A pair of friends have combined to make a business of bringing joy, one stroke of paint at a time.
Attendees of this year’s Whidbey Island Fair may have met Meredith Cannon and Rachel Phillips, whose brightly hand-painted overalls were hard to miss in the fine arts barn.
“The overalls have become kind of like a uniform of sorts,” Phillips said. “Everywhere we go, it’s kind of a conversation piece.”
Though they seem like they’ve been friends for years, she and Cannon only recently met each other. It was art love at first sight.
“From the fair last year we knew that we were put into each other’s lives for a good reason,” Cannon said. “People a lot of times ask if we’re related. Sometimes we freak ourselves out with how much we have in common. We’ll show up wearing very similar things. We’re cognitively connected.”
“We’ll laugh at our own twinning,” Phillips said.
Now the duo refer to themselves as heARTists. They’ve taken on all sorts of creative projects together, from painting beehives and goat barns to a collage piece featuring Dolly Parton and cats belonging to a friend. They were live painters at an auction in Seattle raising money for Ben’s Fund, which provides financial support and guidance to children and young adults in the state who have autism. They painted the city skyline.
One of their first projects was painting cornhole boards with people attending a family reunion. They’ve continued to paint the game boards, including a recent set bound for the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival this weekend.
Phillips, a resident of the greater Langley area, grew up on Bainbridge Island. She moved away to California to become a horse trainer for a few years before moving back to the Pacific Northwest to start her own business. Even then, she couldn’t resist painting everyday objects, like horse jumps.
“Whidbey reminded me of how Bainbridge used to be,” she said.
She teaches classes on heart journaling from her home studio, which is covered floor to ceiling with her art.
Cannon, on the other hand, grew up in Mississippi and spent most of her life in Colorado, where she was a school librarian.
“We moved here in the pandemic for adventure,” the Coupeville resident said. “Sight unseen, island unseen.”
While taking care of her father, Cannon would sit out on the deck and paint, and people wanted to buy her paintings. She said she has never known of any place to be so encouraging and celebratory of the arts as Whidbey Island.
Both women have committed to doing art full-time. They find that people are attracted to the type of lifestyle they’ve cultivated.
“We’ve taken it upon ourselves to model how they can do that,” Phillips said. “And if it’s too scary to paint on your overalls, you just drop them off and we’ll do it for you.”
The pair have talked about starting an adult art camp, where they can teach workshops about painting and finding that inner child of play.
“I’m excited to see where our collaboration goes,” Cannon said. “There’s no telling. Exciting opportunities keep coming our way.”
They encourage people to reach out to them with requests at theheartistsofwhidbey@gmail.com or through their Instagram page, @theheartistsofwhidbey.
“We are taking all joy inquiries very seriously,” Phillips said. “Drop off your jean jacket, your overalls, your mailbox.”
“You want a tea party where we paint with ice cubes, let’s do it,” Cannon said.
Meredith Cannon, left, and Rachel Phillips at this year’s Whidbey Island Fair. (Photo by David Welton)
Meredith Cannon works on a painting during the Whidbey Island Fair. (Photo by David Welton)
Rachel Phillips, left, and Meredith Cannon are the heARTists. The two painters are taking requests for any project. (Photo by Kira Erickson/South Whidbey Record)
Meredith Cannon, left, and Rachel Phillips show off the cornhole boards that they painted for the upcoming Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival. (Photo by Kira Erickson/South Whidbey Record)
