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HOWLAND -- Pete Vouvounas is the father of two grown children, he's been married for 56 years and he worked for nearly that long for Alcan / Novelis aluminum in Warren.
He's been an artist even longer.
Go to a group show at Trumbull Art Gallery or Art on Park in downtown Warren, and there's a good chance one of Vouvounas' acrylic paintings will be part of the exhibition.
He's had solo shows at such places as Trumbull New Theatre in Niles and the Warren and Newton Falls libraries, and about 30 of his paintings can be seen for the next three months at Havana House in Niles.
Vouvounas, 76, has had an interest in art for as long as he can remember.
"When I was a child, when I was in grade school, my teachers saw that I had some kind of a talent," he said. "They asked me and some of the kids to help with the murals during Christmas, Thanksgiving, stuff like that.
"I remember either Look or Life magazine had an article on Vincent Van Gogh. I saw his paintings in the magazine and I was just awestruck with the colors and his thickness of paint. My style is similar to his. I was probably 12 or 13 when I saw that article."
When Art on Park did an exhibition last August called "A Nod to the Masters," Vouvounas recreated Van Gogh's final self-portrait along with Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and one of Pablo Picasso's works.
Vouvounas, who now lives in Howland, graduated from Warren G. Harding High School in 1965. But as one of nine children, the family didn't have the money for art school. He's a self-taught artist who supported himself and his family with a job at Alcan. He was a factory worker for years before becoming its safety facilitator, and he was active with the union.
Despite the demands of working and raising a family, Vouvounas never abandoned his love of art.
"When everybody would be in bed, I would be in the cellar painting," he said.
In the beginning, Vouvounas did a lot of sports paintings -- boxing, baseball and football -- and he also created paintings of musicians and movie stars. The Havana House exhibition includes paintings of Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, B.B. King and others.
However, growing up in Warren continues to be an inspiration in his work. His father was a bus driver, and in Vouvounas' street scenes, observant viewers will notice there's usually a bus going down the road, a nod to his father. He also likes to include vintage Packard automobiles in those paintings, a car with the make and model that reflects the era depicted in the work.
Those downtown paintings also are influenced by the job his father took when he was a teenager -- operating the Liberty Restaurant, which used to be on the corner of Franklin St. SW and Main Avenue SW.
It was a family business. Mom was a waitress, and the kids worked there, too. The restaurant was open 24 hours a day initially. Vouvounas said patrons would come there after the bars closed, order a cup of coffee and then pass out in one of the booths.
"We would have to kindly escort them out, if you know what I mean," he said.
He sometimes spent 16 hours a day at the restaurant in the summer, which in its own way prepared him for the solitary pursuit of art.
"When all my friends were out playing sports after school, I had to go down there until 10, 11 o'clock at night," he said. "That helped me get into my painting. I didn't have a chance to be with my friends because of having to work down there."
Whenever he had a break, he would wander around downtown or go shoot pool at a basement pool hall on East Market Street that he referred to as "the Hole."
He misses the thriving downtown Warren had in the 1950s and '60s.
"Downtown is starting to come back a little bit, but the malls ruined downtown," Vouvounas said.
Since he retired from Novelis in 2018, Vouvounas said he paints just about every day, either in his basement or every Thursday at Trumbull Art Gallery with the TAG Portrait Group.
He called his wife, Jacqueline, his biggest supporter.
"She'll be looking when I'm painting something and say, 'Something doesn't look right. You gotta do this,' or she'll say, 'Stop, you're overdoing it. You're going to ruin it.' She has a good eye. She helps me tremendously," he said.
At this point in his life, Vouvounas said he doesn't have any goals or aspirations. He just enjoys painting and hearing people's reactions to his work.
"I sell one every so often. That's not a big part of it," he said. "I'm a starving artist like most every other artist. I could care less if I sell one. I just like seeing people look at my art and talking to me about it."