Paul Chelko

News Obituary Article

CHAMBLEE: Paul Chelko, successful, charismatic artist, poet

By HOLLY CRENSHAW

In the afterworld that is cyberspace, artist Paul Chelko left a detailed epitaph that chronicles his ultracool interests from foreign films to Nina Simone to beat poets.

He lists his heroes, from his wife Debbie Chelko to Buddha, Jesus Christ and Frank Sinatra.

And he describes the kind of people he liked to meet:

"Anyone willing to take responsibility for their creativity and their intelligence. Anyone willing to take on something worth failing for. Anyone who is unwilling to settle for anything less than their dream."

Mr. Chelko grew up in Scotland and England, moved to Atlanta in the 1950s and became something of a celebrity in his adopted hometown, partly through an enormously successful art career, partly through an oversized, rock star presence that inspired disciple-like friends to seize their lives as he had seized his.

"You knew Paul had arrived because he always made a dramatic entrance," said his friend Art Harris of Atlanta.

When Mr. Chelko pulled up to the Buckhead Diner or another favorite haunt in his silver Chrysler Crossfire convertible, first his signature cowboy boots would emerge, followed by his designer jeans.

"If Paul was 6 feet tall, he seemed 7 feet tall with his snakeskin boots and his beard and his flowing mane that looked almost leonine," Mr. Harris said. "He actually was a Leo, and he was king of the jungle."

"He was a man who generated life like no other person I'd ever met, a man who constantly moved and inspired you," said his friend Richard Davis of Atlanta.

Paul Arthur Chelko, 72, died of complications from cancer Saturday at his Chamblee residence. The body was cremated. Memorial service plans in July will be announced. H.M. Patterson & Son, Oglethorpe Hill, is in charge of arrangements.

Mr. Chelko wrote reams of poetry and short stories. He sang like an opera star. Mostly, he created hundreds of pieces of artwork that adorned wine labels, CDs, posters, magazine covers, book jackets and greeting cards.

He hand-decorated furniture and wearable art, painted portraits of political figures and entertainers, taught throughout the country and showed his work at the High Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institute.

Celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Vincent Price snapped up his art.

"His work was never the same," said his friend Randi Layne of Atlanta. "You could fill up your house with his pieces and people would say, 'All this is by the same person? No way.' "

Mr. Chelko may have seemed the very embodiment of a confident, dynamic artist, but in a 1983 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, he described how he had recently kicked a 30-year addiction to alcohol and drugs that at its peak cost him $10,000 a month.

"I was dying," he said. "It was a symptom of an underlying disease. Mine was ignorance of life."

Mr. Chelko credited addiction treatment, Werner Erhard's est training and his supportive wife for guiding him through his dark night of the soul.

After his wife's death in 2005, Mr. Chelko --- who often made female figures the centerpiece of his work --- launched a foundation to help empower women.

"Paul was a peacock," Mr. Davis said. "He was the kind of person that everybody wanted to know. When he walked into a room, you're asking yourself, 'Who is that guy?' "

"That didn't mean he didn't have fear," Mr. Davis said. "As artists, we constantly have fear, but we can show off and play the game when we need to. And that was Paul."

There are no immediate survivors.

© 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution