One of the things I was most excited about when I started this newsletter was something I’m obviously calling “Eating Pizza With a Cool Person”. The idea is pretty simple: I reach out to someone I admire who is doing helpful, unique or interesting things in Chicago, offer to take them out for pizza, and we have a conversation.

Julia Hagen is an extremely talented artist and champion of the Chicago hot dog stand. She recently gained a significant amount of notoriety thanks in part to her Every Last Stand series, where she set an ambitious goal to paint (and eat at!) as many Chicago area hot dog stands as possible:

I met Julia in Logan Square at her favorite pizza place, Middle Brow, where we grabbed some slices and talked a whole lot about hot dogs, when she decided to become an artist, where the idea to paint hot dog stands came from, how she managed to find her style (and why she had to willfully forget a lot of what she learned in art school to get there), how she chooses her subjects, her process of creating art, why she prefers to set her paintings at night, where she goes for inspiration, the role that nostalgia plays in all of her paintings, the time that she did two separate news interviews in one day, how she and her husband accidentally ended up in a Dave Portnoy pizza review video, her go to hot dog stand order, what her advice is for artists just starting out, and a whole lot more.

CPN: How long have you lived in Logan Square?

Julia: Five years now. I love it. We’re on the edge of Bucktown and Logan, sort of near Margie's. So it's nice to be able to walk to either. And Wicker too. I like our little neighborhood because we're right near the train and all that. Where are you?

CPN: I'm in Oak Park. My first apartment in the city is right down Armitage though, on the other side of Sacramento. I used to live up on the boulevard for a long time too.

Julia: I love the boulevard. It's so beautiful. And I love Oak Park. My aunt and uncle just moved to, is it Forest Park that’s right there too?

CPN: Yup.

Julia: They lived in, I’m spacing out on what it’s called right now… It's where Gene & Jude's is…

CPN: River Grove?

Julia: Thank you. They lived in River Grove, but they'd been meaning to move to a bigger house for forever. So I've been spending more time there, and one one hot dog stand I really need to do is Parky’s actually.

CPN: The hot dog stand of my youth! My grandma actually used to work there, my dad's mom. She worked at the other one. There used to be two of them.

Julia: Two different storefronts?

CPN: There were two different Parky’s. There used to be one in Berwyn on Roosevelt Road. From an architectural standpoint, if you drove by, you would know it immediately, because they look exactly the same.

Julia: I'm excited to paint it when I do paint it, because of all the glass.

CPN: I can’t wait to see that one. They just redid it too.

Julia: I saw that! Because a car crashed into it! I was meaning to go for a while and then I was like, well, I guess I'm gonna wait because they have to rebuild.

CPN: It's a really good hot dog, too. It's very different from anywhere else.

Julia: Don't they make their own?

CPN: They do.

Julia: That's what I'm interested in, too. We're in Vienna Beef land, you know? So there are so few places that aren’t Vienna, which I mean, I love Vienna so I've got no qualms with that. But, you know, Jim’s is not Vienna. Superdawg is not Vienna — and they had a falling out, it was pretty dramatic apparently. And then Parky’s. Those are the main three I know that are not Vienna. The rest are either regular Vienna, or Vienna but they have their own very specific recipe. Like Gene & Jude’s has their own recipe. I know this now because I actually got lunch with this guy who's a VP at Vienna, or he was because I guess he's retired now, but he wrote the book Never Put Ketchup on a Hot Dog. Bob Schwartz. And he's just a wealth of information. And I also had lunch with the owner of Redhot Ranch, too, and I was like, what is what is my life?!? Like I'm a painter, what am I doing here?

CPN: That is a very interesting center of a Venn diagram — the hot dog community and the art community. It feels like that could only happen in Chicago.

Julia: I'm like, how did I get here? But I love that I know this information. I never really thought that this was gonna be like my niche, but here it is.

CPN: Where did you grow up?

Julia: I grew up in Northfield. Do you know where Northfield is? They share a zip code with Winnetka. It's so small that if you blink, you’ll go by it. I went to Loyola Academy. We were in the New Trier school district. My dad went to Loyola, and grew up in Edison Park, so he was like, oh, you're gonna go to Loyola. So that's where I grew up. Irving’s is over there, I don't know if you're familiar at all with Irving’s?

CPN: I’m not, no.

Julia: It's down the street from Loyola. It's also if you blink then you’ll miss it. It's in a strip mall. I’ve been meaning to do it, but it's not exactly an aesthetically pleasing stand, or very interesting, but it feels pretty Americana being in a strip mall. But that's where I grew up.

CPN: What was your favorite pizza in Northfield?

Julia: Viccino’s. I was on the phone with my mom last night and she was like, we went to Northshore Pizza. And I'm like, what the heck is that? She's like, well, it's Viccino’s, but the owner had an anger management problem, he got really mad at the neighbors and put a bunch of trash inside their building somehow, and now he's banned from Northfield. So Viccino’s was banned from Northfield, but he got around it by renaming it. But he's not allowed in Northfield or something crazy.

CPN: The restaurant is still there?

Julia: The restaurant is still there, but it’s not called Viccino’s, it's called Northshore Pizza. It’s gone downhill, apparently, and it's pretty expensive. It was probably kind of pricey at the time too, but they had a really good bacon pizza, which as a kid, I was bacon crazy.

CPN: What style was it?

Julia: I remember it being kind of like this style, but a crispier crust, and they would cut it in squares. So maybe it was more tavern? I'm not as well versed in pizza as I am hot dogs. When something's not floppy, is that considered more tavern-style?

CPN: It depends on the cut, but you could do all kinds of square cut slices, like Sicilian slices, or Grandma-style slices, which can be really thin and crispy too.

Julia: They're closer to Neapolitan, but a little bit, like thicker. And to be honest, I liked Domino’s when I was a little kid too.

CPN: It’s the birthday party pizza.

Julia: Exactly.

CPN: Do you remember your first time having Middle Brow?

Julia: It was definitely in the pandemic. My husband and I moved to Logan together, and we were we were still dating at the time, in April of 2020. And it was like, I hope this works out because neither of us were going to work and I had been furloughed. I wasn't doing art full time at that point, I had this terrible recruiting job that I took just to get money basically. So all the restaurants were closed, but I feel like Middle Brow, I'm not sure whether they had just opened, or maybe everything just felt so naked because of the pandemic, but it felt we were coming early on. So 2020, summer, sitting outside. And we quickly figured out the tavern Tuesdays situation.

CPN: You had pizza the first time you came?

Julia: We did.

CPN: Why is it your favorite?

Julia: They’re so unique in terms of their flavors, and I would just say it's artisanal. And then also specifically the tavern-style really feels like you're having a little Cheez-It. The cheese is so crunchy and good. I'm not a fan of when pizza is super floppy to where it's not holding its own. So the crust, and I think the bread here is crazy. I had an addiction to the bread for a while. I've pulled back, but we used to come here almost every weekend to get a loaf of bread.

CPN: Is it sourdough?

Julia: I'm not sure what it is.

CPN: Is it the big country loaves?

Julia: Yeah, they're big country loaves. It's what they serve for the bread and butter. I think it is sourdough, cause it certainly tastes like it. But I always say it has kind of a miso flavor going on in it. Which I don't know, I mean, I doubt it. It just tastes like that to me. So I really like that flavor. There’s a nuttyness to it. When was the first time you came here?

CPN: It was the first summer after we moved back, so it would have been 2021. It was one of the places I kept seeing come up for best new pizza in Chicago. We sat out on the patio with our friend who was here from New York and had a couple of drinks, it was a beautiful night, and we walked to Pretty Cool after. It was great.

Julia: Funny story, so we were here and sitting outside when Dave Portnoy came. You can see my husband and I in the background of his review. It was a Tuesday, and he didn't know it was tavern-style Tuesday, and we were taking bets. I'm like, I think he's gonna really like it. He thought it was gonna be Neapolitan-style. And he even asked if they would make him one, but they said, no, we only have the tavern style. And we could overhear everything. And he seemed disappointed. I don't know if you follow him? I feel like as a pizza guy, you probably do…

CPN: I do not.

Julia: It was just really funny to be here, and then this place got crazy after that. And we were both selfishly kind of like, I hope he gives it a bad review because that will keep everyone out of here! And the demographic really changed after that. It got really bro-y.

CPN: I interviewed an owner who has a couple of pizza places in Naperville, and he was chasing Portnoy really hard for years to get him to come. He finally did, and their business exploded. It can really make or break a restaurant.

Julia: Which is really cool.

CPN: But some people don't want it. And he’ll come in spite of them. They'll be like, we don't want you to come here.

Julia: Why wouldn't they want him to come? Do they just want to keep it to the locals?

CPN: Or maybe it’s a volume thing. Some shops only prepare a certain amount of dough per day, and they're not prepared, or maybe they don’t have the staff, to handle a huge increase in volume all the sudden.

Julia: And then it's also like, what happens when it dies down?

CPN: I'll have to ask Mike about that. Was it steady afterwards? Or was it just an initial explosion? He gave them a good review.

Julia: Where was this? Did you say it’s called Mike’s?

CPN: It's Little Pops. It's a New York pizzeria. Mike is the owner and he has a couple shops in Naperville and Aurora.

Julia: It was so interesting being here. And I didn't wanna be in the video! I didn't want to be seen! But my husband was facing him, so I was like, all right, he’s trying it! What does his face look like?!?

CPN: That's that's like walking into, I don't wanna say history, because that's too much, but there's people who would go way out of their way to be around to watch him do that.

Julia: There were a lot of people going up to him, and I was like, we're not going up to him. I'm not a fan. I'm neutral on him. But it was funny because I could tell he was surprised that more people weren't. But I think that’s the demographic. People in Logan Square didn't care.

CPN: They absolutely don't care. I would bet the majority of people don’t have any idea who he is. If he was somewhere on Clark Street, though?

Julia: Oh, absolutely. Completely different story.

CPN: What do you love about Chicago?

Julia: It's a big question. Nostalgia is a part of it, right? Growing up here, but it’s more than that. I briefly went to Boston College, and then I transferred back to The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. I was in Boston and I realized, oh, I don't wanto to be Pre-med, I want to be an artist. And Boston was such a different vibe than Chicago. I remember being at a store and holding a door for somebody and they looked at me like, what do you want from me? Or I would be checking out somewhere and say have a nice day, or something, and they were shocked by it. I went to the dentist there, and I was trying to make small talk, and the dentist looks at me and says, where are you from? I'm like, Chicago. He's like, Midwest, that makes sense. So I know it’s a little rough around the edges in Chicago, but the people are very nice, so I would say the people. And the food, obviously. I love the food. But it's the people that are making the food, and the culture around it. I missed Chicago so much when I left, and not because of like, oh, I miss the skyline or anything like that. I missed the atmosphere here. And the way people act.

CPN: Is there anything you think could make Chicago better?

Julia: In the same vein of people as a reason why I love Chicago, I also think we could do a better job of coming together as a community. Sometimes in a city just in general, people can just be very into their own own thing, and not necessarily community oriented. So getting out there and trying to support local businesses, or getting outside of your own world a little bit. I wish people were more engaged in their community. Myself included.

CPN: You see that a lot with the neighborhoods. People are super stoked on their own neighborhood, but they're not necessarily going into or helping out in other neighborhoods.

Julia: I think that's what it is. We’re very territorial of our neighborhoods, and I think that’s great because you have to start small. But I also wish there was a bit of a bigger picture going on, rather than just sticking with what you know.

CPN: You’ve talked a lot about how it took years for you to find your style as an artist. How did you?

Julia: It took time, and trial and error, and making a lot of bad art. Or making art that looked a lot like other artist’s art, and then realizing I wouldn't naturally make that, but I thought it looked cool. Being inspired, mimicking or, you know, copying, is a bad word in art, but we all get inspiration from other artists. No one’s creating art in a vacuum. It took a lot of looking at other people's art, and getting to the point where I could appreciate somebody else's work and also be like, okay, that's really cool that they did that, but that's not how I paint. Or that's not what I enjoy making. There's a really interesting intersection you have to find as an artist of the type of image you want to create, the process of making it, and how you like to work. And it takes a while to have those things align. I went to art school, and art school is a very interesting dynamic in terms of there being elitism as far as what is considered good art, and what's considered like high art. So I had to deconstruct some of that for myself to be like, no, I like painting hot dog stands. I don't know if that's gonna be considered to go in the MoMA, but who the fuck cares. I had to come to terms with with that. I don't think every gallery wants me, or I don't think this make sense necessarily in a white wall space, but that's fine, and I need to stop trying to do that.

CPN: What’s your process? Are you regimented? Do you have a certain time that you work every day, or do you wait for the moments to find you?

Julia: I adhere to a pretty nine to five schedule. I mean it's more like 10 to six or seven, realistically. There's two very different things in terms of like process, and then the work week as an artist. You think of like an artist like, oh, they're just making art all day. But there's so much I do that’s just admin. I got a bunch of emails on my way here that were like, hey, can you update me on the shipping of my order? There's a lot of website stuff, social media, emails, all of that. And that is honestly more exhausting than the actual making of art. So the actual painting feels like a break, but I do have to get into a different headspace to do that. You can't be in a super productive headspace, you have to be in more of a flow. So I usually have my mornings where I’ll try to knock out some bigger tasks that are admin, and then I'll transition into painting. But in terms of my process for paintings, I figured this out about myself, I work from images, but I really need to go to a place and take my own photo. I did a painting of a hot dog stand that no longer exists, — or it still exists, but the original was torn down — and so I had to use images I found online, and that was really hard for me. I don't know the vibe because I've never been there. So I really like going to places, having a sensory experience, eating the food, having a memory of my own to associate with it, and then painting.

CPN: What makes you decide you want to capture a specific image or a landscape? Is it a feeling? Is there some special part of your brain that tingles a little bit?

Julia: There’s a tingle, I would say. I think it's a vibe. The images that interest me the most are when it's not just one thing. One of the first paintings I did of a hot dog stand was Redhot Ranch on Armitage, because there's a train going over it. And there's a shop next door. I really liked the different worlds happening at the same time. Some people are on the train, and then there's people at the hot dog stand, and then there's this closed flower shop that's not even open right now. I love images where I can imagine these different worlds happening all at once. I really love buildings in Chicago where you can see the people above it and that's their apartment. You can see the TV on, and then there's a hot dog stand on the first floor or a restaurant of some kind, like Coalfire pizza.

CPN: I love that painting. You can see into the apartments upstairs.

Julia: You can just imagine the different worlds that are simultaneously happening. There's a glowing sort of nostalgia that’s happening too, and that’s also what attracts me. The neon signs are a gateway into that sort of aesthetic.

CPN: Do you have anything specific you do when you're trying to find inspiration? Are there certain places you like to go?

Julia: Honestly, just going for a walk in Logan Square is pretty inspiring for me. Noticing things that I hadn't noticed prior. The city is always changing. There's always something new popping up. So I would just say going out and walking. Specifically as a woman though, walking at night is not the safest thing to do, but I really love that time kind of in-between. Twilight, golden hour, that's my time. I could live in that time frame. So the transition times of days inspires me. It doesn't take much. It's not like I have to read a book, or do all this stuff. I can just go outside and use my eyeballs.

CPN: Do you have a favorite street to walk on or walk you like to take?

Julia: I walk down Milwaukee a lot. There's so many different types of storefronts and restaurants. Also Western is weird and wild. That's more driving than walking, but driving down Western, it changes so quickly and there's random storefronts and restaurants there, but it also looks kind of industrial at times. Once again, multiple worlds happening at the same time. It also just spans, literally all of Chicago, I think.

CPN: I think it’s one of the longest streets in the country.

Julia: It’s definitely one of the longest streets in the country. So yeah, Western and Milwaukee, I guess!

CPN: You talk a lot about drawing from nostalgia in your work. What is it about those feelings that you think lends itself so well to your art?

Julia: Good question. I've been thinking about this a lot because I had an art festival I did at a gallery this past weekend, and I had some prints up, and a lot of people thought they were photos. And for the life of me, I was like, I really don't think my paintings are photo realistic. Like they're not. At all. There's kind of this whimsical nature. Something about that where it's not quite realistic, but the lighting feels really familiar, but it's exaggerated, and there's like a softness around things and people and a vagueness, so you can imagine yourself in the scene. It's funny because I generally don't like painting people as much as I like painting buildings, but I do think it helps people put themselves in it. When people are scarce, there's a loneliness about it that puts you in there more. I don't know. That's my armchair theory. There's something about the choice I make of not having it be crowded, even when it's a busy place, like a city. In a lot of my scenes the way I paint is it's fuzzy and sharp at the same time. I don't know if that makes any sense?

CPN: That’s nostagia, right? You're looking back, you're focusing on something, but it's still blurry around the edges.

Julia: Totally. And it's not quite exactly to scale realistic.

CPN: Where did the initial idea for the Every Last Stand series come from?

Julia: I had it in my back pocket for a while. I mentioned the Redhot Ranch painting as the first one I did, and I posted it on Reddit, and people were like, this is great, now do this one, and this one, and this one. So I was like, interesting. I didn't know there was a demand for this. So I started putting a list together. And that was in 2022, when I did Redhot Ranch. Then I got married in 2023, and my mom was also sick — she's okay now — but there was a lot going on 2023, and I really didn't do that much painting. So I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and wanting to paint, but not doing it. Then I was like, I need a series of some sort to give me a jumpstart. After the wedding, after the honeymoon, I needed some sort of challenge to get back into painting. And I had this hot dog list in my phone and this idea. I also thought, this is fun. I’ll drag my husband with me to all these places, and it's a fun thing for us to do together, I really need to start painting again, so what's gonna get me to paint? And then it just happened. The stars aligned, I guess.

CPN: The first time I remember seeing your work was on Reddit. But now you’ve been everywhere. You’ve been on the news! When did it really blow up for you?

Julia: It blew up way faster than I thought. So I did Redhot Ranch more than a year before I did the next painting, which was Superdawg. And Superdawg probably should have been my first anyway, because it's so iconic. But I did Superdawg, then Wiener Circle, then Gene & Jude’s, and when I did Gene & Jude’s, people were like, oh my God. I posted it on Reddit, and that one really went crazy. Then an editor at The Sun Times, who I guess grew up going to Gene & Jude’s, sent it to this writer and was like, you have to interview this person. And he was trying to reach out to me, but there was no profile picture or anything on his Instagram, so I didn't respond to the message. Then he finally got my email and said I'm trying to reach Julia Hagen, I’m from The Sun Times. And I'm like, okay, sure, we can talk — thinking it would be a phone interview. But then he’s like, I'm gonna come over with a photographer. So that was in February. That article went live in March, and then it was a few days after the article that WGN reached out. And then CBS. It was so funny, I went on WGN News in the morning and then I got an email from CBS like, hey, we'd love to interview you! And I was like, great, when works for you? They said, how about in an hour? And I was like, what? I had just taken all my makeup off, because I put on way more makeup than I normally would to go on the news. I think I even had a face mask on or something, like all right, time to relax. But then, oh my God, he’s gonna be here in an hour. And my studio was a mess. So I had to put my makeup back on, and he came and did like a segment, and it happened so fast.

CPN: Those were both on the same day?

Julia: Same day! Then WGN daytime news said we wanna come and film a segment with you. And then later this guy from ABC was like, oh, I’d like to do a segment too. So yeah, it was like bang, bang, bang, and it really blew up and I had only done five stands at that point. And everyone was like, oh my gosh, you're painting all of them? How many have you done so far? I'm like, not that much, you guys. So I kept saying that, I was shocked by the response. I still have so many more to paint! Because my list is like 100.

CPN: I was gonna ask you how long your list was...

Julia: I've done 30 so far. Literally every day I get a new stand to add to the list. So I don't know that I'll actually be able to paint them all, but I think the plan is over time. Initially it was, this year, but that’s not gonna happen. I don't think my body could handle 100 hot dogs.

CPN: I've seen some of the reference photos you've posted, and they're typically during the day, but all of your paintings are at night. What is it that you like about that? The look of them at night?

Julia: I think that at night, a structure that’s not that interesting looks a lot more interesting. There's a glowing effect happening too. And there’s once again, that nostalgia effect, where it's not super sharp. And you're not really seeing the flaws of the building, because a lot these places are gonna grimey. There's another artist I love, and his username, and I think his artist name, is pizzaintherain. Are you familiar?

CPN: No!

Julia: Look him up. That’s somebody else you should interview. He does, I would say, the daytime version of what I do. Kind of sharp images of places in the day, and he gets like every little grimy thing on the building. And he’ll even add graffiti and stuff when it’s not really there. I kind of joke that he's making them look worse than they are, and I'm giving them a face lift.

pizzaintherain

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CPN: Who was the first owner, or someone form one of the restaurants, to reach out to you?

Julia: That's a good question. I think it was the owner of Flub A Dub Chub’s, actually. Then once I was on the news the owner of Redhot Ranch saw it and was like, oh, my God, I didn't know we were like the first in the series?!? No, actually the owner of Redhot Ranch did reach out to me way before this whole thing started like after someone sent it to him off Reddit. And he was like, I'd love a print. And I was like, great, what address should I send it to? And he just never got back to me. Then when he saw it on the news, it reminded him. So technically he was the first one, but the first owner I sent a print to was the owner of Flub A Dub Chub’s.

CPN: Do you normally do that when you do a stand?

Julia: Sometimes I don't have contact information for them, but now more of them are reaching out, or I'll tag them. Sometimes I don’t know where to send it, though. Can I just send it to the hot dog stand? And I’m a little shy about going in there and being like, hi, I'm the artist that painted your establishment, let me know if you want a print or whatever. Sometimes they insist on paying me, which is really sweet, but I don't ask. I'm just like, you can have it. And some of them want to buy the original. But I let them decide. There's no pressure to buy the original.

CPN: You eat at the stands when you go?

Julia: Oh, yeah. Probably against my doctor's orders, but yeah.

CPN: Do you have a go to order?

Julia: I need to have a control, so I just do the Chicago-style hot dog everywhere I go. I will usually pick off the tomato unless it looks like a particularly good tomato, though. I'm a little bit picky about tomatoes. But that's my standard. And I always get the fries too, because it's a whole experience, the fries and the dog. And if one is stronger than the other, it makes a difference.

CPN: The should balance each other out.

Julia: Exactly. I think a lot of people, especially with the depression-style dog, put fries directly on the hot dog, too, so that makes big difference. And we're talking about hot dog stands right now, there are so many stands and I'm currently in the midst of this series, but I am going to do a pizza version of this series. I'm a little overwhelmed. I bit off more than I can chew, literally, with the hot dogs, but I plan to do a pizza version. And I'm gonna do a bar version as well, because there's so many cool corner bars, and neighborhood bars. I feel like there's always another version. There's so many taco places, and bakeries, or ice cream places, too. I did Roeser’s a while ago, and that building specifically is incredible. And I think I wanna do other bakeries at some point. So yeah, mainly highlighting food. But I think there's music venues that are probably gonna go in there in too. So I'll be painting for a long time.

CPN: That's a good problem! Do you have a favorite hot dog in Chicago? Or outside of Chicago, I guess, too?

Julia: I have opinions. I don't have a favorite, but also there are two different types. For depression-style dogs, Gene & Jude’s is really, really good. Redhot Ranch is my go to. It's so close to me.

CPN: I’ve never had a hot dog there. It’s so hard not to order their burger.

Julia: People are sleeping on the hot dog there. It's really good. I spoke to the owner, and he does them in these ceramic pots that they don't even make anymore. It makes a big difference in the snap of the dog.

CPN: They steam them?

Julia: Yes, I think? There's water in there. I just know there was a big to do about the ceramic bases that they do them in. He was telling me that if a hot dog stand is closing and they have those, he'll go in and be like, I'll pay you whatever you want, because they don't make them anymore. So it's kind of like a dying art, the way he's making it. And I think Gene & Judes does it similarly.

CPN: I think Parky’s probably does too.

Julia: He's very specific about how the hot dogs are made. Then the Chicago-style dog is like a lot tighter of a race. There are so many places that really do the Chicago dog well. I'll do a top three, though, in no particular order. Fatso’s. Flub A Dub Chub’s. And I really like Devil Dawgs. So I think those are my current top three, but there are so many others. The margins are close. And subject to change as I continue. I haven’t had Parky’s yet. I haven’t had Mustard’s Last Stand. There’s a million I haven’t done.

CPN: Do you have a favorite painting from the series so far?

Julia: Once again, in particular order, I think I have a top three. I really like the painting I did of Skyway Doghouse. There’s something about like the the lighting in that one that I feel like I nailed, and then also the sky in the background. It's a nice kind of gradiant, and that was really what it looked like when I was there, which was crazy. If something is happening in real life, I have a much easier time translating it in my mind. I really like the painting I did of Jim’s, and I have two Jim’s Original paintings I did, because I couldn't decide on the perspective. One is just like straight on Jim’s, and one is Jim’s looking down the street, and you can see the skyline of the city. I really like the one I did ooking directly at it because it was rainy, and there's a really beautiful reflection on the blacktop there. That was unique to paint and added a lot to it. And I really like Flub A Dub Chub’s, because it's very different.

CPN: It’s an interesting building. Especially for Chicago.

Julia: Which means the focus isn’t just on Flub A Dub Chub’s. I really struggled with it. The building is so weird. I was like, do I just do the interior? But I haven't done an interior of any of the others. So I just worked with the whole building, and similar to what I said before about all the different worlds, there’s a tarot card shop. And there's Monsignor Murphy's next door, which looks like such a quintessential Chicago place. So I’d say those to my top three. But I can't choose my children, so…

CPN: What are some of the challenges in painting hot dog stands?

Julia: I don't think there's such a thing as a bad looking stand from the standpoint of, even a bad looking one, or a shack, would be an interesting painting. But there are some that are newly remodeled, or in a strip mall, that are harder to make look more magical, if you will. I did Poochie’s and figuring out what perspective to do was tough, but I think I like how it turned out. But it took me a minute.

CPN: How long do you typically work on a piece?

Julia: It’s usually a week long process, like a five day work week, but sometimes it goes into the next week, depending. They're pretty small, they're 12x12 or 11x14.

CPN: How did the portrait for Coalfire come about?

Julia: The owner, Dave, reached out, and this was back, I think, in April or March, like right after everything with the news. And I was like, oh yeah, I do wanna do pizza eventually. I like Coalfire. And I just thought it was a cool building. I did one of Stan’s Donuts where I did a similar thing with the apartments above. So I was like, this feels up my alley. I didn't know how crazy this would become. It was still early days after the news, and so I accepted a lot of commissions at that time, and I'm still trying to work through the backlog. So I'm not accepting any new commissions for a while. I'm almost through. I think I have four more.

CPN: Are these businesses?

Julia: Some of them. One is Will’s Northwoods Inn. It's a Wisconsin bar, actually. So I feel like a traitor, because it’s a Packers bar. But it's a really fun aesthetic inside, and outside, too. So I was like, I can't resist. And then some of them are not businesses. One of them is for Jeff Mauro. I'm doing a Gene & Jude’s for him. I've been meaning to do a second one anyway, because it was one of the first ones I did, and I took another picture of Gene & Jude’s and I was like, whoa, this would be a really good painting.

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CPN: You said there's plans to do more pizza, do you have any other restaurants that immediately come to mind that you’d like to paint?

Julia: I want to do Le Bouchon. One of my really good friends loves that place, and I think it looks really cozy. I want to do it in winter. Then this isn’t really a restaurant, but I have a photo I took from here, like sitting here, and there’s a fire escape over there and it’s the summer time and they had the door open and there were these people out on the fire escape smoking cigarettes. There was a full moon. And it just looked cool. There's some bakeries I've been thinking about. What was the really old one that closed down recently?

CPN: Dinkel’s?

Julia: I know it doesn't exist anymore, but I really want to paint it.

CPN: Last time I went down Lincoln all the signs are still there.

Julia: I don't go over that way that often, but I’ve been thinking about that. I'm actually struggling a little bit with pizza places. Like Pizza Lobo, I don’t know if I’d do a painting from the patio there looking out? Like looking up at the sign?

CPN: That’s an interesting angle to try and capture.

Julia: Pizza places are so varied in terms of thier aesthetic. Do you have any pizza places you think wpould be good for a painting?

CPN: Frank's Pizza on Belmont. Super old school. It's got a really interesting awning and neon sign out front. The building itself isn't remarkable, but the inside is so cool. And there would be really good sunsets in the background if you're facing away from the city and down Belmont. Have you been to Vito & Nick’s?

Julia: No. Where is that?

CPN: It's 95th and Pulaski, so pretty deep on the South Side. The front of it is so interesting to me. And that's incredible pizza.

Julia: My head has been so focused on hot dogs and I feel like I'm only really looking locally, so I'm gonna start exploring and open my mind in order to find more pizza places now. And there’s another whole segment I kind of forgot, I want to do diners and like breakfast places. There's a Steak N Egger, and I'm not even sure what that street is, but I go there because there's a studio loft space there, I think it’s in Pilsen, no, Bridgeport, actually. But the Steak N Egger, it’s kind of desolate around it, but you can see the Willis Tower behind it really clearly. So I’m imagining an early morning shot with the sun rising would look so cool.

CPN: There’s so many great angles from the south looking back at the city.

Julia: I also need I need to do a White Sox painting. I've done a painting looking at Wrigley from above and then the skyline, so I want to do one from the south. There are so many. I can't paint fast enough. I wish I had eight arms or something. I have a crazy notes app full of tabs of restaurants to go to restaurants to paint. It's a joke with my husband, going out to dinner is actually a work expense.

CPN: So is that the same list or separate lists?

Julia: Separate lists. I have hot dogs. Pizza. I started the bar one, and the bar one is already so vast. How do I even begin to narrow that down? I think I have to go neighborhood by neighborhood, and just pick one per neighborhood to start.

CPN: What's the best way for people to keep track of your work?

Julia: I'm on all the platforms. I'm on Instagram. I'm trying to be on TikTok more. TikTok is not as intuitive to me. If you want to know when a new painting or print drops, if you're interested in purchasing an original, you should be on my newsletter, because those are people who hear first. I’ll just send an email. And those are the people who usually get the originals, because the originals — I've been so pleasantly surprised by how quickly those are selling, and that's a dream for an artist. That's what pays my bills and helps me keep doing this. For my newsletter just go to my website, which is juliahagenartist.com, and there’ll be a pop up like, let's stay in touch!, and just put your email in.

CPN: Any advice for people who want to pursue art?

Julia: Oh my God, how much time you have? I have so much advice. I had a podcast at one point, actually, with my one of my really good friends. We started during the pandemic when everybody had a podcast. I was in a much different place than I am currently with my career, just starting out, still finding my style, and feeling very lost. I'm definitely passionate about this and I don't think there is a right or a wrong way to go about making a career. I went to art school and felt like there was this preached about, correct way to do it, that’s gonna sound very esoteric and weird to anyone who didn't go to art school. Like, you're supposed to find a gallery to represent you. And you're supposed to be in this type of show. And you're supposed to get a Master of Fine Arts so you get into this type of gallery. I didn't know any of that when I started art school. I didn't know it was so degree focused. Or all these sorts of residencies you need to have on your resume. I've never done residencies. I don't know if I ever will. And if I do, it'll be just for fun, not to put on my resume. But I felt so overwhelmed. I don't want to write grant proposals. I don't want to write crazy artist statements to get into these residencies. I just want to paint. So I had to unlearn a lot of that just to start having fun again with painting. My advice is just make a lot of bad art, and don't be afraid to post it, because you genuinely don't know. I did not think my Redhot Ranch painting was great. I just was like, this was fun, someone might find it funny, fuck it, I'll put it on Reddit. And then this whole thing happened. If an idea pops in your head, and it sounds fun, just do it and find channels where people will appreciate it. Find communities where people can appreciate the weird stuff you're doing.