PREV     of     NEXT  RAY GERRING This Ray Gerring painting, "New Era," will appear on wine labels of Kent's Soos Creek Wine Cellars. Ray Gerring, 79, is legally blind.

For Ray Gerring, the days are getting brighter.

Gerring is the 79-year-old artist who became legally blind in December 2004, and overcame deep depression to start painting again, literally painting an inch away from the canvas.

Now one of his paintings will be featured on the label of a local boutique winemaker — David Larsen, owner of Soos Creek Wine Cellars in Kent — who read a recent profile of Gerring and called him up.

They got together at Gerring's home in Shoreline and found a quick friendship in something they had in common: their passion for art, although for each man it came in a different way.

For Gerring, art had been about drawing sketches as a child at the dining-room table; going to art school; working as a commercial artist and advertising-agency art director; and teaching art for 24 years at Seattle Central Community College.

All those years, he painted on his own, too. His wife of 58 years, June, became accustomed to a home filled with canvases and art supplies.

For David Larsen, 58, who retired from Boeing's financial department in 2004, art is about wine making. He was a longtime member of the Boeing Employees Wine and Beer Makers Club.

He says he enjoys the entire process of making wine, from buying the grapes to refining his palate. In 1989, he started a small winery on his property.

Larsen says making good wine was a way to express himself. He has earned accolades from wine critics.

"Some of the same attributes that apply to wine also apply to paintings, like depth, texture, complexity, which relates to the flavors in a wine," said Larsen.

He produces some 14,000 bottles of wine a year — all reds — that retail from $20 to $35 a bottle.

One of his wines he calls the Artist Series, with the label featuring a painting. Gerring's art will be on 6,000 of those bottles that will be marketed in 2007 and now are fermenting in barrels. The Artist Series is a blend of cabernet, merlot, cabernet franc and petite verdot.

For his art work, Gerring will get a case of wine worth more than $300 and his name on the label.

Larsen said previous artists have made other sales of their work from having their name on the label.

What it's about, said Gerring, is validation.

It seems fitting that the painting Larsen chose is the first one Gerring did as he rose out of depression in March 2005.

Although legally blind because of a blockage of circulation that drains blood from the retina, he has some vision. He can't see details, and outlines have turned into grays. Abstract paintings on large canvases still allow him to do his art.

Gerring also has been contacted by others with vision problems who had been used to working in detail. A woman in Chicago even called, he said, about writing a book on him.

The name that Gerring chose for the painting that'll be on the label also seems fitting.

It's "New Era."

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company