Everything Old is Young Again
Written By Kelly Barbazette
A
fter running Young Sign Company for the past 30
years, second generation Gilroyan Richard Young
is setting his sights on retirement and returning to
one of his first loves – creating art.
The Young family’s roots are deeply embedded in the
garlic town, 80-year-old Young says. The Young family began
in Gilroy when his grandfather moved to the area in the
late 1800s. In fact, his name is in the archives in the Gilroy
Museum.
“We have had a Young in the GUSD from 1900 to our
oldest daughter graduating in the late ‘80s,” Young said.
Young’s current home, which he purchased about 55 years
ago, is just a stone’s throw away from his childhood home on
Carmel Street. Young says he has fond memories of playing
football with neighborhood friends on his street when the
town stopped at Miller Avenue and orchards sprouted as far
as the eye could see.
His business, Young Sign Company, is a downtown fixture
having been located on Eigleberry Street, since 1945 when
his Dad, Elmer, purchased the building for his budding
custom sign business. His father, who also was an artist, got
his first job designing movie posters for the Strand Theater.
Young took classes from the same art teacher at Gilroy
High School as did his father. He went on to study art at San
Jose State University, earning his Bachelor’s degree in art. He
also earned a Master’s degree in painting from SJSU and a
teaching credential in art education. Young taught sculpture,
painting, and computer graphics at Gavilan College from
1970 through 1994.
Young’s work has been featured in art exhibits in many
museums throughout the country, including in Monterey,
San Jose, Sacramento, Portland and Seattle. He says his
earliest works are more representative of reality while his later
work is more abstract.
Young’s watercolor and acrylic paintings, and multi-
dimensional sculptures fill his home and backyard. They
range from four-by-four watercolors to acrylic paintings
awash with purple to a sculpture o f primary color blocks
nestled in his garden. Young says of the last piece that he
tried to depict tension.
“Everything is not evenly stacked. It’s not perfectly
balanced,” Young said.
Young says after he took over Young Sign Company
in the mid 1980s from his dad, who was semi-retired at
the time, he had little time for art.
His art halted all together when his wife of 27 years,
Carolyn, passed away in 1985. Young says he lost all of
his artistic sensibilities at that time and instead focused
solely on raising his three daughters and running his
business.
Running has also been a constant thread through his
life for the past 50 years. Young helped start a running
club in Gilroy in 1974 and still runs with some of the
same men.
“I think the neatest thing in life is meeting new
people, building a relationship with people and spreading
my horizons,” Young said.
Today, he enjoys taking trips with his daughters,
living and working in his hometown, and spending time
in his peaceful backyard patio where he has a view of his
fruitless mulberry tree and his primary colors sculpture.
“I will try to re-engage myself in the next few years
back into art,” Young said. “And perhaps one of the ways
of doing it is maybe teach a class in the evenings at the
college again.”
He says he looks to retire from his sign business with-
in the next three to five years.
“It will be sad to leave it. Probably I will stick around
for a couple of years,” he said.
Young says he doesn’t see himself leaving Gilroy, but
said he would like to travel more.
“I’ve had a great blessed life,” Young said. “I’ve had a
wonderful life, and wonderful wife and mother for my
children. I’m lucky. I have no complaints.”
“I think the neatest thing in life is meeting
new people, building a relationship with people
and spreading my horizons.”
88
G M H T O D A Y M A G A Z I N E
MAY / JUNE 2015
gmhtoday.com