by Jake Frohsin ’25
May 2024
Many people know Christopher Cheney as their art teacher. However, Mr. Cheney has a life full of many passionate hobbies. A former house painter, Cheney has many passions fulfilled with artistic abilities.
Cheney grew up in Henderson, Minnesota, a rural farming town. Cheney had a very outdoorsy childhood, growing up in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. His favorite childhood memory was riding bikes out on the gravel roads with his brother and sister. They would build jumps and spend hours in the summer doing the jumps.
“All summer we would just be outside with all the super tall corn in every direction”, Cheney said.
At the age of 13, Cheney got his first job at an auto body shop in his hometown. His job was to sweep up rusty parts, spilled oil, and garbage; he would do this for three hours three days a week.
Cheney went to high school in the town over from Henderson, called Le Sueur Henderson High School because the high school in Henderson “went under,” and he would go on to graduate from LSH in 1998. He then moved to Portland, Oregon to attend the Art Institute of Portland, which no longer operates. He attended for a year and a half before deciding he didn’t want to be in school, so he “quit” and started doing odd jobs and traveling.
He took 10 years off doing these jobs and traveling before he arrived in Tennessee, where he completed his bachelor’s degree at Tennessee State University. He studied art foundation and fundamental courses. After finishing at TSU, he focused on printmaking and painting.
“I really fell in love with printmaking and painting, and that’s where my career took off,” Cheney said.
Ever since he was little, Cheney has been into comic books, including the X-Men, X-Force, Spider-Man, and Batman. He loved Marvel comic artists Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane.
“[McFarlane and Liefield] were just drawing differently than any other artists, and I started copying their work all the time…and it helped me develop my own style,” Cheney said.
While taking those 10 years off, traveling, he realized that he didn’t want to move back home to Minnesota. His father was living in Tennessee and said that he should come to spend some time with him.
Cheney met where he met his future wife, Evy Boyer, here in Tennessee. Fast-forward four years, and Cheney was living comfortably in Nashville with two kids and a house. Cheney said he “feels pretty locked in here.”
He had been working at the Country Music Hall of Fame as a preparator and in gallery installations and maintenance. Then COVID hit, and he was laid off. Then, an art teacher who had been at USN for 30 years, Liz Mask, retired, and the USN position came up.
Cheney applied for the position and was very excited when he received it. Cheney taught his first classes remotely, which was a weird twist to the start of his time at USN.
So many things surprised him about USN, and even in his fourth year, he is still constantly surprised by how much talent, maturity, charisma, and enthusiasm students have for what he is teaching.
Cheney teaches through a unique personal lens; he teaches through where he’s from and what he’s experienced.
The support he gets from students and the faculty excites him.
“I feel very supported here, and it’s just a beautiful feeling,” he said.
Outside of school, Cheney loves riding bikes and has always been an avid cyclist. His son, Emmett Cheney ‘31, rides BMX bikes, and he loves spending time just watching his son ride. He loves being around bikes and bicycle culture.
“I feel like I’m more like myself when I’m on a bike,” Cheney said.
His love for his job here at USN continues to grow.
“My plan is to retire here,” Cheney said.
