About
I was born in sunny South Florida in the spring of 1970. Bathed in warm yellow sunlight and bright tropical colors, I would lie for hours in a hammock in my parents' backyard, just soaking it all in. It was there, at age two, that I first started drawing garden bugs. My Mom, Pop and Grandmom drew garden-variety bugs, as well. My mother, Judith Cheney, is a painter, illustrator and naturalist. She had a cottage studio in our backyard, and in order to keep me out of her hair, I was given endless art supplies. And this is where it all began.
When I was 8 years old, my mother and I embarked aboard the "Laura B." for a voyage to Monhegan Island, Maine. I moved forward along the railing over the bow to feel the sea-spray (I have always liked to see where I was going). It was there that I heard a voice calling me across the water. A whisper on the wind, like a voice that wakes you from a deep sleep, and you swear you heard it but there's nobody there. It said I would do something great in my lifetime. It has stayed with me always.
When I was ten, we moved up into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. My sunny warm yellow turned to chilly, dull brown. I dealt with the change by turning to humor, and drew comic-strip cartoons for student newspapers until I was 25. Then painting began to take over.
Then in walked painter Willis, AKA "Woosel," wearing high-water overalls, an engineer's cap, Gandhi glasses and a long chin-beard (which he said he was growing for Halloween). He introduced me to the Snake Oil Medicine Show. By the summer of 1997 we were touring the Southeast, and I sealed my position as the band's on-stage painter. We played festival grounds, auditoriums, theaters and every dark, smoky, hole-in-the-wall bar in between. My paintings hung at every show in a one-night-stand gallery we dubbed "The Dynamic Art Gallerie." In most cases we were able to Charm Out the Clones (charm them out, or at least confuse them).
I refer to my style as visionary folk art: a blend of colors and patterns and the spaces between. Paul Gauguin was an early inspiration. I love primitivism in modern art and the connection with the past as we move closer and closer to the stars.
I am so grateful to do art. It can be powerful and gigantic. It electrifies me and lifts me out of the mundanity of this life and up into the stars. I believe that the various forms of creativity, such as art and music, are the living voice of Love, that same voice that called a young boy across an open sea all those years ago.
Phil Cheney
Every print, shirt, sticker and mug in this shop comes from Phil's original paintings, drawings and hand lettering. 100% of proceeds go to Phil.