At nearly 70 years-old, Dean Gioia says he’s feeling pleasantly surprised. “I guess I never believed it would work out like this,” he says. He looks around at his elegant home, smiles at his three large poodles and fondles a brindle cat. His paintings, lush landscapes, sun-spackled sea vistas, lonely houses and pensive people hang on the walls. Others are stacked against baseboards and cupboards. Art is everywhere.

Gioia works from this house in northeast Tallahassee. It is near Meridian Road; near Forest Meadows. And near the natural environment that he says has inspired him ever since he was a boy. But the man many consider Tallahassee’s most important and successful professional artist didn’t come to call himself a painter until his mid-20s. “Before that,” he laughs, “I was looking for ways not to be employed.”