Huntington Beach artist Chapman Hamborg is still dealing with the circumstances around his viral Instagram reel in his own unique way.
A neighbor called the police on Hamborg as he went on a morning walk around the neighborhood with his infant daughter last month, trying to give his wife Hannah some time to relax.
His long hair was in a bun, his clothes were worn and one of his slippers had a hole in it.
A Huntington Beach neighbor called the police on Chapman Hamborg last month, believing that he was homeless. (Don Leach / Staff Photographer)
“When he explained what happened, that someone had called the cops on me thinking I was a homeless person then had followed me back to my house, I was shocked,” Hamborg said. “I couldn’t believe it at first. I was trying to laugh it off, I guess, and then he asked for my ID. I came inside, and that’s when I started recording the video, when I was looking for my ID and telling my wife what was going on.”
Hamborg is still carrying the youngest of his four children in a baby sling in the video, which immediately exploded in popularity. As of Friday, it had nearly two million likes and more than 32,000 comments.
Hamborg, 32, is trying to turn the misunderstanding into a positive. He’s selling limited edition prints of his original painting, “Unseen Paths,” with 20% of the proceeds going to support Orange County United Way’s homelessness efforts. The prints are available at Hamborg’s website, chapmanhamborg.com.
Chapman Hamborg with his recent portraits at the Hamborg Academy of Art studio in Huntington Beach on Tuesday. (Don Leach / Staff Photographer)
The painting was made before the incident but depicts Hamborg similarly, with two of his children. He explained that the flowers in the background are actually invasive yellow mustard flowers.
“It looks like this beautiful scene, but there’s kind of this darker undertone to it, at least to me personally,” he said. “When this whole experience happened, I thought that painting and those aspects about it are even more true for unhoused families, which I was mistaken for being. The imagery and the meaning behind the painting already lined up, and I wanted to connect it to the story and the conversation that was already happening from the video around people experiencing homelessness.”
A mutual friend introduced Hamborg to Becks Heyhoe-Khalil, executive director of Orange County United Way’s United to End Homelessness initiative.
Hamborg and Heyhoe-Khalil will be guests at an Orange County Museum of Art “Conversations with Artists” event on June 4 at 4 p.m., hosted by Heidi Zuckerman, OCMA’s chief executive and director. No registration is needed.
They will also host a special livestream event titled “Art and Advocacy: A Studio Conversation with Chapman Hamborg,” on June 21 at 9 a.m., from his Hamborg Academy of Art studio in Huntington Beach.
Becks Heyhoe-Khalil, executive director of the United Way of Orange County’s United to End Homelessness Initiative, and Chapman Hamborg, from left, at the Hamborg Academy of Art studio in Huntington Beach on Tuesday. (Don Leach / Staff Photographer)