Strength in searching: LA teen artist grapples with early success

At a large apartment complex in Los Angeles’ Studio City neighborhood, Grey DeLisle – also known as Grey Griffin –and her 12-year-old son, Tex, followed a man down a long hallway and into his apartment.

It was a cool night in late summer 2019, and DeLisle – a voice actor known for her role as Daphne in the “ScoobyDoo” franchise – was there for a psychic reading a friend had gifted her for her birthday.

DeLisle described her friend, who was working as a producer on a show about psychics, as a skeptic. “Ninety-nine percent of people are full of it,” DeLisle recalls her saying. “But I went to this one guy who was amazing, told things not my like that nobody could know, he freaked out all the producers. He’s amazing.”

So, DeLisle and her son entered the man’s apartment. “The guy gave me all my stuff about my grandma that nobody knew, conversations I had with people – stuff that was definitely not on the internet,” DeLisle said.

During the reading, Tex was sketching in a notebook when the psychic turned to Tex, then looked back at DeLisle and said: “Your son is an artist.”

“Oh, yeah, you know, he likes to draw,” she remembers saying.

“No, your son is gonna be one of the biggest artists of the 21st century,” the psychic said. “He’s gonna be a household name.”

Jefferson “Tex” Hammond – now 16-years-old with a head full of long, curly hair – is proving those words may have meant something after all.

In 2021, at 14-years-old, the California School of the Arts, San Gabriel Valley student became the youngest ever artist to exhibit at the prestigious LA Art Show – where he sold nearly all of his paintings.

The feat proved so newsworthy that the Los Angeles Times featured Hammond – an abstract artist whose website bio describes his work as “a window into the mind of a young talent maturing in a chaotic world” – in an article last year.

Since then, the Pasadena-based artist – who does not label his sexuality – has exhibited his work in art shows worldwide, from Los Angeles to Paris.

Arthur J Schwartz, a Willamina, Oregon-based salesman who collects Hammond’s art, said he “immediately was taken” by Hammond’s paintings.

“His work is just so compelling that I just couldn’t take my eyes off of it,” Schwartz said. “I mean, in fact, my reaction was this kid is going to be the next Michel Basquiat [an American artist who rose to fame during the Neo-expressionism movement in the 1980s] – I mean, that’s how taken I was with his work.”

The success excites Hammond, but he was also quick to note that he doesn’t want to let his achievements hinder his progress.

“Life is so much more than what we accomplish here,” he said, adding: “I gotta keep moving, I gotta keep moving always. I can’t let myself get wrapped up in, like, oh, I’m so special.”

Like many 16-year-olds, Hammond doesn’t quite know who he is yet – both as a person and an artist. It is this exploration, he said, that motivates him and gives him a sense of purpose.

“I don’t even know what I want to do with my art yet,” he said. “I’m still taking in inspiration from different art. I haven’t truly found what I want to do with it yet.”

There is one thing Hammond is sure of: “I gotta paint,” he said. “I need to not give up, and I need to paint every single day.”

An Old Soul

When asked how she would describe her son, the first words that came to DeLisle were “old soul” – there’s “always been like a little old man in his body,” she said.

DeLisle remembers flying with a two-year-old Hammond – his legs crossed, an in-flight magazine in hand. He wasn’t reading, she recalled, just taking in the photos on the glossy magazine paper.

Hammond turned toward her, DeLisle said, pointing to a cello in a spread about a symphony orchestra. “Oh my God,” she thought, “the Lord gave me a kid that I can handle.”

Hammond may not remember the moment, but he, too, describes himself as an old soul – at least, that’s what he’s heard his whole life.

“I may be young, but like, I already feel way older than I am,” he said. “I just turned 16, but people have thought I was 18 for two years now.”

“But a lot of that comes with the hype,” Hammond said. Sometimes, Hammond said, he feels embarrassed – not necessarily with his accomplishments but with what he sees as a leg up and the pressure that arises as a result.

“My mom has connections, you know; I’ve gotten a lot of help along the way,” he said.

DeLisle is a Grammy- and Emmy-Award-winning veteran voice actress, comedian and singer-songwriter with almost three decades of experience in the entertainment industry. She describes her voice-acting bio as “braggy” to her 85,000 followers on Instagram.

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