Bruce C. Bryan: My guest today on Naturally Curious is Kevin Deck. I'm your host, Bruce C. Bryan, and each week I work to bring you closer to interesting people from all over Virginia who have stories to tell or to bring value where they live. Kevin Deck has been drawing his entire life. For decades, he did it professionally as an architect.
Recently, he's taken that same passion for detail and shifted his canvas and his perspective to create art. Kevin is a painter, an artist, and a maker of things. He brings a fresh perspective to things that have been around for a while. His eye for detail shows in his sketches and in his art, and his work begs the viewer to slow down and notice.
That's my goal for this episode, to help you slow down and see where you might be able to perhaps take a path similar to Kevin's, where you can combine your loves and the things you wanna do into something new. Hear more from artist and retired architect Kevin Deck coming up on this week's episode of Naturally Curious.
Deck Segment 1
Bruce C. Bryan: Kevin Deck, thank you for being my guest on the show, and welcome.
Kevin Deck: Thanks so much, Bruce. Great to be here.
Bruce C. Bryan: So we saw each other at the Taubman Sidewalk Art Show in downtown Roanoke, and I was wondering, What's it like having thousands of people walking by and judging you and watching your work?
Kevin Deck: Gosh, uh, some people, that would scare them to death, but it's my favorite day of the year. I am completely energized. My wife, Cindy, is with me all the time in the back of the booth, tries to get me to take a snack, drink some water, sit down for a few minutes. But I end up on my feet all day long 'cause I don't wanna miss the opportunity to meet somebody new or rekindle a friendship or talk to anybody about all things art.
Bruce C. Bryan: What it... And what it is that you make, right?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. And, you know, the, the, the opportunity to talk about my stuff is really fun this side of, you know, retirement. Um, w- it's, it's a unique opportunity, and, and I just, um, I'm energized by all of it.
Bruce C. Bryan: Do the things people say surprise you sometimes? Do you get some random comments from people that catch you off guard?
Kevin Deck: Most people are careful not to say anything negative v- uh, except under their breath. But the comments I get are "Oh, that's a photograph." And then they step in and they realize that it's a watercolor painting.
It's, it's fun to be on the edge of the booth and just listen to people as they approach it and start to interact with it. But it's a, it's a, it's an interesting dynamic.
Bruce C. Bryan: Do they usually know you're ar- you're the artist or are, or do they find that out later on sometimes?
Kevin Deck: Sometimes they find out later.
And, and, you know, the art of being in a convention in a booth, you have to know when to be there and when to walk away. And so I sometimes walk away and let people start to interact with the art and then seize an opportunity to introduce myself and have a conversation.
Bruce C. Bryan: So you must not have known how to do that right away, although I'm sure you've done trade shows and whatever-
Kevin Deck: I have, yeah
Bruce C. Bryan: you've done pr- professionally. But so do y- did you intrinsically kinda know how to manage that space in, in, in the art show world?
Kevin Deck: The, my, my training as an architect and doing trade shows for 30 years, I, I think made it easy just to, um, assess people and kinda read the crowd as they came through. Do- I don't always get it right, but I've had great conversations over the years.
Bruce C. Bryan: So it's, it's two days, the Sidewalk Art Show is. And it is literally maybe tens of thousands, but definitely thousands of people that, that go by. Um, you have to get tired sometimes in those settings, I would imagine.
Kevin Deck: It's exhausting, and the weather can change everything. But, uh, we've, this year we were fortunate.
We had gorgeous weather. And I, I literally was on my feet, and, um, it, there was a robust crowd Saturday, and Sunday was unbelievable. So- I enjoy it
Bruce C. Bryan: I've lost track. You've done it for three or four years now or longer. How many? That,
Kevin Deck: this was my fifth year.
Bruce C. Bryan: Fifth year. Yeah. Okay. Uh, have those weekends led to other interesting conversations for you, like, that have happened afterward or down the road or even right there at the art shows?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. There, there is a- all the dynamics that goes into, and what you hope for, a few sales that go into the two-day event. But the follow-up, um, can be really significant. Not just a few sales that come as people mull something over, but also an opportunity to get to know somebody or meet for coffee or collaborate on something.
Bruce C. Bryan: Well, you're listening to Naturally Curious. I'm Bruce Bryan. This is Kevin Dack. He's an artist. We're gonna talk a lot about your art and about that process, but I'm actually having a lot of fun talking about the Sidewalk Art Show, 'cause a lot of us go to festivals and shows and, and, and things like this where there, it's a juried competition.
Um, and I'm not sure people always know what to say or how to act. What, what advice would you have for people that are just meandering through?
Kevin Deck: Gosh, I, I would tell people not to be so shy and just enter in. If they, if something catches their eye, step on into the booth. And, you know, there's, there's a dynamic of people just kind of walking through and trying to see.
But you really can't see my work in particular, the depth of it, until you step in.
Bruce C. Bryan: Getting close.
Kevin Deck: Yeah.
Bruce C. Bryan: But there might be that- discomfort with, "If I walk in there, they're gonna sell me, and they're gonna try to..." And so there's, is that part of what holds people back?
Kevin Deck: I believe so. I, I th- I've thought about putting up a sign that says, "Come on in.
This is not a Tupperware party." You don't have to take something home with you.
Bruce C. Bryan: Right.
Kevin Deck: You know.
Bruce C. Bryan: But you're right about your art, and I, I do hope... It's kevinadeck.com, if I'm not mistaken, right?
Kevin Deck: Yes.
Bruce C. Bryan: Yeah. I hope you'll go and look at some of Kevin's work, and it's, it's around, but there's a detail to it that is almost mesmerizing.
You actually said people think that your work's photography until they look a little closer.
Kevin Deck: They do, and, and, and I take that as a compliment, for sure. I'm, I'm um, I'm an American realist. I'm not, um... I'm proud of that, you know? I'm not trying to hide. I'm a career architect. I paint a lot of buildings, but I'm interested in the detail at the corner of the painting as much as I am in the center.
I don't... I'm not shooting for a focal point. I treat it all with the same kind of reverence.
Bruce C. Bryan: Do you travel to other art shows, or is it pretty much just the Taubman Sidewalk Art Show that you've done? The
Kevin Deck: Taubman is the only show that I do outside, and sh- you know, I schlep my stuff three miles from Grandin Village.
It's easy. I get to sleep in my own bed. But we've talked about doing other shows in Virginia in particular.
Bruce C. Bryan: So do you ever yourself go and look at other people's booths, and then in turn look at their setup and how they do things?
Kevin Deck: Absolutely. It's, it's hard to get away from the booth, but I usually take an opportunity on Sunday to get out.
There's some friends that I've made over the years that I like to catch up on, but I love to see... This year was an expanded group of about 20 more artists. Um, I like to see-
Kevin Deck: they're- ... who's there. Yeah.
Bruce C. Bryan: Yeah.
Kevin Deck: It's inspiring.
Bruce C. Bryan: Well, you're listening to Naturally Curious, and we're being inspired by Kevin Deck, the artist based here in Roanoke.
I'm Bruce Bryan, your host. And you were saying that you go and meet f- friends and people you h- you know that have other, that have booths there as well. Do you get ideas for things you could do differently in your own booth when you go walk around and, and look at the other ones?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. I don't typically get ideas for subject matter as much as I look at technique.
And I'm, I'm a watercolor painter almost exclusively. I do a lot of sketching, a line and wash. But there are some painters there and some potters there that just, I think, well, maybe it's time to shift Yeah. ... from watercolor and try something else.
Bruce C. Bryan: They inspire you, right?
Kevin Deck: They do, yeah.
Bruce C. Bryan: Yeah. Um, I was curious if you've, not to put you on the spot, maybe I just did, but have you ever...
It's a juried show. Have you ever won any of those awards or, or do you enter in those, or how does that work?
Kevin Deck: I have. I, I've w- at the Sidewalk Art Show in particular, I, I won, um, the Watercolor Award my first year, and then two years ago also won that same kind of named, uh, memorial award. And I was completely humbled in with the host of great painters that are at the show.
Bruce C. Bryan: So Kevin, when you're not doing that once-a-year event, how does your work get seen and, and how is it sold generally speaking?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. Over the last four or five years, I've had representation at Market Gallery in downtown Roanoke. I was also in, um, Black Dog Salvage for about four years. But at the end of 2024, I pulled out of those two locations.
I knew 2025 was gonna be crazy with some big events. And right now, if you wanna see my work, you come to my home studio gallery in Grandin Village. Okay. Uh, or you go to other shows. There's a Bath County art show that's getting ready to start tomorrow, um, that will run for 10 days. I have work there. And, and other exhibits, um, you know, throughout the year.
Bruce C. Bryan: Yeah, I think that's one of the things that's just interesting is our listenership is such a broad geographical area, but if you're anywhere near Roanoke, uh, you can probably find Kevin through the website and, and make arrangements-
Kevin Deck: I'd love that ...
Bruce C. Bryan: But there's a lot... I know you like to talk about your art, and there are a lot of artists similar to you.
Take a second and walk us back through your career, 'cause I alluded to it in the introduction. You were an architect for decades.
Kevin Deck: Sure.
Bruce C. Bryan: Right? But all along you've been sketching, drawing, and you said you're actually concerned or a little nervous about color. So talk about your professional life first, and then kinda how you got into what you're doing now.
Kevin Deck: Sure, Bruce. I, uh, studied architecture at Virginia Tech, finished in '82, and, um, went to work for Carlton Abbott & Partners in Williamsburg, Virginia, and practiced there for about four and a half years, and then we had an opportunity to come to Roanoke, so we've been here almost 39 years. I've worked for, um, a variety of firms here, mostly designing public educational facilities, K-12 and higher ed, uh, throughout the state of Virginia, and then have spent about 20 years, um, working in senior living design, um, kind of towards the, the, the tail end of my career.
Bruce C. Bryan: Gotcha. So During that time, did you also paint on the side or, or, or draw and sketch?
Kevin Deck: Yeah, right out of college I realized, um, in the days where I was a draftsman and we were running blueprints and breathing ammonia- ... a couple hours a day, I realized that it was gonna be a few years before I had an opportunity to develop as a designer.
So I was designing and building furniture, taking classes in a local high school so I could use their shop after hours. I was sketching. I wasn't really painting. I've been a lifelong sketcher, but as you, as you recalled to me, I had a fear of color until about eight years ago.
Bruce C. Bryan: What's interesting to me about that is that fear of color.
When you, when you see your work, it is so precise. That has to come from working colors in a very specific way, I would think.
Kevin Deck: Yeah. Once, once I, once I exercised the demon of fear, um, I, I really jumped in and I found that watercolor, um, was a really good fit for my kinda drawing skills and my, you know, my technical, um, renderings that I would have done as a, a younger architect before everything was done on computer.
I had a lot of hand skills that, um, f- fit very well with watercolor. And the intensity of color, um, you know, is something that I took to very early and actually pushed the intensity using Photoshop. A lot of the Grandin Village scenes, you look, there's some black light type, um, scenery there, um, that are, you know, for me it was a big jump.
But I, I found myself just diving in.
Bruce C. Bryan: Do you ever surprise yourself with your ability to create something of color at this point?
Kevin Deck: Gosh, I love that. Um, the surprise for me comes a couple days after I finish a painting that I might have worked on for two days or a long weekend. And, and the surprise is after a really intensive process, um, I look back on something and am sometimes delighted or sometimes just don't fully remember how things finished out that way.
Bruce C. Bryan: How you got that together. That sounds like a radio show that I might do every once in a while. So after this break, we're gonna come back and talk more about your architecture career and how that informs the, the, the work that you're doing now, and a little bit about the work you're doing now, too.
Kevin Deck: Great.
Deck Segment 2
Bruce C. Bryan: Welcome back, Kevin Deck. So glad you're my guest on Naturally Curious. We've been talking about your career as an architect, and now your career as an artist. So you've been retired from architecture for about a year and a half, and now you keep a schedule as an artist. How's that working out for you?
Kevin Deck: Gosh, the idea of hearing you say I keep a schedule is, is a l- a bit, bit of a stretch from reality, Bruce.
Bruce C. Bryan: I was hoping you were gonna say that. You, you drawr when you wanna drawr, right?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. You do. And you know, while I was working full time, I was painting on the weekends. I would work, uh, half day on Friday and paint Friday afternoon or draw, and then paint Saturday and part of Sunday depending on the size of the work.
Now I've got the freedom to do whatever I wanna do, and, and painting certainly is one of those things. But I'm also working on my house. You know, I had a long list of things that I needed to attend to, so it's a real mix of flow of painting. I'm teaching some workshops. But there's a lot of other things that I'm catching on.
We've got eight grandkids and four children, and you know-
Bruce C. Bryan: That's a lot to keep you busy.
Kevin Deck: It is.
Bruce C. Bryan: How do you ... Do you have to be in the right mindset to paint, or when you start painting, then do you get into the right mindset?
Kevin Deck: I, um, I have to be in the right mindset. Um, I, I don't look at it as a job intentionally, but I keep a collection of inspiration images on my iPhone.
From my photography, I sort it down, and there are days that I'm just kinda flipping through for something to catch my attention, and that's where things start, um, for a painting.
Bruce C. Bryan: Is it often that, like you just said, you take a picture and then later you might paint from that picture? Or are there times you just sit down and start working and then all of a sudden you've, you've got something?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. I almost always, 99% of the time I'm painting from a photo reference that I have taken.
Bruce C. Bryan: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Deck: And that, that's the beginning point of what becomes an analysis and then a drawing and then a full painting.
Bruce C. Bryan: I mean, and that you said it in the first segment, you are very much an American realist. Yes. So that means that you're trying to paint something that looks exactly like what a photo or an image in your mind might be, right?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. I paint them the way I sees them. But you know, they're ... Everybody has a different voice. Every artist has, have a d- has a different hand. Every painter with color has preferences and different hues and things that they favor which speaks to our individuality.
Bruce C. Bryan: And so would it be safe to say almost everything or could you even say everything you've painted has been an object?
Or i- i- is that ex- building maybe even, is that exclusively where your passion is?
Kevin Deck: It, it's mostly there, but I also love non-objective or abstract art, and I've- I sometimes find geometry or a, a piece of a p- a finished painting that's realistic that I like to extract the geometry fro- from, and then it becomes a very different exercise of just intuitive layering of color, creating something that is
looks like nothing you've ever seen, but references something from a previous painting.
Bruce C. Bryan: That's Kevin Deck. I'm Bruce Bryan. This is Naturally Curious, and we're talking about, a little bit about your inspiration. Obviously, you trained as an architect, and I'm no pro, but I can see when I look closely at the paintings and the prints that you produce, that you can kinda tell you are an architect.
That's on purpose, right?
Kevin Deck: It is. And I learned one point perspective, you know, in high school. I, I believe in drawing things accurately. Um, and, uh, I love buildings. I love decay. I love rust. I love the effects of time on the built environment. I'm naturally drawn to the stuff that I dealt with when I was an architect.
Bruce C. Bryan: Sounds like you might have your own radio show called Naturally Drawn. Yeah. I'm not sure. What do you want people to see in your art, Kevin?
Kevin Deck: Well, I, I want people to, first of all, slow down. I feel like most of our lives these days is lived at about 75 miles an hour and 30,000 graphic images. I, I want people to slow down and come into the shadows and come into the details and experience some of the things that I've discovered.
Bruce C. Bryan: So what's interesting is that's a little bit about what happens with Naturally Curious. I think that we are moving from thing to thing and ad to ad and image to image, like you said, and sometimes audio causes you to slow down and reflect a little bit. And I love that you brought to the forefront what I alluded to earlier about that idea of just helping people catch their breath.
Do you think seeing something that's already been in real life that they can look at more closely helps people slow down? Is that part of that process with your art?
Kevin Deck: I, I do. I, I think the engagement in things that are familiar, um, uh, does provide an opportunity f- for people to comment on, "Well, look at the way they've in- this artist has interpreted something."
You know, look at the way they've kind of changed things up, or have they accurately captured something that might be really familiar to them?
Bruce C. Bryan: So feedback can be a challenge for all of us. How is it different as an artist versus your past career as an architect? Because you, you've been getting feedback for 50 years.
Kevin Deck: Yeah. Yeah. And w- and one of the beauties of, one of the luxuries of painting for myself, um, I don't have a client for the most part. I've taken on a few commissions.
Bruce C. Bryan: Primarily, though, you're painting what you wanna paint.
Kevin Deck: I am. It's 'cause somebody told me early on, "Don't let anyone tell you to paint anything other than what you love."
And I've tried to stick to that. So there, there's a luxury that goes along with that a- and there's a heart and soul that, you know, naturally follows.
Bruce C. Bryan: But in some ways, then, the feedback is, "Are people going to buy this piece of art that I've made?"
Kevin Deck: Yeah. Right? And, and that's true. Um- It's
Bruce C. Bryan: a different kind of feedback.
Kevin Deck: And, you know, there's, there's feedback, um... That, that's the n- that's the nicest thing somebody can do is say, "I love that enough to take it home with me." And for me, that's one of the greatest joys because when I'm creating, I'm creating with a sense that somebody someday may want that without knowing who they are.
It's an incredible joy to meet that person and understand what it was about what I interpreted that connected with them. Um, and then that- And they took it home ... could be the beginning of a relationship.
Bruce C. Bryan: Sure. And have you ever been out and about and seen your work someplace? Has that happened to you yet?
I'm not sure if it has.
Kevin Deck: Um, my, my work is in, uh, a restaurant in town, and I've had people mention, you know, that they've seen it, um-
Bruce C. Bryan: Okay ...
Kevin Deck: uh, which, which is pretty nice but not too much in the wild, uh, sightings for my stavewood.
Bruce C. Bryan: So thinking back to your past life, were you able to get clients to, quote, "stretch" a little bit at all in, in, in terms of as an- Yeah
architect you probably had visions of what it could be, but then it becomes what it has to be or what it must be, right? And so navigating that with clients. Were you, were you ... Can you recall times you were get- getting to a place where you could get them to stretch what they had- A- ... thought about
Kevin Deck: doing?
Absolutely. Yeah. That was ... I spent most of my career as a, as a lead designer, so I was responsible for the aesthetic, you know, the skin, what it looked like, how it related to the community or the town. And, uh, yeah, I learned as a young architect the skill through some painful, you know, failures, um, how far you can push, and at a certain point you have to say, "This is, this is your project.
I'm glad to provide you other options." But yeah, that, that kind of negotiating was always in the mix.
Bruce C. Bryan: And now the art you make is really the art you make.
Kevin Deck: It is. Yeah. And, and again- I have a great luxury of not needing to sell a bunch of my paintings to be able for Cindy and myself to eat, you know? And, and so if somebody likes it, I'm thrilled.
If they don't, that's fine, but much of my subject matter is not the kind of stuff that people are gonna put above their new fuchsia sofa in their family room, you know? It's more nuanced than that. Right. And you know
Bruce C. Bryan: it. Right, right. And so you've done themes, I think, uh, in the past. What's n- next for you, or do you have a next?
Are you starting to- Yeah ... think about what you're gonna do next?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. I'm, I have been painting a series of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Interesting. As much as I'm crazy about the urban landscape and buildings, I've-
Bruce C. Bryan: I, I, I just ... I wanna interrupt. I, I alluded to it, but you did one in a, in a part of kind of a forgotten part of s- of Roanoke Southeast, where y- it was very industrial.
And when- Yes ... that area takes off in the next decade, there's gonna be a lot of before paintings that will have been done by you, right?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. That, that series is the Southeast, uh, Revelations. It was part of my solo show last year with the Grandin Village, which was a southwest component. I've done 41 paintings now of what is becoming Riverdale, the American Viscose plant, and I have poured about two and a half years of painting into that.
Bruce C. Bryan: And so now you're in nature. I am. And now you're doing the parkway.
Kevin Deck: I am, and it is tough. It is much more difficult, I find-
Bruce C. Bryan: Interesting ...
Kevin Deck: to, to make things look like they were naturally grown, organic, God-made, because every leaf is different. Every twig, every twisted tree on the Blue Ridge Parkway that you see in the fall is unique.
And as a realist, I want, I wanna do it justice. So I'm learning a lot about landscape painting over the last few years, and this year I have done some full sheets, some large pieces that, um, are of, like, Paint Bank, Virginia, a beautiful chapel, or down towards Abingdon on the way to Damascus. I'm ... I just love Southwest Virginia, and there's endless opportunities and inspiration to paint.
Bruce C. Bryan: That sounds like really interesting work. And what a juxtaposition because you're right, the, the realism related to nature scenes has to just be next level in terms of difficulty.
Kevin Deck: It certainly is. But it's, it's ... I wanna grow as an artist, and I wanna have the confidence to approach any subject And know how to get there with a watercolor.
Bruce C. Bryan: Well, I mentioned it earlier. It's kevinadack.com if, if people wanna see, uh, your work a little more closely. Thanks again for being my guest on Naturally Curious this week.
Kevin Deck: Loved it.
Bruce C. Bryan: So to listen back to the show, to hear the full interview, and links to learn more about Kevin's art and how his professional life has fit together with what he's doing now, search Naturally Curious at radioiq.org.
Naturally Curious was produced and edited by Big Jim Shively with support from Sarah Hobbs and Nick Yee, and is recorded at WVTF Radio IQ Studios. I'm Bruce Bryan. Thank you for listening
Deck Bonus Content
Bruce C. Bryan: Thanks for sticking around, Kevin. A little bit more about you in this segment. So this is a segment I kinda like to call Nosy Things I've Always Wanted to Know.
Kevin Deck: Okay.
Bruce C. Bryan: Do you ever draw for fun?
Kevin Deck: I do. Um, when we go to the beach, and we just got back from the Outer Banks last week, I just sit in a chair in the shade with a pen, with some watercolors as people walk by, my grandkids, people with crazy hats.
It's, it's a g- it's a way of unplugging and really letting down, and I love it.
Bruce C. Bryan: Every once in a while, does one of those pieces really catch your eye or somebody else's eye? Um, or is it usually like, "Oh, that's good," and then you set it away somewhere?
Kevin Deck: Well, yeah. And, and some of those pieces are private to me.
Sure. They, they might be in a sketchbook and ... but sometimes they get posted because I love urban art and I love sketching people and sketching in, uh, outdoors.
Bruce C. Bryan: So if Big Jim wanted to, he might be able to get ahold of one of those possibly. Oh, yeah. It's possible. Yeah.
Kevin Deck: Oh, yeah.
Bruce C. Bryan: So when you're making art, is the room quiet or do you have music on or videos playing?
Everybody's different. I was just curious about you. Yeah.
Kevin Deck: I love, I love to paint to music.
Bruce C. Bryan: Okay.
Kevin Deck: And, and, uh, you know, I grew up in the '60s. Uh, I've got favorite playlists, but I also listen to some diverse music. But if I'm doing an abstract, I play jazz.
Bruce C. Bryan: Okay.
Kevin Deck: If I'm painting in the wintertime, um, and I'm painting a landscape, it may be George Winston or, you know, just some solemn, beautiful piano music or classical.
S-
Bruce C. Bryan: so it sounds like you have different playlists depending on what your mood for painting is. Yeah. Sounds like you might need to add that to your website. "Hey, here's my paint-" Yeah "... American realism set, and here's my, here's my beach watercolor set," and go from there.
Kevin Deck: I love that.
Bruce C. Bryan: Do you have multiples at any one time, or do you do the work sequentially?
Like start a painting, finish it all the way, and then start the next one? How, how do you approach that?
Kevin Deck: Yeah, the latter. I'm, I'm kind of, um-
Bruce C. Bryan: Get it
Kevin Deck: all the way done ... a one painting guy. I, I love to start something and finish it in a few days. The ... And, and watercolor allows that. Um, and it doesn't, like oil painting, r- have long drying times.
You know, I, I love to start something and finish it.
Bruce C. Bryan: So pretend I'm not an artist, which won't be hard for you to do. If you work in, in watercolor, then you, you can paint until 11:00 at night and wake up the next day and paint and you don't, you don't have to wait or anything like that. You can just start painting again.
Kevin Deck: Yeah. With watercolor you can put down a wash of a sky and 10 minutes later you can put some trees on it.
Bruce C. Bryan: Okay.
Kevin Deck: And then you can layer in the foreground and you can, you can put on 50 glazes in two hours because it ... And you have a fan next to you and you can dry it so it's, it's very quick.
Bruce C. Bryan: Interesting. So how do you know when a piece is done?
I'm using air quotes for an audio show, but how do you know when a piece is done?
Kevin Deck: Yeah. You know, the, the urban y- answer to that is 10 minutes before I did the last thing on it. Um, my wife is great for coming in and saying, "Okay, don't touch it. You're finished." But-
Bruce C. Bryan: This piece is done, Kevin.
Kevin Deck: Yeah. I, I spend a lot of time on the last 1% of a painting.
Uh, it's ... And for me When I'm fully satisfied, I know. There's kind of a sense of peace that just kinda rests.
Bruce C. Bryan: So again, not an artist, but that last 1%, do you have to get 10 different colors to get that last 1%? Or is it 100 different colors, or three colors? The- How do you get that last 1%?
Kevin Deck: Yeah, the final touches for me, Bruce, in watercolor are really more like calligraphy.
They're done with very small brushes. They might be telephone poles or fine, you know, blades of grass. They're the things that are the least noticed, but they add the richness because it's the finest details.
Bruce C. Bryan: So I've messed up a whole bunch of radio shows over the last six months or so, and I, I know that there's times where I need to stop or I should have just let good enough be good enough.
Do you ever go in and work on a painting and then mess it up that was already good and you're like, "Oh, darn it." And, and can you ... There's no ... Is there erasers for what you do?
Kevin Deck: Well, absolutely I have gone back and, and where I should have just left something lie. Um, but I've become a master of f- finding my way out of tough situations.
Okay. There are erasers. There are ways to re-wet watercolor- Okay ... blot it, lift it. And if you're working with really good quality paper in particular, it, it can be very forgiving.
Bruce C. Bryan: I, I did not know any of that. So that's really interesting, and I feel like I've gotten a, a good lesson. Don't worry, I don't think there's any risk I'm gonna challenge you-
to be an artist at all. But I, uh, I was curious about, are you your harshest critic? You've mentioned Cindy a couple times. Is, is she, she ... Can she be tough on you as well? You know, partners, spouses, sometimes that happens.
Kevin Deck: No, we have a wonderful relationship after almost 44 years of marriage. She's a mathematician by training.
She loves my work. She's my biggest fan.
Bruce C. Bryan: That's awesome.
Kevin Deck: But she's not an art critic. And, and, uh, but she, she will encourage me to finish. She will try to bring me a snack when I'm in the zone. Um, but it's, it's a, it's a great ... I'm, I am my har- harshest critic by far.
Bruce C. Bryan: I thought you might be.
Kevin Deck: Yeah. You, you get it.
Bruce C. Bryan: So, so do people buy multiple pieces from you, Kevin?
Kevin Deck: They do. Uh, Bruce, uh, there, there is a, a woman that I sold a painting to about six years ago. As it turned out, it was a painting of her walking up Jefferson Avenue in Roanoke. And a friend of mine, a common friend, said, "I think I know that person," and she lived across the hall in a condo.
I sold her that painting, and 11 paintings later she is what my wife calls my patron.
Bruce C. Bryan: that is great. Um, I'm curious what you wanna paint next. Like, you've been doing nature, you've been doing ... Are there things that you're interested in, in painting that you dream about or think about painting?
Kevin Deck: Yeah.
There are other ... What I want to do right now is really travel and paint from- You know, international travel and travel in the United States. We've ... I've done a series of New York City from the fall of, uh, 2023. Um, and I love that. I did about 22 paintings. I'm dying to travel and then have the inspiration images to do, uh, another series.
Richmond, Virginia is, is, uh, on my list. Um, it doesn't have to be, you know, a long trip, but I'm dying to bite something else off like that.
Bruce C. Bryan: Is there art you've wanted to produce, and maybe you mentioned that with the travel, but you just haven't?
Kevin Deck: Huh. There-
Bruce C. Bryan: And it could be art. Doesn't necessarily have to be a, a watercolor.
It could be any kind of art.
Kevin Deck: Yeah. There's n- not so much, but there, there are other media, like I mentioned, that I'm intrigued with. The idea of painting in something that's not transparent, opaque. At times I've looked at my work and thought, "Could I do this more readily or, or better with opaque media? Am I working too hard?"
Bruce C. Bryan: Interesting. Well, I'm wondering, Kevin, do you wish there was something else I would have asked you after all this time?
Kevin Deck: Gosh, I don't know. Did we cover it? You've done a great job of getting at the heart. Um, I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about my biggest passion right now.
Bruce C. Bryan: Well, it's been fascinating because our paths have crossed through the years and I've ad- admired your work, but it was fun to sit and, and really get a, a much deeper understanding of what you do.
And I appreciated you sharing some of the stories from the, the art show because I generally know what's appropriate, but I go in there and I'm like, "I'm probably not gonna buy your work, but I'd like to look at it. But I don't wanna take, to waste your time." And so it was fun to bringing it back around and w- kind of finish where we started.
I appreciate your candor with that. Yeah. And every artist is different, right? Sure. But, uh, I liked hearing your perspective on that, so thank you.
Kevin Deck: Thank you.
