Erika Hall Loves Painting Portraits of Chickens

It’s the season 3 finale, and to celebrate, Erika Hall joins us to talk about her unique artistic journey of painting chicken portraits. What began as a creative sabbatical evolved into an unexpected obsession, when she recognized that most of us take chickens for granted despite their dinosaur-like nature, and committed to painting individual chicken portraits that treat them as more than mere objects. Erika has grown the project beyond personal art therapy into a digital presence with a website and an interactive game where visitors compare chickens using random adjectives like "pedantic" or "rambunctious." Her chicken portraits serve as both a meditation on seeing overlooked creatures as individuals with distinct personalities and a broader commentary on taking time to truly observe and appreciate what we often dismiss as mundane.

Guest Bio

Erika Hall (she/her) is the co-founder of Mule Design Studio and Mule Books, and the author of Just Enough Research and Conversational Design, as well as the forthcoming The Business Model is the Grid. Her primary professional interests are design and communication strategy, collaboration, and evidence-based decision making. She is based in San Francisco and used to fly around the world giving talks, but now she does everything remotely and really only travels as far as she can ride her bike.

Links

Erika’s chicken portraits website: https://www.chicken.pics/

Clickens game: https://clickens.chicken.pics/

Erika on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/erikahall.bsky.social

Erika on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikahall

Mule Design: https://www.muledesign.com/

Credits

Cover design by Raquel Breternitz.