Artist-welder Paul Perez dies at 65

By MEG McCONAHEY

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

An experienced and artistic welder, it seemed that Paul Perez could fabricate anything, from a whimsical group of metal

Paul Perez (COURTESY PHOTO)

goats playing cards and drinking wine out on Lambert Bridge Road to the installation of a flying saucer that appears to be crash-landing through the roof of a convenience store in Lathrop, spilling out little green men. The saucer, which he was responsible for shoring up, has gained a reputation as one of the state’s odder roadside attractions.

“We’ve done some whacky projects over the years,” commercial theme designer Greg Duncan said of Perez. His longtime friend and associate died Feb. 10 at home in Healdsburg after a two-year battle with brain cancer.

The 65-year-old Perez’s work is visible all over Sonoma County, from the black raven beckoning patrons to Healdsburg’s Raven Theater to the wrought-iron and metal fencing gracing the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

Duncan, chief designer for the county fair’s Hall of Flowers, turned to Perez again and again to fabricate a lot of the infrastructure and decorative metalwork that contributed to the magic inside the hall.

Most recently he created two 12-foot-tall arched steel gateways that served as the grand entry to The Hall of Flowers display last summer.

“Whenever I needed something that involved serious welding, I went to him,” said Duncan. The two men also frequently traveled to Mexico to unwind on the beach.

Born in Palo Alto to a Mexican father and French mother, Paul Richard Perez moved to Sonoma County after serving as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army. He studied welding and metalwork at Santa Rosa Junior College and then started his own fabrication business, specializing in landscape elements like gates, fences and trellises.

Diana Stratton, one of the many landscape designers with whom he worked over the years, said he did the rusted-steel trellises and other components for a project in Alexander Valley that won a landscape design award from Sunset Magazine.

“He was just a really nice man. Everyone who worked with him or was friends with him thought he was just a very kind, sweet man. But over and above that, he was also very humble. I would draw up details in my plans, but I could also just show him a concept and he could figure it out,” Stratton said.

After moving to Sonoma County, Perez lived in Forestville and later Healdsburg. In recent years he started fabricating some of his own ideas and designs, including a series of corkscrew sculptures.

Perez is survived by a daughter, Catalina Perez of Healdsburg; his sisters, Louise Hughes of San Francisco and Jeannette Almas of Stockton; and his brother, George Perez of France.