George Zaffle and Sakura Aoki – Zaffle Painting Studios

faux and decorative painting

Before finding his true calling as a decorative painter, George Zaffle earned degrees in journalism and foreign language at Ohio University. After his 1981 graduation, he bicycled out to California where he met a fellow cyclist named Larry Boyce, who also happened to be one of this country’s top decorative painters. Soon joining ranks with further fellow cyclists, Ken Huse and Emma Wright, the foursome became Larry Boyce and Associates, with whom George learned his trade while cycling throughout the Western states. Inspired by America’s itinerant 19th century decorative painters, they traveled from town to town, knocking on doors, finding willing venues for their period style stenciling schemes in grand Victorian rooms encountered along the way. Their fine work and unusual lifestyle garnered a great deal of national attention ranging from television’s Today Show and Evening Magazine, to Smithsonian Magazine, Old House Journal, the New York Times, and local and regional newspapers and magazines across America, which led to high-profile commissions including residences for Bette Midler, Jessica McClintock, Danny Glover, Steve Jobs as well as the restoration of the historic Office of the Vice President in Washington, D.C.

Later, while serving apprenticeships with several master painters, George worked on numerous other restorations, including churches, hotels, government spaces and private residences. He went on to attend the Van der Kelen School in Brussells, Belgium, considered the world’s finest school of decorative painting. He has mastered many painting, and plaster, techniques, including those used for murals, true fresco, trompe l’oeil, gold leaf, faux finishes such as marbleizing and wood graining, specialty plasters such as Venetian and lime-based, and old-world cabinetry and furniture finishes. In 1987, George started his own decorative painting company, often collaborating with other craftspeople.

Since 1986, George has shared his skills as a teacher, teaching decorative painting at the University of California, Berkeley from 1986 through 1998, working with the Joanne Day Studio in San Francisco, and for various private schools across America and Europe. He has been an instructor/lecturer at the International Decorative Artisans League since 1992 and a Member of The Salon, an international group of artisans begun in Europe, since 2000. George met fellow master decorative painter Sakura Aoki of Japan at a Salon meeting in Denmark in 2007, fell in love and teamed up as painting partners working on various grand projects in California and even joined a group creating the ornament for the King of Qatar’s new palace in Doha. George and Sakura continue the grand tradition of fine craftsmanship to this day with no sign of slowing down. Have brush, will travel.