Meet Anthony Smith Chaigneau

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anthony Smith Chaigneau.

Hi Anthony, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story. 
It all started in a caravan on a plot called ‘Le Temps Perdu’ (Lost Time) in South Wales – UK. Mrs Salmon, the midwife, delivered a healthy 9-pounder – my life began! My parents were newlyweds – My father was a military man in the local RAF station. He wasn’t a good man by all accounts but a handsome devil. We ended up in Cyprus (Nicosia), and there, my love of all things Mediterranean came into being.

My parents returned from Cyprus on a military flight. At Kings Cross railway station, my father bought my mother and my 2 younger siblings, by this time, tickets to Cardiff in Wales (where my mother was from). He took a train north to his mother, and we never saw him again. We ended up again living in a caravan park and navigated through harsh winters where the frost inside the windows bore witness to the lack of heating. A single paraffin heater gave us all bad chests. Asthma was my new friend.

Eventually, my mother was rescued by another military man and set up in a home in Bridgend, where I schooled until I got my equivalent of a high school diploma and then set off into the military for the next 15 years, learning electronics and avionics. I have been in the tech industry (Internet – Music) and am due to retire in 2 years. Art was my main love but I wasn’t qualified enough to go to Art College, however an artist I have always been in parallel to my ‘salaried job.’

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The struggles along the way were in part attributed to the moving around and constant changes in schools and school curricula at crucial stages of my life. That stabilized at age 11, but it put me at a disadvantage and made me a poor student with little motivation and no parental push because my parents took to running a pub, and my siblings and I were pretty much only with them at breakfast and evening meal and on a Sunday between 2 and 7 pm.

The rest of the time, they were working and running the pub. My mother was a wallflower, and my stepdad worked hard all the time – nobody could help with homework, so it went pretty much undone. Once I set off to the military at 16 1/2, life took on a very well-managed, ‘regimented’ (literally) way of life for the next 15 years.

All along I continued to develop my artistic and creative side and that started to flourish in and around 1998 when I started in Denmark and then Norway. I married – had kids, and, at 28 years old, decided that I was ready to explore the wider world of civilian life.

I ‘quit’ the military and set about trying to find my way in work – The 1980s was a bad time, and work wasn’t there. I took a job in France, aided by an ex-military friend who had connections. Outside the military was hard and I was ill-prepared to enter the dog-eat-dog world of politics and shenanigans that corporate life threw at me.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a multi-faceted artist/writer. Drawing came naturally to me, and it seemed that it was the only good trait my real father had and passed on genetically. I progressed to watercolor and then acrylics. I did a cartooning qualification at an online school and started to have exhibitions and commissioned work as a cartoonist.

As my fine artwork developed, I started experimenting and settled on two routes: watercolor, soft and languid landscapes/birds; acrylics, harsh hewn paste; metallic scraping; and brushwork, two opposites. The cartooning continues as this is a medium that stands alone for ‘illustration’ and fun.

I think I am multi-faceted, and that is seen in my work (while it is distinguishable, it is as though I have a split personality – I am, in effect, three artists in one). I am proud that my Watercolour and Acrylic work has sold globally and that I have paintings for sale (and sold) in the Casa de Artistas on Main St. in Old Town Scottsdale.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
That’s a hard one, as it wasn’t a really fun childhood. It was a bit of a slog. When I joined the Army Cadets around, I guess, 10 or 11 years old (It was a bit like the Scouts) in Bridgend, I was able to not be around my family, which is a sad thing to say, but it was a relief from the chaos that abounded.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.smith-chaigneau.com/ and www.artistchaigneau.com/
• Instagram: @artistchaigneau
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artistasmithchaigneau
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smithchaigneau/
• Other: https://www.prickleballs.com