| Full Text | Mike Pease BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE July 1991 Mike Pease spent most of his pre-college years either in San Francisco, where he was born, or high in the California Sierras where his father had a fox ranch for many years. "I still find that early mixture of Sierra wilderness and San Francisco urbanity to be very much part of me" says Pease, "and much of my life has been directed toward resolving my urge to be part of both those worlds." Pease's interest in art surfaced at an early age and was supported by both parents. His father was an artist, and in his mother's family there were many artists, including one, Julio Ruelas, whose paintings are well known in Mexico. However, the art instruction he received in public schools was discouraging, and he dismissed thoughts of art as a career, deciding instead to pursue architecture. Pease completed the architecture program at UC Berkeley in 1961, and embarked on a long career in that field. He worked both as a practitioner and a teacher of architecture, focusing especially on housing and community design issues, and on the possibilities for integrating architecture with nature. Freehand drawing has always been an important aspect of Pease's working method in architecture, and he has taught freehand drawing--to architecture students and others--for most of his adult life. Though he began selling small drawings and watercolors in the early seventies, Pease really began the shift to art as a profession in 1980. At that time, spurred by an urge to do large drawings of the Willamette Valley, he began experimenting with Prismacolor pencils--long part of the architect's tool-kit--as a fine art medium. His experiments were satisfying, and he began exhibiting through galleries. Now, more than ten years later, Pease still does small architecture projects for friends, and, occasionally, consults on larger projects, but he spends most of his professional time as an artist, creating drawings in Prismacolor, watercolor, and other media, and, since 1985, making prints. His work has been widely exhibited, in both solo and group shows, and his drawings and prints are in private, public, institutional, and corporate collections throughout the US and abroad. |
