Bayou Artist | Tony Thomas
article by Starla Gatson
photography by Kelly Moore Clark
Tony Thomas spent 15 years in the newspaper industry before traveling with his wife through Central America. After civil unrest in Nicaragua, they returned to the U.S. and settled in Ouachita Parish, where he now works as a full-time artist.

Tony Thomas has a gift from God, and he believes it’s his responsibility to share it. That’s why he works as a full-time artist, spending most of his time painting commissions. “I end up painting other people’s stories,” he shares before adding, “That’s who I am as an artist: a storyteller. I’m always painting someone else’s story, like a grandmother who passed away or someone’s engagement or wedding photo. I do pet portraits, house portraits — a lot of things that are meaningful to other people.”
One of his most recent collections of work, part of a duo exhibition at Courtyard on Cotton called “Landmarks, Landscapes, and Quiet Observations,” included portraits of past and present Monroe landmarks.
“People would tell me all kinds of stories about [the places in the pictures]; that’s what’s cool about those paintings,” he shares.
He goes on to tell the story of a commission he painted called “Now and Then,” which blended scenes of a couple on their first Easter years ago with them today.
Those are just two examples of Thomas’s work as a storyteller. But there are countless others, and there will undoubtedly be many more, as he typically stays busy with commissions. As of the date of his conversation with “BayouLife,” he’s booked for the next month.
Thomas usually spends his time focusing on others’ stories, but for now, the focus is on his own. It’s quite an interesting one, and it begins in his hometown, Ottumwa, Iowa, on November 16, 1979. That was the day his parents gifted him a Master Art Studio Set after noticing how gifted an artist their then-10-year-old was.
“People ask me, ‘When did you start?’” he says. “I say I got serious at the age of 10. All through school, I was labeled as an artist. That’s what I enjoyed doing most. I really kind of stunk at athletics and math and all the other things.”
As he’d spent the lion’s share of his childhood and teenage years drawing and painting, it wasn’t surprising that Thomas decided to pursue art in college. He attended Iowa Wesleyan University and studied commercial art. But when he graduated with his Bachelor’s degree, he didn’t immediately jump into an art career. He jumped on a flight to Japan instead.
“I was a missionary with a ministry group teaching English,” he shares. “I loved that, and when I came back to my hometown, I had the traveling bug.”
There he was, back in Ottumwa, itching to leave again but unable to afford to go back overseas. The then-22-year-old may not have been able to get out of the country, but he could at least get out of Iowa. His grandparents managed a motel in Monett, Missouri, and were kind enough to let him live there until he could support himself.
“I was looking for something art-related, but there wasn’t anything in that small town,” he says, remembering his time in Monett. “So, I ended up working at the newspaper in advertising.”
Thomas worked in the newspaper business for 15 years. It was practical and paid the bills, he says, noting that around that time, he’d met and married his wife, had children, and needed a “real job” to provide for his family. His art practice went to the back burner during this time. However, his desire to travel remained alive and well. The mission trips he and his family often took satiated his urge to get away a little, but coming home from them was always heartbreaking.
“We really loved being overseas, so my wife and I decided to get ourselves to a financial place where we could go and stay,” Thomas says. “We moved to Nicaragua. Our oldest son graduated from school and went on to military college, but our youngest son went with us. I was an art teacher at an international school in Managua, and my wife, a nurse, taught some health science classes there.”
Finally, it seemed Thomas had everything he wanted: a job in his field and an opportunity to live abroad. But when civil unrest broke out in Nicaragua in 2018, five years after the Thomases arrived in Central America, he had to surrender his dream life and head back to the States. By then, his youngest had graduated high school and moved away for college. So, it was just Thomas and his wife, Phyllis, heading to Springfield, Missouri, to start a new chapter.
“We left with two suitcases and two backpacks,” the Iowa native recalls. “We left our house, our car, all our possessions, and we never went back.”
Thomas says his wife had no trouble adjusting to being back stateside. She jumped right back into her career as a nurse, he says, joking that she got over the loss of their life in Nicaragua as soon as she stepped off the plane. He, on the other hand, was having a more difficult time leaving Nicaragua behind. But the grief didn’t leave him stagnant. He busied himself with plans to get back into the classroom. He’d already gotten a Master’s degree in art education while living in Central America; all that was left to do was obtain a Missouri teaching certificate. So, that’s what he decided to do, working as a paraprofessional in the meantime.
Thomas’s time as a paraprofessional overlapped with the COVID-19 outbreak, which meant that he, like so many others, was sent home in the middle of the school year. With so much new and unexpected free time on his hands, Thomas decided to get back into creating and selling art, something he hadn’t done in years.
“In March 2020, I opened up my Shopify store, and I haven’t looked back since,” he declares. “I’ve been a full-time artist since then.”
As if navigating a career pivot during a global pandemic wasn’t a big enough change, life threw the Thomases another curveball. Thomas’s wife discovered she was the daughter of Duck Commander founder, “Duck Dynasty” star, and Louisiana legend Phil Robertson.
“They flew us all down — us, our sons, and their fianceés, now wives — and we got to meet the whole family and spend time with Phil and Kay,” Thomas says. “And Phil said, ‘Well, why don’t you come down here and live next door to us? We’ll get to know you.’”
The Thomases accepted the invitation, and here they are, Ouachita Parish residents living “way out in the woods” next door to their newfound family members. Thomas says fortunately, the Robertson clan’s welcoming attitude has made it much easier for his family to adjust to their new life in this neck of the woods. The local art community’s reception of him hasn’t hurt, either.
Since arriving in Louisiana, Thomas has been embraced by art patrons. Though, he admits, this audience is much different than the one he’d engaged with in Missouri.
“People assume I’m an outdoorsman because of who the family is,” he shares with a laugh. “I’ve learned what kind of audience people who love Phil Robertson are, and I’ve learned to create art that connects with them.”
When he’s not painting the bayou and outdoor landscapes Phil Robertson fans enjoy or fulfilling commissions, he’s creating work for Courtyard on Cotton. He’s a member artist there and often contributes to the gallery’s themed shows. Between all of this, Thomas stays busy. But not too busy to create work for himself, pieces that tell his personal stories.
His most recent personal pieces are centered around mental health awareness, a topic inspired partially by his wife’s pursuit of a Master’s degree in counseling and his own experiences with anxiety and stress.
“I was in a place where I was super stressed out and heavily burdened by my to-do lists,” Thomas shares. “I wanted to somehow put that down on canvas. I did this painting of this nondescript person looking distraught and all this writing in the background that represented a to-do list.”
To Thomas’s surprise, viewers connected with the piece. He’s working on a second mental health-related painting focused on healing the inner child, hoping that the pair of works can bring awareness to the topic and remind people they don’t have to struggle alone.
The mental health series is just the tip of the iceberg for Thomas. He has plenty of other ideas he wants to bring to life between commissions, including legacy paintings of his father-in-law, less-detailed portraits, plein-air pieces, and something he’s calling Fourth Dimension art.
“I figured out a way to make a painting look like one thing and, as you pass by it, the scene has changed by the other side,” he says of his Fourth Dimension art. “I’m going to be doing some before-and-afters [in that style], and I hope in about a year from now, I have a handful of these large pieces to show.”
As far as what he will paint beyond those projects is concerned, Thomas is unsure. But he knows he’ll find something to create. The ability to paint well is a gift he doesn’t take for granted, and he intends to do it for the rest of his days — “I don’t care to or plan to retire. I love what I do,” he declares, emphasizing that art isn’t just his profession; it’s his passion.
He recalls a video he’d seen of Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The clip showed an aged Renoir having his assistants tape brushes to his arthritic hands so he could continue to create — “I want to be that guy,” Thomas declares.