John and Heather Stubbs
Art and Music Join Hands at Studio Stubbs
Studio Stubbs, just south of Castleton, is the home and workspace of John and Heather Stubbs. They teach music and art, paint detailed, realistic pictures and maintain a small custom framing business.
Heather is the musician. She studied voice and piano at the University of British Columbia, and received her Bachelor of Music degree there in 1971. She performed for several years, mostly in concerts and musicals, until she married John in 1987 and moved to Toronto to live. There she attended the University of Toronto and graduated with a Bachelor of Education degree in 1989.
In 1991 John and Heather heard the call of the country, and chose Northumberland County as their home. They love it here! John traded his business suits for jeans, and his briefcase for an artist's paintbox. He had painted since childhood. Now he could do it full time.
Heather taught for four years at Castleton Public School, until her instincts told her that both she and the community would be better served if she concentrated on teaching music. It was a good decision. For a small community, the demand for music instruction is high, and Studio Stubbs has a full schedule and a waiting list for voice and piano students.
Ongoing training at the Royal Conservatory of Music keeps Heather current and helps meet the student needs for the 40-plus lessons that she teaches each week from September to June in the teaching year.
John did not intend to teach art. Drawing and painting have always been part of his life, and he studied for a time at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Montreal. He uses realistic images to communicate his ideas, and people say they see echoes of Andrew Wyeth and Alex Colville in his work. John claims that it doesn't matter whether a picture is non-representational or realistic or anything in between. What matters is whether or not the picture takes hold of the person who looks at it.
Paintings by John Stubbs
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John's work has taken hold of a few people, some of whom asked if he would teach them or their children drawing and painting. So began the art instruction part of Studio Stubbs, which now has about twenty young students in the eight to teen-age range, plus a few adults. A number of students have spent several years studying at Studio Stubbs.
In one of life's happy surprises, Heather decided she would like to try her hand with a brush. That was in late 1994, and for Christmas that year she received her own starter set of artist's materials. Six years later her work is displayed along with John's at Studio Stubbs. Most folk can't tell who did which picture without looking at the signature. John has occasionally been heard to say, ìI must hurry and catch up with her, for I am her teacher!î
Paintings by Heather Stubbs
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Heather and John both produce pictures in familiar media like watercolour and oil. They also use media that is less familiar, like silverpoint drawing, egg tempera painting and Chinese ink.
Silverpoint, which dates to a time before there were graphite pencils, is drawing with a silver or other metal point on paper that has been coated by the artist with a mixture of gelatin and white zinc oxide, plus a pinch of pigment to tint the paper. Renaissance artists produced charming and delicate images using this technique. It works as well now as it did then, even though it is little practised anymore.
Egg tempera is an even more ancient method, dating back to the Greeks and the ancient Egyptians. Any paint is a combination of pigment for colour plus a binder to keep the pigment in place. The pigment colours are the same for all paints. The binder determines the type of paint. Oil paint uses linseed oil as a binder. Watercolour uses a substance called gum Arabic. Egg tempera uses the yolk of fresh eggs to hold the pigment to the painted surface. This antique method is ideally suited to the detailed realism that is in so much of John and Heather's work.
Chinese ink (a mixture of pine soot and glue) has been around for thousands of years. John uses it to paint traditional Chinese style landscapes, including his own Chinese calligraphy.
For more information about Studio Stubbs and the work and teachings of John and Heather Stubbs, contact them at stubbsjh@xplornet.com