Please be patient as the video loads

Juan Peréz plants himself on Columbus Avenue in the South End capturing street scenes. He often paints the flower arrangements outside Lotus Designs.

Artist at heart shows a flair for fare

By Marcela Elisa Garcia, Globe Correspondent | September 25, 2005

For many people, going to work every day at Fenway Park is as good as it gets -- a dream job.

For Juan Perez, a Dominican chef who cooks for the VIP suites in the beloved park, it's a great job -- but still short of his dream. It's not that he doesn't enjoy cooking for celebrities like Matt Damon and Steven Tyler, or for Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner, who often watch games from the suites.

It's that Perez, a restless, charming 56-year-old, is really an artist by nature and vocation, and his dream would be making a living through art.

''An ideal day for me would be painting all day," Perez said on a recent Saturday afternoon, as he stood in front of his easel trying to capture the beauty of a display outside a flower shop in the South End, where he lives. ''But I can't -- I have to work to support myself, and there is not a lot of money in painting."

It's the dilemma so many people face; whether to do what they love and enjoy, or to choose a less satisfying job to make a good living.

Perez and his family immigrated to the Corona neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., from the small town of Bella Vista in the Dominican Republic when he was 9 in hope of a better future.

Perez knew at a very young age that he was meant to be a painter. He had a passion for art and an eye for form and texture; his mother was a clothes designer and his father a tailor.

After taking classes at the renowned Art Students League in Manhattan, he applied to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He was awarded a full scholarship and, four years later, the museum school's diploma.

After graduating, he traveled, exhibited his oil paintings, and taught art in public schools and in prisons. Perez found that he could work only when prompted by his muse, stirred by ''a gesture, a movement"; he couldn't force his art and paint by assignment. He soon realized he couldn't afford to live on painting alone anymore, and found a solution by chance.

In the mid-'80s, a friend invited him to lunch at the now-defunct Devon on the Common, then an upscale fixture on Boylston Street. Perez was so impressed with the beauty of high-end food that he decided he had to learn how to make it.
''The food on the plates was so beautifully displayed that I realized that it was art. I said to my friend, 'I have to meet the person who does this,' " recalled Perez.

So Perez became the apprentice of famous Boston chef and entrepreneur Danny Wisel, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. From the mid-'80s until the late '90s, he worked under Wisel while the restaurateur opened culinary ventures such as Rosalita's in Harvard Square, Armadillo Cafe on Commonwealth Avenue, and Rocco's.

During that time, Perez learned all the magic and tricks of the trade.

''Wisel taught me everything I know," said Perez. ''But being in the restaurant business is difficult. They use you up, and the hours are terrible."

So, eight years ago, Perez found a less demanding job as a chef with Gourmet Catering, the concessionaire at Fenway Park, cooking mostly ballpark food.
When John Henry and partners bought the Red Sox three years ago, the concession contract went to Aramark, which kept Perez on staff.

''From the beginning, Juan said to me, 'I'm not available from January to mid-March: those are my painting months,' " said Michael Gueiss, executive chef for Aramark at Fenway.

Unfortunately for ''Juan the painter," but fortunately for ''Juan the chef," there is always work at Fenway Park, even when the Red Sox aren't playing. There are weddings, corporate functions, and other events that need to be catered.

Perez, who rose through the ranks and is now a chef supervisor, arrives around 3 p.m. on game days at the fourth-floor kitchen, where the food for the .406 Club, the Volvo Hall of Fame, and the fifty-one (including four VIP) suites is produced.

As he chopped 24 tomatoes, three red onions, and a bunch of cilantro in 30 minutes to make his legendary salsa fresca one day this summer, Perez talked about the similarities between his two professions.

''This is how I communicate, through art, whether by cooking frijoles negros con mango or painting the urban scene I see through my window at home," Perez explained enthusiastically, as he added fresh lime juice and a little bit of chipotle to his salsa. Perez will continue to pursue his passion for painting. His most recent exhibition was in 2000, when his ''Art for the Blind" series showed at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge.

''I keep practicing and practicing, repeating and repeating a painting until I'm satisfied," said Perez, a little frustrated after two hours of trying to portray an arrangement of lilies and sunflowers.

In the meantime, he still has his famous pico de gallo and smoked quesadilla to express himself with.

Marcela Elisa Garcia is a staff writer for the Spanish-language weekly El Planeta.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
 

JUAN PEREZ | 573 Mass Ave., #2 | Boston, MA 02118
Telephone 617-880-9532 | e-mail: info@juanperezart.com