VALLEY — A LaGrange man who discovered a hidden talent for art while working as a sign painter in south Florida will be one of the exhibitors at the upcoming Fall Into the Holidays art show presented by the Valley Arts Council on the weekend of November 2nd and 3rd. Richard Deal will be one of more than 60 artists from the east Alabama-west Georgia region who will have their works on display.
Deal is originally from West Palm Beach, Florida. He did a lot of odd jobs when he was young. One of them opened up a whole new world for him.
“I was hired as a sign painter’s helper,” he explained. “He hired me to help him paint billboards. It got the smell of oil-based paint in my blood, and it’s never left me. I love it and love being around it.”
Sign painting runs in Deal’s family. His grandfather on his mother’s side was a sign painter in Dayton, Ohio. “He made a pretty good living at it during the Depression,” he said. “He painted a lot of Coca-Cola signs. He had his own sign-painting business.”