Hey Jude
This Jacksonville artist and musician makes his balancing act look so easy.
Photo by Cecil Thronhill
“I’m a painter by day, musician by
night,” Jude Kahle says.
Chairs are lined up in a dusty garage on a balmy summer day. Neighborhood children crowd in to watch and listen. The sounds of a saxophone and piano float through the air. A 14-year-old Jude Kahle is about to perform one of his concerts for his younger brother, sister and their friends while his parents are at work.
“There was never a dull moment with Jude,” said his sister Chollet Kahle, 23, referring to their younger days when Jude baby-sat.
Instead of watching television, Jude would produce his own home videos, called Broken Egg Productions, and perform concerts in the garage.
Although Jude, now 27, does not consider himself an artist in the conventional sense, he owns a painting company, Riverside Painting Co., Inc., in Jacksonville where he paints home interiors with designs such as stripes and faux finishes. He also plays in the band Shangri-La.
Music and art have inspired Jude since he was a toddler. He picked up his first instrument, the saxophone, in sixth grade and hasn’t put it, or any other instrument, down since.
“He used to turn everything into a guitar,” says Chollet, referring to a picture of Jude when he was two years old playing air guitar on a lint brush.
When he was older, Jude worked in his father’s record store, Beach Music, which helped him recognize and nurture his musical spirit.
While the love of music seems to be in his blood, Jude was exposed to the visual arts while attending Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, a highly competitive magnet school in Jacksonville. His education and connections there helped him start his own business and get involved with other artistic endeavors.
While building and painting many of the sets for Haverty's Furniture commercials, a co-worker asked Jude to help on the set for the movie, “Basic,” which was filmed in Jacksonville.
During the six months he worked on the set, Jude, who was the scenic artist, was responsible for texturing, painting and aging the set to replicate an army base in Panama.
“You have to make the place look like it hasn’t had a paint job in 10 years,” Jude says. “You have to replicate all the wear and tear of a building.”