Redneck Products'
Adventures in
Redneck Holler

Few people would expect an artist who once studied painting in Italy to ultimately make her living by drawing redneck cartoons for T-shirts. But, that's what Jacksonville Beach artist Fay Lienti-Allen does, and she says she loves it.

I get a lot of satisfaction every time I create a character," Lienti-Allen said. "Learning to cartoon was a challenge. I think it's a skill that many fine arts artists may not appreciate."

Cartooning is a surprise turn in Lienti-Allen's career, which began when she headed to Italy after graduating from high school in the 1970s.

She was passionate enough about being in Italy and improving her painting that she was willing to live in a shabby room that had furniture with smelly stuffing. The bathroom was outside, and the tap water sometimes looked like gravy.

She didn't attend an art academy in Italy; instead, she simply studied for two years with various artists. I concentrated on learning realism, working a lot with depth and perspective," she said.

In the 1980s, Lienti-Allen moved around the United States as a Navy spouse. While stationed in Puerto Rico, she studied at an art academy, painted landscapes and had her first gallery showing. When she moved to the First Coast from Puerto Rico, in 1989, she started doing abstract art and showing her work at local galleries. "My artwork at that time had a lot of texture and color and design in it," she said. "I call it geometrical abstract. Very Mondrian-type things, only I took it to another level."

In the early 1990s, Lienti-Allen started having back problems as a result of degenerative disc disease, a condition that is rare in young adults and isn't usually severe. But her condition was exacerbated by a car accident and gradually worsened. She received a settlement that paid her medical bills, but she had no disability coverage and no health insurance. After the accident, Lienti-Allen was unable to find a company to insure her.

"That was a frightening experience to find out I couldn't get health insurance," she said. "You just got to learn to deal with it. No health insurance, you gotta work around that." Lienti-Allen's worsening back condition changed her life. "I had to fight depression, because I was a very active person before I started to have these problems," she said. "I used to ride my bike and walk on the beach. I was having art shows. It had to all come to an end."

But the artist eventually found a way to rebuild her life and find a fulfilling career, despite using a wheelchair most of the time.

In 1999, she married Roger Allen, a man with an equally interesting background. Allen has operated a landscaping company and two transportation companies, moonlighted as a drummer for jazz and country music acts, helped found the California Country Music Association and was even host for a TV variety show in the San Francisco Bay area.

After they were married, Lienti-Allen opened a box of Allen's one day to find old T-shirts featuring redneck cartoons from a company Allen started and then scrapped in the 1980s.

When Lienti-Allen saw the simple black-and-white cartoons, she decided to use her artistic talent to improve upon the original concept. Now, three years later, Lienti-Allen is a prolific cartoonist, regularly coming up with new redneck characters. The couple has a small business, Over-the-Edge Enterprises, that sells Redneck Products, a registered trademark for their brand of clothing and other items.

The company sells items including T-shirts, hats, flags, jewelry, hat pins, playing cards, key chains and cigarette lighters.

Allen and Lienti-Allen have ambitious plans that include adorning their recreational vehicle with Lienti-Allen's redneck cartoons, publishing a comic book of her work and even adding food products such as beef jerky and pork rinds to their inventory.

They sell their products through Sportsfans Collectibles on Beach Boulevard, through a web site and at fairs and festivals across the country. Lienti-Allen says cartooning is an ideal job. "It's a fun way to make money," she said. "It's fun having comedy as a way of life."