Blurring the lines between artist and artisan.
Hello I'm Jeff the artist behind Real Faux Finishes.
I have been an artist ever since I was old enough to pick up a crayon. I won my first art contest in 2nd grade (will actually I think I was second or third place) but it was still a big deal. I got to ride around the ring at the Hadi Shrine Circus in a convertible with Ronald McDonald and get my picture taken with the Banana Splits, if you remember who they were then you're probably as old as me! From there I never looked back.
I cut my teeth on my Grandma's Artex tube paints. It was a paint tube with a ball point tip. They came in lots of colors and you painted on these paint by number type felt canvases. I still have a few of them! About this time my dad and grandpa ran their own custom cabinet business near Evansville, Indiana so I was also forming my love for all things wooden.
I didn't take much art in high school as that was mostly the class for trouble makers, jocks, and guys still trying to get their multiplication tables down, come to think of it I would have fit right in! But when it came time to decide what I wanted to do with my life, art was the answer. So I went to Bellarmine College, a liberal arts college, on a partial track scholarship. Bellarmine had great art teachers, but after a year I decided I wanted a larger focus on art and less on things like Statistics and Probability! So I transferred to Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis. I received a BFA in Visual Communications and spent the next twenty years as a graphic designer and art director at various ad agencies.
Somewhere in there I met my lovely wife of twenty-five plus years, who has given me two beautiful children the oldest of which is a sophomore in college and the youngest a 5th grader.
I eventually grew tired of the ad world and being behind a computer all day and decided to strike out on my own. I opened Real Faux Decorative Finishes & Murals and started doing decorative wall finishes and murals as well as cabinet and furniture painting. I have taken classes from a virtual who’s who of the decorative painting industry and enjoy taking what I have learned over the years and adding my own twists. I have a small woodshop in my garage and a paint studio in my basement. I enjoy splitting time between them creating small tables and sideboards, as well as repairing damaged furniture, and then getting to create custom finishes to go on them. I am truly blessed to have the support of my family and the opportunity to use the gifts God has given me.