Daily Inspiration: Meet Philip Willis

Today we’d like to introduce you to Philip Willis.

Philip, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am from a small town in W. TN. I discovered when I was young age that I was hyperactive and could not focus. But when I would draw or paint, everything slowed down for me and I could understand my place in the world. Once in high school, I took art classes and knew that’s what I wanted to do. I started experimenting with psychedelics in high school and painting obsessively. I felt as if I had discovered my path in life around 1993, a sophomore in high school.

My guidance counselors could not point me in the direction I was looking for in an art field and believed I should go into something else. By the time I was a senior, I had quit high school, got my GED, left home, and started working at a custom picture frame shop where I learned all about museum-quality framing. I also started taking night courses for painting and drawing twice a week at Jackson state community college. There I met Ms. Norma Dennison and she believed in me and saw my work ethic and skill level and wanted to help me. She wrote me a letter of recommendation to Watkin’s College of Art and Design in Nashville, TN, and my art started blooming. I did art shows around the city, I built up a big portfolio and after two years and earning an associate’s degree and drug and alcohol problems. On a bender one weekend, I took photos of every piece of art that I had. Took them to Chromatics and had slides made and then I wrote a 2-page artist statement and submitted my work along with two letters of recommendation from my art directors and sent it to the Art Institute of Chicago. I received an acceptance letter and a full scholarship in the mail a month or so later.

I cleaned up and took that move to Chicago, IL. For a kid from the flat lands of W TN to a big city like Chicago was overwhelming, but I soaked every bit of it in and indulged in big city life. My experience in Chicago was incredible. I saw many great things, I studied master paintings, continued working in a frame shop, and became addicted to heroin which fueled my work even more. I graduated with a B.F.A. and then furthered my studies in Saugatuck, MI at Oxbow, a residency program affiliated with SAIC. Once complete I moved back to Nashville (2004) with many paintings, drawings, and an even worse drug problem. I hit bottom after bottom and art saved my life more times than one. I worked various picture framing jobs, and I still did art shows and commission works but I didn’t know how to live a healthy existence. It seemed my life was going to be short in this world. I lived in misery with extreme highs and lows, but just chalked it up to the idea that I must suffer for my art. After all, all my heroes died young. I started getting into trouble but art was always there for me.

In 2010 I went to treatment, I was clean, I met my wife and we started a family. I opened my own frame shop in Nolensville, TN in 2016. But I still struggled with chemical dependency and hit the bottom that I needed to do something different in 2017. I surrendered completely, closed my frame shop and began putting in the work. I was so beaten down by addiction that I was willing to trade whatever gifts I had to get clean. This was a complete deflation of ego and I did not have to give back what I was given to do. It just pointed me in a new direction. I got clean on January 24th, 2017, I was 40 years old. I have been clean for 6 years and have continued to do commission works including album covers, book covers, portrait work, band/fan art, and my own personal art. I continue my path of recovery through spiritual principles, continued participation in certain fellowships and by helping others. I started learning how to play clawhammer banjo in 2019 to fill some of the voids with a positive light which as been has been such a treasure to me and my wife. My wife, Casey, who is the daughter of southern rock legend Dennis Winters and a vocalist of The Winters Brothers Band, are making an album with local producer George Cocchini!  Life has really come full circle in the last 6 years. I started filling my life with good things and became a baseball coach for my son’s team and have done that since 2018 to present. And now getting the opportunity to reopen my picture framing business, Beyond the Edge Custom Framing and Art Design.

I am mobile to the local and will come to the customer to pick up/drop off. Looking forward to filling my days with art commissions, creative framing services of any kind, and living my dream that was once darkened by addiction. It’s all that more sweet and special knowing that I made it through hell and almost lost everything, including my own life. And now I get to see the things I am capable of, free and clean, and grateful and honored.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
My biggest struggle was always getting in the way of myself, I was in it for selfish reasons, and that always ended in a bad outcome. Some of the challenges I have today which I work through are things I can’t change, like the past.

However, I am grateful for every step I took through it. Now I meet challenges head-on and am prepared for the obstacles.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Commission work I do anything. Portraits, murals, paintings on instruments, folk paintings, I really love doing personalized concert pieces for shows I attend for the band to sign. I like working on series. I am most known for being able to bring others’ visions to life. I work in many different styles and media but my favorite is poured inks for backgrounds, acrylic, spray paint, and enamel on canvas. The piece I am most proud of that I will not sell, that some have tried to purchase, is ‘The Birth of Mother Nature’ a charcoal depicting a metaphor of the creation of the earth and the self-inflicted pain of mother nature.

She is depicted as a woman holding the roots of the earth and a man coming from a mountain giving his light (his seed) to help create the earth and mother nature has already slit her wrists and is decaying. It’s a powerful piece and has also survived alongside me since 1998. It’s something I hang proudly to remind me of the path that I have been on as an artist myself. The piece is 32×48 charcoal and pencil on paper.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
It’s home to me. I moved here in 1996, 27 years ago, I was 19. I basically cut my teeth in Nashville. I have always loved the access to the music scene, the obscure gems that really make Nashville a great place for musicians and artists.

Although growth is inevitable in this city, the only thing that I would say I dislike is that everything seems to be under construction and traffic, but I am learning how to navigate that knowing so many roads around the city. My wife and I settled in College Grove to return to our small-town living roots.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.philipwillis.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/beyondtheedgeframing?igshid=ymmymta2m2y=
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhilipWillisArt/ 

Image Credits
https://www.facebook.com/CarlyMariePhotography?mibextid=LQQJ4d