A Conversation with Artist Scott Chenoweth

Scott Chenoweth is an artist. Period. At different points he’s specialized in different mediums. Painter, graphic designer — serving as art director of Surfing Magazine and then co-founder and Creative Director at What Youth. Typographer. Animator. Muralist. And now, once again, painter.

It’s well documented on Inherent Bummer that I’ve known and worked with Scott for decades, and no one is better in my book. At any of the disciplines. I often reminisce on our long hours, usually on weekends and holidays, spent laying out print magazines to hit deadlines: word guy and art guy locked in to “send it” to print once and for all. Fond memories and we have the ephemera to prove it including years of Surfing Magazines, some great trips together making art, zines and 19 issues of What Youth.

Scott is currently doing something a lot of people talk about doing but rarely follow through on. For 6 months he’ll be driving across North America painting. From his truck. Landscapes mostly, but it’s likely he’ll come home with a lot of stories and art.

We caught up with him on day 31 of his 6-month journey. He had just parked his truck for the night in Deadwood, South Dakota and a cowboy hot rod show was kicking off.—Travis Ferré

*Follow Scott’s journey on IG here

*Check his website of work here.

Travis Ferré: Let's start with where you are on your 31st day into this trip. Set the scene.

Scott Chenoweth: Yeah, currently sitting on Main Street in Deadwood, South Dakota. There's a hot rod show going on. There are bands playing. We got cowboys walking around everywhere drinking in the streets, so I got a beer at a brewery. Pretty good moment for a chat. 

That’s a very different landscape than you've been illustrating on your IG (Follow along on Scott’ journey here). So what exactly are you doing? 

Scott Chenoweth: Let's see. An easy breakdown is I've been looking to focus more on my painting for a while now, and I looked into a lot of residencies this year, two weeks in wherever, Europe or something. You go and you stay in a house with a bunch of artists and make work. But all of them are kind of expensive and don’t really fit in the mold for what I wanted to do. So I kind of invented my own residency on the road and the focus is to get out of the city, to get back in touch with nature, work on landscape painting — which I've never done before — and load up my art studio in my truck under my bed and hit the road. The goal is to go from LA to Newfoundland down the Appalachian Trail and then back through the southern route. So currently in Deadwood. 

A lot of people know your graphic design work, your magazine work, and as of late, your animations. You also went to painting school early on, correct?

I went to Pasadena Art Center with a major in illustration, so our whole thing was just drawing and painting and I fucking loved it. But after I graduated, the only way to make it was having art shows and that's really tough as a 23-year-old kid. So I got into typography and graphic design — I was obsessed with all the surf mags, so started to teach myself how to do that and just wound up going that direction.

You obviously have a career in those disciplines. You do everything from beer can art to cartoons to, branding, graphics, typography — every kind of art that you see, you know how to do, but the one that's fascinating you right now is painting? 

I've always joked that when I retire I just want to paint all the time. And so I was like, “Fuck it, what if I just retire now and start painting all the time and actually have it be a career?”

There's been a weird thing that's happened. I was trained in illustration. I got out and I wanted to learn how to be a designer, so I did and I got a design job at the magazines. I was like, all right, I'm going to do branding. I know how to do typography. So then I was doing branding across all of Southern California, and then I was like, I want to try animation. So I started trying to animate, and then that was my job for the last four years, and I'm hoping that this painting thing will go the same route. I'm just going to put everything I have into it, all my cards are on the table, I'm going for it, and hopefully in six months this will just be my career.

How does a painter exist in the current climate of how we live?

Look, there's a million ways to slice it. I don't really know, to be honest. There's commercial artists that do murals and license artwork for brands and stuff like that, as well as paintings like the classic gallery style painter, which is kind of the route that I'm hoping to go. And then there's just straight gallery. There's people who do commissions. You can also just chuck it up online and hope it sells. So I'm going to try all of it just to see what sticks. I have no idea yet. Let's see what works. I always believed if you worked your ass off, and you work hard at something and it'll just come together.

You're a beach guy from Ventura and worked at surf mags, and you've surfed every day in your life more or less. But you’ve also done long stints in New York and Downtown LA. Now you're out in South Dakota and you've been road tripping for a month. How drastic has this change been for you, on a surfing level too?

It's interesting. I think there's a level of the exploration that I'm doing right now that is very much rooted in what we used to do surfing. We would travel to new places we've never been before and look around corners and see where there's waves. Basically doing the same thing now, just looking for pretty things to paint. So that element is fully rooted in my surf, fuck it, adventure. The bad days are usually the best days in hindsight, and that's coming true on this trip already.

Take us through your daily drive, how do you decide to finally pull off somewhere for the day and paint?

Well, to be fair, I have been to Montana before and absolutely loved it. And when I was there I was like, oh dude, I'm going to retire and be a landscape painter here when I'm 65. I only waited a couple years to go back and try it, not until I'm 65, but I had that as a destination, and so everything along the way, I was reaching out to friends and running into people and you just start chatting with people when you're painting and everyone's curious, everyone wants to talk to you, so you ask like, “Oh yeah, any good National Parks, where's the place with a pretty view?” And everyone has a list they want to give you. And so I've kind of been operating off of that.

I know we talked before you left and I think you were hoping that would happen, so that has been your experience. I mean, you kind of never know.

From Livingston to where I'm at now, everything has just been like a cowboy at a bar told me about this place, and I've just driven there not really knowing much more than that. I'm headed to the Badlands. I went to Twin Lakes. There's all these places — everyone up in these areas are really big explorers. They're outdoorsmen, they're on the river, they're fishing, hunting, doing all the things so they know all these cool spots, and it literally is just paint somewhere, find a campsite, find a bar, talk to someone, and that's where you're going the next day.

Wow. It's so similar to surfing actually.

Dude, that's why I'm saying it. That energy of being on a surf trip, this is exactly it.

Have you anybody vibe you out — like surfers have a tendency to do sometimes, get territorial — or anything like that happen?

No. It's so funny. It's the exact opposite. Everyone's so stoked, young and old. People come up to me and are just like, “Wow, you don't see anyone do this anymore.” To be specific, plain air painting is really hard. It's not a popular thing to do because there's so many elements that come into it and I'm figuring those out, but people are also so excited to come chat, where have you been? Where are you going? Where are you from? They want to know all of it, and it's been really fun to  just be like, well you can follow my Instagram, check out my journey. 

I was doing oil pastel over Paradise Valley in Montana, and this woman was riding her bike and she came up to me and she's like, “Oh, there's a lot of painters here.” She's like, “I have private river access. Why don't you come over tomorrow?” 

I ended up going to her house and she had me into her house, had me stay there, and offered me to stay the night. Her whole family was welcome, like her daughter was in from Chicago. They were all just super awesome and excited to have me over, and so we hung out for a long time and I spent the day with them and just stuff like that's happening that makes it feel like, “Okay, you're doing the right thing.” If you're heading in the right direction, people are open to it and just keep going.

And you said you’re staying in a motel tonight, but you've been camping mostly?

You hit about five days of being out in the wilderness, and it depends on the temperature. It's been so hot by day three or four, you're stinky, and I've done the river showers, I've done all that stuff, but it's just like, dude, the heat wears on you, the mosquitoes wear on you, the flies wear on you, and by day five, you're just like, take me to a hotel. I need some air conditioner. I'm like, close the blinds and just defrost and do work on my computer and just get out of the sun.

Are you burnt to a crisp at this point? You must be. I mean, you're painting, you're exposed.

I have caked so much sunscreen on my face this month. It's ridiculous. You're just out there roasting, you want to take your shirt off, it's so hot, but you can't because it'll get scorched. I was lucky to paint by the river the other day, and every 35 minutes, I think it was 90 degrees out when I was painting, and every half hour I'd run down and throw my head in the water or put my shirt in the water just to be able to stand there to do it. They say suffer for your art, but that shit's just painful.

So how does a day go?

If I know today I'm painting, you get to a spot in the afternoon, you drive in the morning, you show up, then for the afternoon you drive around scout locations. Once you get a location set, you're like, “Okay, tomorrow it's on. The waves are going to be good. We're out there, we're going to paint.” 

Then you wake up in the morning and you try and get out there as early as you can, set up shop, put up the easel and get to work. The painting takes three to four hours to do in total. It's physically exhausting. The sun just is still radiating through you. You've been standing on the hot ground. I usually go and find somewhere to have lunch, sit inside with the air conditioner, grab a beer somewhere, and then head back to the campsite.

Do you ever hit the town? Do you just like to sit in the bed of the truck and have a cold beer and pass out after?

Yeah, it goes both ways, right? The bars in Montana are amazing, so I don't want to be in a place that has some of the best bars on the planet and not go check 'em out.. I've gone five, six days where you're not seeing anybody. One beer at the campsite is ready to put you to bed, but when you're into town, it's nice to go sit next to cowboys and hear their stories and drink a whiskey with them. That's kind of part of this experience too, is hearing people's stories and sharing mine.

How does your story translate to them as a surfer artist from California?

It really depends, man. But the California stamp is a real thing. Someone said, put mud on your license plate before you leave the state. And someone said to me, “Oh, California, welcome to America.” When I was in Montana. You're like, okay, I get it. But people are, it's funny. Well, I'll tell you this. I went to the second oldest bar in Montana. It's called the Montana Bar. It opened in 1898, and I sat down next to a 70-year-old cowboy and he just wanted to chitchat. So I listened to his life story and all of a sudden we're going round for round, he's buying me drinks, and two hours later, we know everything about each other. And it's like this 70-year-old cowboy was curious…he’s like, “What? You're painting, you're painting houses, you're not a trucker? What are you doing?”

You haven't been vibed at all in those small towns, even being California Tacoma, man?

Not really. I mean, at that Montana bar. I kind of did by the younger guys. One of 'em started chit-chatting with me and I bought 'em a beer and it was like, we're best friends. And it took a $3 Miller light to squash any tension. And that's the thing is like, dude, beers are cheap, everyone's happy, everyone's broke. Everyone's just stoked on trying to have a good time and shoot the shit. So it really hasn't been too bad.

So how's your painting coming along?

I came on this trip with books of landscape painters, trying to paint like them, but then this other thing started coming out that I can't control. Instead of fighting it, I'm leaning into deconstructing trees and landscapes - not making them look realistic, but finding the graphic symbol of a tree. What's the visual language of landscape? You got bushes, trees, water, clouds, mountains - how do you simplify that down to bare elements but still make it look like the thing you're standing in front of?

In Livingston, all the galleries had painters doing the same style - thick oil, purple mountains, dark water, looking like the masters. But I can't do that. I don't know why it doesn't come out of me.

And the experimental side?

The whole thing is supposed to be an experiment. I'm trying to push it and do weird things every time I stand up to the easel, but I've been making similar paintings the last six times. So I'm focused on breaking that - limiting my palette to just black, white, and red, or working with only the biggest brush I have. What effect do the tools have on the piece? It's about playing with constraints.

There's been a Tyler, the Creator quote running around my head this whole trip saying, “Create like a kid and edit like a scientist.” And that's just been like, I'm showing up in these beautiful places and being like, “let's try something I've never done.”

You texted me something that was, I don't know, simple and profound at once. Comparing surfing and painting. Having one of those moments, you recreated and sort of feel that sensation or that enthusiasm to something you've never done before or felt it doing something else.

I think the parallel is what your’e doing in surfing. What I'm doing now, you're hunting for moments. You're scouring the globe, you're looking in the nooks and crannies and you're trying to find a little magic window where it's glassy or offshore. There's peaks, there's not too many people out. It's the same thing with painting. I'm looking for a field where there's no traffic, where no one's going to be passing me to find my little isolated zones. That has a pretty view, and then you kind of watch the conditions change, the weather shifts, the clouds are different. Everything moves. You start your session one way and it's a completely different way when you get out. I think surfing has trained me to just be adaptable and go with the flow of that.

Did you have some family discovery too?

I got to this town in Montana called Red Lodge based off of a recommendation from a cowboy at a bar, not shitting you. And I get out there and ended up texting my family, and apparently my great-grandfather and grandfather are from Red Lodge, and I ended up camping at the site where my grandfather got arrested for not having a fishing license. I ended up going past a coal mine that my grandfather used to work at and pulled over and took photos of it and it was like, “Well, this is interesting.” And so I'm oddly being pulled by some weird family roots out there.

That’s crazy, so you had a connection to this place before you even had this moment up there?

Yeah, so I'm in Red Lodge, [now knowing I have a family connection here] and I'm going up to paint a spot called Twin Lakes. It's up the Beartooth Highway. It's just amazing. I would've never have known about it. You have to drive into Wyoming just outside of Yellowstone Park to get to this spot. It's a drive full of bikers. You get up there and the location is fucking perfect, right? It's just so pretty and it's sunny. There's not a cloud in the sky. I get going about an hour into it, like the clouds come in and rain starts passing over the hills. I'm painting, the color changes, then it's raining, then it's hailing. Then it's like the wind is blowing so hard, it blew my tripod over. It's blowing my canvas over. Everything is happening all at once so quickly, and you're just like hunkered down, soaking wet, trying to paint while the rain's hitting the canvas and not smear it. 

And at the end of that, I got in my car soaking wet and I just threw everything in the back. I usually pack it all nice and tidy, and I just threw it in and ran down the hill and I was like, it was that moment of it was the same feeling of scoring perfect waves. When you go to Costa Rica, you're on your surf trip and you nail it and it's just you and your buddies and you have beers afterwards and you're noodled out and you're hot, you're cold, you're sunburn, you're exhausted from the day and you're just so happy. And that painting that day, that thing just, it clicked and it was like, that was the hardest one. I've had the most challenging elements and it was just the most rewarding by far.

That's rad. And you got five more months ahead of you. Do you have a single city stop or staying in the rural areas?

Well, that's the whole other side to this. Once I get to Minnesota, I'm going to start doing a tour of all the baseball parks and I want to draw all the ballparks from Minnesota to Chicago. Go around until I get to Detroit, and then I'm going to dip into Canada.

And do you kind of have a route mapped out?

Yeah. So taking along the north, going into Newfoundland, back down to Maine. I really want to spend a couple of weeks in Maine, get to feel it. I mean, it includes Canada. I have some spots that I heard from a biker in Montana, gave me this road to drive in Canada. It looks like the Cliffs of Moher, but Canada's version on the East Coast. I'm super excited to check out the Appalachian Trail.

Where will you be in 24 to 48 hours? What's the plan?

I'm headed to the Badlands. It's a National Park, about two hours southeast of here with some really crazy worn away mountainous landscapes, but I'm going to try and have a paint day tomorrow. I'm going to try and climb up into the hills here over Deadwood and paint some of the Black Mountains, and I've been looking at photos online. It looks fucking sick.

Or maybe you’ll say in Deadwood for the car show!

The freedom of that option has been really, really nice. I was supposed to be in Livingston for five days. I was there for like 13. I think in the Paradise Valley there, and that's the same old adage goes with the surf trip and the waves are good. Don't go, if you're supposed to take the bus to the next town over like, “Dude, and it's pumping in front, just stay!” I'm applying that exact same logic to this trip. If the painting's good? There's more things to experience here. The cowboys are welcoming. Fucking stay.

What are you missing? Obviously it's so easy to be psyched, and when you have those moments, but what do you miss. 

The easiest, obvious answer is showers. Not having a daily shower is tough. Honestly, the rest I could do without. I'm good on everything else. I just would love a shower. I love sleeping in my truck. It's so comfortable. Being in the wilderness has been unreal. Going up at campsites, there's just bear shit everywhere and you hunker down for the night and be like, “Please don't get eaten.” And then wake up in the morning. You make it through the night and you're like, “Fuck yes, let's go. Let's get out of here quick.” There's a lot of moments like, dude, I'm alone. I'm like in the middle of nowhere.

It sounds like your vision for this trip and project is even better than you imagined. 

At the end of the day, I'm fucking so psyched on this trip and the idea that I invented my own residency to go study and experiment the way that I wanted to do it and give myself the time I wanted is the doors have been opening, I've been running into good people. Everything is pointing in the direction that, dude, this is exactly what you need to be doing right now. Just keep going.

I'm not going to jinx myself, but I'm headed to the Badlands. All the names of the places out here are so ominous and awesome, and I'm just diving into the old Western cowboy shit and checking it all out.