-top. I had hair about as light as yours when I was little. I didn’t like my real name, which I don’t tell, but it tells it in the book. We used to pitch horseshoes with a neighbor and he’d call me “Whitie” and I hated that and he started calling me “Cotton Top” and I hated that, too. But when we got to high school “Cotton” was kind of sticking along with me. Some people still used my real name, but the girls thought “Cotton” was cute so I let it stay.

You were saying earlier that you didn’t start painting until you were in your 30s.
Yeah, 34, something like that.

What did you do before that?
I worked at Belk Department Store for 13 years. I worked in the men’s department, sold men’s clothes.

So what took you to painting?
I’ve always liked art. I used to draw when I was a kid. And when I was at Belk’s, Mitchell Community College offered a drawing course and I said ‘I’d really like to learn to draw better.’ It lasted about nine nights and they said, ‘Cotton, the way you draw you ought to paint.’ And I said ‘I don’t know anything about painting.’ ... I painted my first watercolor and everyone went crazy over it. I didn’t paint another one for another year because I didn’t have the money to buy any brushes and watercolor paper.

Then what took you into being an author?
I read two books a week and I’ve always loved reading. And every one of these pictures I paint has a story with them, and I write the stories that go with the painting. So one thing led to another there. ... I would go around to art shows and say ‘I can do that.’ And my wife would say ‘Well why don’t you just shut up and do it then.’ So that’s what I did. And the same thing about writing. I’d read some books and say ‘I can do that,’ so I did.

It seem like a lot of your work is so North Carolina-based. What is the draw for you?
I love our state, I’ve been in all 100 counties several times. And I’d like to paint something from all 100 counties. ... This is the reason this place is called Landmark Galleries because I’m trying to capture and save these landmarks on paper because they’re disappearing. You’re not old enough to know what Mooresville was like and that’s why I’m writing these books, to let people know what it was like around here. See, we had three theaters downtown. We had restaurants all over town, we had a bowling ally right up here and a pool room. It was just a thriving downtown. You couldn’t find a parking place on Saturdays, it was like a bazaar, there were so many people downtown. The smell of popcorn permeated the air from the movie theaters and the restaurants with hot dogs, it was just fantastic.

And coming to town for a little country kid was something else. And I’m wanting to save this stuff, the nature, the waterfalls.

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