Tony Sheeder was born on the bayou and spent his early years in New Orleans. When he was still small, his family decamped to the Midwest (preferring to take their chances with tornados in what now appears to have been a pretty good bet), settling in what felt like an endless string of one- and two-horse towns. After taking a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Arts from Grinnell College (sometimes called the "Harvard of the Midwest,' though perhaps more accurately described as the 'Oberlin of Eastern Central Iowa'), Sheeder immigrated to New York in 1983.

Lacking the skill or will to 'get a job, for crissake,' Sheeder enrolled in Columbia University where he ultimately received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking. After matriculating, and armed with his valuable credential, Sheeder promptly abandoned printmaking in hope of finding a vocation that required less hand washing. With a lack of judgment that only an MFA can provide, he switched to painting. Lining up a job rich in networking possibilities (okay, selling staplers at Pearl Paint), and setting up shop in Brooklyn, Sheeder waited for the art world to come knocking. In 1989, when the art world had broken enough appointments to last a lifetime, and after his neighbors had absconded with the last few operable parts of his car, Sheeder relocated to Washington, DC (sometimes called the "Capitol of the Free World,' though perhaps more accurately described as the 'Port-au-Prince of the Mid-Atlantic states').

Washington proved more fertile ground and, while supporting himself variously as a graphic designer for print, video, and digital media, an instructor at the Corcoran School, and critic for the Washington City Paper, Sheeder exhibited his paintings and installations in venues including the Arlington Arts Center, the DC Art Center, the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, the Washington Project for the Arts, and frequent exhibitions at the Anton Gallery. While continuing to work in traditional media, he began a collaboration with novelist Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc) involving computer-generated imagery and other emerging digital technologies (which, incidentally, satisfied longstanding hand washing goals). In 1996 that collaboration lead to an interactive narrative project entitled Daymare, and Sheeder again relocated, this time to Berkeley, California (sometimes called 'The Birthplace of the Free Speech Movement,' though perhaps more accurately described as 'The Second to Last Marxist Government in the Western Hemisphere').

When it became clear that America's desire for interactive narrative was already being satisfied by real life, Sheeder discovered that painting was still not dead and effectively picked up where he'd left off. Sheeder continues to live and work in Berkeley, where he doggedly pursues his interests in propaganda and popular culture, and searches in vain for the slightest shred of irony.