"It's when you're looking at a painting and you can just feel how good it feels to you to do it."— G R E G O R Y D E A N E August/September 2016 75 Gregory Deane, Sun Valley, acrylic on canvas, 5 ft. x 4 ft. 2 in. Z E N M O M E N T S Born and raised in Portland, Ore., Deane moved to the Bay Area when he was a teenager. He took commercial art classes in college but believes, for the most part, he falls into the category of self-taught. “Before I was a teenager, I did painting and clay; I did sketches,” he remembers. “I don’t recall a time when I wasn’t involved in art in some way. It took me until I got married to go into it professionally.” Deane, 77, who was the first American to have an exhibition in the Accademia delle Arti del Designo in Florence, Italy, counts as influences contemporary masters such as Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg and Paul Jenkins. When he’s doing the work, painting a piece, he often experiences a Zen moment. “It’s when you’re looking at a painting and you can just feel how good it feels to you to do it,” he explains. As rewarding as it is to sell to someone who loves a painting as much as he does, the process of creation itself is also a payoff, he says. Like other artists, Deane has a tendency to be a workaholic, but he mostly keeps regular hours at his studio in Palo Alto. He starts about 9 a.m. every day and works until about 6 p.m., sometimes later. “I have to have a job to go to,” he says. “That’s kind of my personality.” His approach respects traditional technique. For Deane it provides a foundation to build upon. “I think that you have to learn the rules before you can break them. Which in fact he does, day by day, with compelling ingenuity. For more information visit Gregory Deane Fine Art, gregory deane.com F R E D Y O K E L Humility with a touch of humor may best describe Fred Yokel’s outlook on his career as an artist. But his dry wit and not-sosubtle modesty are mere preludes to a genuine passion that soon becomes evident when talking about his work. Gregory Deane, Spring Rise, acrylic on canvas, 4 ft. 2 in. x 5 ft. Fred Yokel, Woodman, coil-built ceramic, stains and underglazes, mid-fire oxidation, 11½ in. x 8 in. x 6 in.
South Bay Accent - AugSep 2016
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