Ron Hall and Melvin Hunt, owners of X-TA-C.  Photo: Urban News

By Wallace Bohanan

Ron Hall and Melvin Hunt are owners of X-TA-C, Wearable Art & Do Dirty Entertainment, a new shop that just opened on Seventh Avenue in Hendersonville, NC.

Hunt is an entertainment promoter who promotes local talent in rap, R&B, and poetry. Like an old-fashioned impressario, he takes his role as promoter seriously: he works to get artists into a studio, distribute their music or poetry, and get them performances at local shows.

His partner is a self-taught airbrush artist who started drawing at age ten when a substitute teacher gave his class an assignment to draw anything they wanted. When his artwork lost out as “best” to art by two girls in the class, he decided to practice until his would be the best. Four years later he won a statewide contest and had his artwork displayed in a state senator’s office.

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, he has been drawing for 44 years and airbrushing for the past 27. Now he airbrushes celebrity and family portraits on canvas, tee shirts, pants, dresses, and hats, and he does custom work on wall murals, signs, cars, motorcycles, and helmets. He will paint whatever a customer wants, using the slogan “If you can think it we can paint it.”