George Broderick counts his nearly 90 years in several ways.

Yes, he turns 90 in May 2024.

But he celebrates a different date in April — a month that, in 2023, marked 45 years of being sober.

It was that turning point that also led him to art, he said, sitting in the gallery he opened in November in downtown Baker City.

A start in chemistry

Broderick was born in 1934 in Helena, Montana, and lived at Last Chance Gulch where his father was an electrician for the mining operation. His family was provided a house — a valuable perk during the Great Depression, Broderick said.

The family moved to the Comet Mine in Boulder, Montana, in 1938, then to Canyon Ferry Dam in 1940.

Then America entered the war.

“I remember the radio broadcast of Pearl Harbor,” he said.

The family lived a few more places — back to Helena and Boulder, then Butte — and in 1951 Broderick headed east to attend the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon). He studied chemistry until 1953, then he returned west to study at Montana State University in Bozeman until 1955, when he switched to the University of Montana in Missoula.

In 1956, he went to work for Boeing in Seattle. And, looking back after 45 sober years, Broderick said alcohol was affecting his life at that point.

“I was drinking a good deal,” he said.

He remembers thinking about what he wanted to accomplish. But alcohol controlled him.

“I went across the street and had a drink. That’s what I did for years,” he said.

At Boeing, he worked on the problem of how different hydraulic fluids would affect O-rings, with one variety causing the rubber to disintegrate. He helped figure out how to vulcanize rubber so the O-rings were not affected by the different types of hydraulic fluids.

“That saved Boeing big bucks,” he said.

Serving his country

In 1957, he signed up for the U.S. Army.

“I had total loyalty to my country,” he said.

He trained as a medic, and was stationed 50 kilometers outside of Paris, France, at a medical depot.

“We could mobilize as a hospital,” he said.

And it was there, on the weekends when he secured a pass to visit Paris, that he learned to appreciate art.

“Every time I’d go to the Louvre,” he said.

He had a favorite painting.

“I’d go check on the Mona Lisa,” he said with a smile.

But he didn’t neglect other parts of the famous art museum.

“I didn’t know anything about art,” he said. “I’d section the Louvre and every time I’d take a different section.”

He grew up with classical piano, thanks to his mother, and said he was always drawn to the arts. But he worried about what people would think of his creations, so he never created his own.

A path in computers

He was discharged in 1959, and stayed with a friend in Vallejo, California. Soon he found himself at the Shell Development Company in Emeryville, California, where he worked as a lab assistant to a chemist who figured out how to make synthetic rubber and went to night school at the University of San Francisco.

“We were finding a new way to make plastic,” he said.

In 1963 he returned to school, this time to study math at Montana State. He graduated in 1965 and worked as a computer programmer for the Montana Highway Division.

“Those were the great days of computers — it was moving so fast and I was right in the middle of it,” he said.

In 1967 he moved to Utah to be the data processing manager for Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City, and in 1969 he returned to Boeing in Seattle.

To Hawaii, and sobriety

In 1970, Broderick moved to Hilo, Hawaii, to be a systems programmer for C. Brewer and Co., which managed sugar cane plantations, a cattle ranch and a fertilizer plant.

And that’s where he came to terms with his drinking.

“My drinking was getting really bad,” he said.

He moved to Honolulu in 1975, and three years later he gave up.

“I remember thinking I can’t stop drinking,” he said. “Two days later, in the same spot, I said ‘I’m no good. I’ll drink and die.'”

He almost did.

He drank heavily for several months. Then a shower changed his life.

“When the water hit me, I had a grand mal seizure,” he said. “I know that my heart stopped. Then another seizure hit and started it again.”

He found himself on the bathroom floor.

“I know I was on the brink of death,” he said. “I was willing myself to live.”

He was taken to the hospital and decided to choose a different path.

“As I was laying there, I called AA,” he said. “In 1978, I got sober.”

He became a regular attendee of Alcoholics Anonymous.

“I dove into AA wholeheartedly,” he said. “I saw those 12 steps on the wall and thought that’s a sensible program to find out who I am.”

He will celebrate 46 years sober in April 2024, a month before he turns 90.

And he’s still a work in progress.

“I’m still trying to figure out who I am,” he said with a smile.

He has, however, learned more about himself along the year — including why he turned to alcohol in his younger years.

“I realized all my life I wanted an escape,” he said. “When I was 15 years old, I was a popular kid in everyone else’s eyes but mine.”

Turning to art

With a new outlook on life, Broderick decided to face his fears of being critiqued.

“I was finally able to paint and not care what people thought,” he said.

He created his first piece with spray paint, markers and house paint. Although he wanted to hide it away, he decided to leave it out during a gathering at his house.

“That was the major turning point in my entire life,” he said. “I chose art.”

He expanded his arts supplies.

“I bought some acrylic paint and a canvas,” he said.

He painted a Trojan horse.

“Which hangs in our living room now,” he said.

He has several large-scale paintings on display in the gallery — he uses bold, bright colors and paints highly stylized figures. This distortion, he said, “reflects how the individuals think other people see them.”

Next steps

He shifted gears and studied at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco.

Then he came north to Oregon, first to Burns in 1985. Then, in 1990 he entered a drug and alcohol counseling program at Eastern Oregon State College.

He graduated in 1992 and worked at the Baker House detox center in Baker City, and later turned to art full time with galleries in Baker, La Grande Walla Walla until 2003, when he opened a gallery in Portland.

“I have so many great memories of that gallery,” he said.

He returned to Baker City in 2017. He’s had a gallery in several locations, and a nasty fall on the ice in 2019 disrupted his plan for a bit.

“I’d driven the femur clear through the pelvis,” he said.

But now he’s back in the art gallery world at 1829 Main St.

His own work is joined by artists from Cuba, Chile and Scotland.

“I have all this art on commission from around the world,” he said.

And he loves to talk about art.

“I like when people come in and I can explain about the art,” he said. “I like educating.”

Broderick Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, and stays open late for the First Friday art walks each month. For updates, visit www.broderickgallery.com.