Take a deep breath.
Inhale: Hisssssssttt. Exhale: Phuuuuewwww.
Here comes Anthony Whelihan, and you must be prepared for his engaging energy. It’s fast, not furious, and always aided with flashes of his smile.
This Plymouth man is an artist, an entertainer, a philanthropist, a marketer and certainly, a talker.
He’s got stories. Oh, does he have stories. There’s one about Bill Cosby. One about Lyle Lovett. R.T. Rybak. Jennifer Hudson. Brett Favre. But then there are also tales about Jerek. Nick. Deandra. Spencer. Ruthie. And the narratives on the second bunch are told by Whelihan with the same vigor as the accounts of him and the celebrities.
You see, Jerek, Deandra and the others are children with disabilities such as autism, paralysis and other conditions. With Whelihan’s Creative Kids Contest for the Pacer Center of Bloomington, they are also award-winning artists. The kids’ artwork was judged as first-class and auctioned off to raise funds for the center to help with their care throughout the past six years.
“He has so many creative and marvelous ideas to help children and youth with disabilities,” says Paula Goldberg, executive director of the Pacer Center. “Tony’s project has opened doors for children with disabilities to show artistic expression.”
Whelihan grew up in Stevens Point, Wis., before he studied art at the University of London. He worked long hours at Rudolph’s Bar-B-Que in Minneapolis before his art was displayed in Stockholm. He gave away his canvases before the NFL, the Walt Disney Co., and the city of Minneapolis commissioned him. Given his personal depth, it’s only fitting that his layered watercolor creations are in 3D.
“The more you look, the more you see,” Whelihan says of his art from his elegant home that also serves as his studio, office and theatrical stage—complete with martini bar in the dining room.
Whelihan and his partner Tim Henning have lived on a quiet cul-de-sac overlooking a water preserve in Plymouth for 19 years. And if their white walls could talk, they might say, “Tony, we’ve heard this before.”
As with any storyteller, there’s some repetition: An oldie-but-goodie is that previous artists commissioned by Disney include Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali.
But also with any relevant entertainer, there’s an upcoming premiere: A portrait of Sheryl Crow to be auctioned at this year’s annual Pacer Center fundraiser and concert.
And with any marketer, there’s always something new to sell: His “Decades in the Making” painting on the history of Mercedes-Benz was unveiled inside Minnetonka’s Sears Imported Autos in April.
“Tony has boundless ideas and energy,” says Don Davidson, owner of Sears, who also has worked with Whelihan at the Pacer Center for more than a decade.
Creating the desirable Whelihan brand began by just giving his art away. He has presented this idea to art students at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and other schools. The students usually guffaw.
“They say, ‘I’m not doing that,’” Whelihan says, laughing. “They don’t see the big picture. I’m such a believer in karma. The more you throw out, the more it comes back. It’s the fact of who goes to these charities? People with disposable income, that’s who.”
Whelihan has done hundreds of paintings and some have sold for tens of thousands of dollars, but checks made out to him often pale in comparison to those received at the handful of charities he partners with.
“When you know that you just raised $14,000 for a charity, there are corporations that don’t give $14,000 to that charity, and me, a lowly little artist, a one man show, can raise that money?” he says. “It’s pretty cool.”
Whelihan’s accountant jokes that he might become a charity if he keeps up his giving ways, but given his marketer mentality, he seems to be doing just fine. (His magnanimous mural at the Minneapolis Convention Center was commissioned by Ameriprise Financial for, oh, $250,000.) For every piece auctioned off for a good cause, there are a few sold to private buyers, he says. Then there’s all the merchandise—the posters, the wine glasses with his work embedded on the bottom and the eye-popping color in his silk ties.
“It’s your attitude, and what you think, and what your interests are that keep you motivated and keep you jumping,” says Whelihan, who has made a living off his art for about 28 years.
He has partnered with up to 14 charities, but recently has cut it down to eight. Yes, eight. (Remember those deep, calming breaths necessary to keep up with Whelihan? Take one now.)
One of the newest charities he has partnered with is the Smile Network of Minneapolis. His first painting features a mysterious expression from a beautiful Peruvian girl, who had her cleft lip repaired thanks to the surgeries provided by the Smile Network.
“It’s the expression,” says Whelihan, whose work is often based off photographs. “You read so much into some of these photographs, and there has to be an unbelievable story there. She is happy. She is kind of sad and kind of happy.”
Again, the Whelihan axiom—the longer you look, the more you see—comes into play. Hidden amid all the color is a child slung onto the back of his mother. They had traveled a great distance to meet the doctors of the Smile Network. The boy wanted a new smile.
Smile Network conducts missions in Uganda, Kenya, India, Armenia, Peru, Ecuador and Guatemala, and the group hopes to auction off Whelihan’s work to help its global reach. Founder Kim Valentini says Whelihan provides much more than other artists.
“He is one of those unique artists that has an incredible skill with art, but also has an amazing ability to sell himself,” Valentini says. “My experience with artists is they are very left brain or right brain, and to find an artist that is very skillful and a great showman is a very unique combination.”
The nature of how he incorporates photography into painting creates a very marketable item, she says, and his art will sell at the Smile Network’s studio as well as in the countries in which they work.
“As you can see in the piece he created for Smile Network, he is able to do pieces that are both unique and specific to the countries and capture the imagery of the children in those countries,” Valentini says. “That gives us a unique ability to sell his pieces both locally as well as abroad.”
As an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, he won a prestigious national art award. He thought he was “just the coolest guy” when he walked into the art building to see his name on a banner, congratulating him on the honor. He strutted to his print making class, but the print he was working on that day didn’t go so well.
“I threw a tantrum, and I threw ink and it hit a table, bounced and hit two other students’ work,” he says. “I was suspended for two weeks … It was something that stayed with me, because you should never think that you are more than you are. It goes back to being even-keeled. My dad instilled that. He always said, ‘Do something for someone for no reason. Just do it. Even if you don’t have something, give it to them.’ That stayed with me, and I’ve always done that.”
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