Meet Paul

 

Paul-Parssinen(From original post in http://www.theneonsignguyblog.com/paul-parssinen-neon-artist/ from 2013)

Paul was an artist from the city of Hemet Ca. just about 28 miles east of where i live (Murrieta Ca.). I got a call from him in back in 2013 ,he told me he wanted to put neon on one of his paintings, i said sure,i told him ” send me a picture of your painting by Email and let me know where you want the neon and i will email you back the price, and he answered ” Oh i don’t have a computer and i wouldn’t even know how to turn one on”

Ok, i said, in that case, you will have to bring in the painting and i will give you the price here. So we set up the day and time and when the day came and he didn’t arrive I got a call from him and he was angry ” Juan he said, i am lost, where in the hell is your place? I gave him all the instructions on how to get here and finally after 30 minutes of being lost he arrived, i was getting ready to meet an angry customer, and at that moment i thought to myself, this is the first time a customer gets angry before i do any work, when he got here his anger had dissipated. Well i could see that he had problems, health problems of some kind, i, of course, didn’t ask, but he walked with difficulty and he even lost his breath while talking, he looked like about 75 years old, i offered him a chair so he could rest, First thing he said “I am very tired i just want to go home” Ok i said, so i got the painting out of his truck and he told me how he wanted the neon installed, i gave him a price and he accepted, i promised to have it ready in a week .His paintings are all done on plywood so it made the neon installation easy. He told me he had about 40 paintings and that he had been painting all his life but had never ever sold a painting, his main business had been landscaping design for commercial buildings, so the painting was not his business, it was his passion. He said that on one of the prior bad economies, probably in the 90s he lost everything and couldn’t go back into that business. Right now he works as a handyman in a ranch in Hemet Ca. i don’t know how he manages to do it.
A week later i called him to tell him his painting with neon was ready .
He said”Juan can you bring it over ? I’ll buy you dinner if you do, he said, there’s a great Mexican restaurant where the food is great, i said “You don’t have to buy me dinner i’ll just bring it over no problem. So i headed down to Hemet and got to where he lives, he lived in the large ranch in a small room close to the main house, he had the whole room covered with his paintings and he had even more paintings in a large garage, he showed me only a few of them because he was getting tired, so i helped him hang the new neon painting on his wall and turned on the neon, a big smile told me he liked it and he said . oh Juan it looks great i love it .
He got all happy and probably forgot his ailments for a moment and said ” Ok i promised you dinner so lets go have dinner, i said you don’t have to, but he said i insist, lets go , so of we went to the mexican restaurant. He was right about the food, it was extraordinarily good, while there, he told me how he had always wanted to be a full-time artist, but never had done it, he also told me that he had done a metal sculpture and donated it to the local community college, he later showed me a picture of the sculpture form the local newspaper. But he said that he never pursued that passion and only did the paintings on his spare time, but now he was determined to sell his paintings and expose his paintings in any gallery that would let him, he had big plans for the future, he told me he already was building a portfolio and he was going to submit it to different galleries. He also told me he had finally got a computer laptop that one of his sons had given him, he said” I just have to figure how to use it . I gave him a few lessons on how to start, he said he was going to order an internet service the very next day. I never asked him and he never told me what health problems he had, but at least he had plans for the future and was doing something about it. I told him i would help him with the computer if he wanted, he said he would accept the help, but haven’t heard from him since. I will give him a call and see hows he doing.
I told Paul that i would help him sell his paintings by putting them for sale on my website, the first thing i asked him was, “Do you have a price for your pantings?” that’s when he said he didn’t know, that he would tell me later. So i am waiting for the price.

Paul past away in 2016

Here’s a comment left by his daughter in the original post

Juan
theneonsignguyblog@gmail.com
172.89.215.131
In reply to cindy parssinen.I just read your comment and I am truly saddened to hear of your loss and would like to express my sincere condolences to you and your family on the passing of your father, he was a very good person and real artist. Thank You for letting me know. Sorry that it took me so much time to answer your comment.

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cindy parssinen
heycindyp@gmail.com
174.208.0.81
Hi my Name is Cindy Paul was my Dad he past a year ago this past April..I read your story and the nice things you said…I’m the oldest of six I loved your work too…Cindy

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