Opus 1572, Doug Stuber, 2007 48 x 48 inches
Andrea Gomez, the angel who kept Artsramble going, but now has to stop (probably to go back to painting more herself — yeah!) once called me an enigma. That's a lot since we've still never met. Now she's allowing me to critique myself, and, like the full-bore idiot I am, here we go:
The problem with Doug Stuber's art is that it is inconsistent. This wouldn't be a problem if he just hid the bad ones or painted over them, as others do. Still, he feels free to show whatever his emotions produce, and let the chips fall where they may.
Why?"
Well, in 1974, at 16, Stuber took about 400 pills: Nembutal, Secanol, Thorazine, Valium, etc. with a quart of Tanqueray Gin. This was NOT a plea for help. This was suicide attempt #1. Let's forget #2 and 3, and jump straight to how and why he started to paint. Between 1974 and 1983 Stuber spent seven years in mental hospitals, including a six-years-straight stint from 1977 to 1983. Boredom creaped in quickly, and one of the few things patients were allowed to do was "crafts." but at Austin Riggs Center (Stockbridge, Mass) the crafts were highly refined, and painting class with Leo Garel became the highlight of Stuber's week. He often walked straight past his appointed solo therapy time to paint instead. It was his way of hinting to the doctors that painting was going to free his mind quicker than their mumbo-jumbo.
Stuber worked in watercolors under Garel's eye, and later helped Garel in his studio. In 1979 Stuber was forced out of Austin Riggs, as they had declared himincurable. He wound up at Anclote Manor (Tarpon Srpings, Fl.) (a hospital so bad the state of Florida revoked its license and closed it, in 1994). Completely trapped, with no studio time, no outdoor time, and plenty of murderers and rapists as roommates, Stuber took to painting and writing to keep his sanity in a nuthouse that was nuttier than most, as all patients were those other long term mental hospitals (like The Menninger Clinic, McLeans, Chestnut Lodge) had given up on.
Schizo-effective disorder is a lot worse than bi-polar, as the highs are psychotic mania and the lows are known as catatonic. These jumps from super high to super low could be triggered in Stuber by major stress or nothing at all. One catatonic state lasted six months, the next, two days, etc. Still, when lucid, and able to move under the weight of 4000 milligrams of Thorazine per day, Stuber painted.
Eventually the drugs were reduced and given upentirely. Still, the paintings kept coming, and it was the outdoor art circuit in Florida that would be his ticket to some days of freedom from Anclote Manor. After five years inside he won the ability to show his art around Tampa Bay, and a year after that he fled Anclote to attend the University of Florida, majoring in journalism, but still showing art almost every weekend around the state.
"Who cares, how does he paint, I mean is it worth looking at?"
In spurts I do good paintings."Opus 1572" (Image at top of article.)
What's good is that there is an ibis-billed bird I the lower right hand corner. With animals or other recognizable items, the abstractions become more accessible. This one has a tiny bit of red running through the "bird" that is pure luck. Pure luck is what I thrive on. Pure luck has kept me alive this long.
By not thinking, planning, sketching or refining, editing or brushing in details, I hope to stick to an expressionist credo that is WAY STRICT. You can't work over the same painting for a week or months and still call it expressionism, as TOO MANY different emotions will be expressed in the painting, resulting in an expressionist version of the watercolorist's "brown-grey-brown" muck that ends up expressing nothing by being overlaid with too many emotions.
My emotions change quickly to this day (ask Sarah Powers if seeking further details) so in order to make a clean expression, I have to do it all at one time. Opus 1572 has a yellow background, but the rest of the painting was done in "one shot." One shot of VERY CAREFULLY mixed colors, thrown on in a manner that I can anticipate will be aesthetically pleasing, but with no guarantee that it will be.
"How about one that didn't come out?" OK, Opus 1375, from 2003:
I bought the underlying art paper from Harvey Mercanocodacio (sp) at his short-lived art paper store on Main St. in Durham. It got poly-acrylic-ed on a little sideways, STRIKE ONE. And then, except for the yellow-orange, rearing up, smiling snake monster in the lower right hand corner, there are few, if any animals, or other features that stand out. STIRKE TWO. The Poly-acrylic also leaked the paper color, which would be fine (all mistakes are in this game) but the leak hit the edge of the canvas and traveled left, rather than flowing off. I could have taken a brush to it while it leaked and made a better design, but I was on to the next work, and didn't catch this one in time (STRIKE THREE).
"But you're just copying Pollack"
When I first started the watercolors, they were with Pentel Watercolor pens, and I'd make these coolio post-Kandinsky color lines and then wash them with tiny amounts of water on thick soft brushes. But I'd never heard of Kandinsky, and I had sure never heard of Pollack when I grew the size and expressionist flair of the paintings in 1977 and 1978 under Garel. Just before I got kicked out of Austin Riggs, Leo showed his whole class a slide show, and there were both Pollack and Kandinsky. Well, OK then I knew who they were.
Thus, the battle has been to go beyond Pollack, and try to make a nice clean expression that is not "automatic." I mean Pollack, once he started dripping (Max Ernst was the first to dabble in drip art) had these thick designs that "could not fail" once they were accepted into the fold. His drips were so thick that the patterns were bound to seem repeated, and he wanted to repeat, as he had a market for this stuff, etc. If I made the same type of drips every time, it would be like admitting my thinking and emotions were the same every day. Wow, it would be a lie.
To me expressionism is the one place (even within the art world, the only place) that allows the artist to express her-his TRUE FEELINGS without embellishment, editing, worrying about her-his "audience" or "sales."
"How are you gonna get a gallery this way wise-ass?"
I don't always have galleries. Sometimes it's hard for me to pick which paintings are "good." (Luckily Kwang Suk Park often intervenes to make sure I don't over-paint, and to pick the "good ones now). But now, just now, after 1572 paintings, I am finally hitting a stride where most of them actually are good.
which just jumped onto Dawn Simmon's wall outside Savannah after she saw it at (YUMMY) Saladelia in Durham.
In "Peliphant" a bee landed, got stuck and died RIGHT WHERE the eye of the bird should be. Again, I was off to do something else by the, but geesh, I felt bad about the bee (there are so few left) yet amazed it picked the exact eye of the Peliphant as its final resting place.
In my book it takes a lot of practice and balls to let it go all in one or two shots. The above piece (1372) was executed in two shots. One was a mixture of a brown oil stain and white acrylic that made a type of pig, and the other was black and white acrylic that made a type of bird on top of the pig., and the pig's tail, kind of.
I promised everyone who bought my paintings between 1978 and 1983 that I'd never stop, and one day their $100 investments would be worth something. If not worth more money, at least worth it in terms of helping another human find a place on this earth.
Gomez is right. Stuber's an enigma. Not enigmatic (that's too soft) but a true enigma, crusty edges and all.
It's been 1572 paintings and counting.
20 newspapers and magazines written for.
17 bands (but only three songs recorded, but still, eight years on the road)
Four poetry books.
Three Presidential Campaigns (East Coast Coordinator, Jerry Brown, 1992; Ralph Nader, New York, 1996; Ralph Nader, NC, 2000)
Two films - one on the homeless population of Roanoke VA, the other about a fictional armadillo migration from Mexico to Florida.
One son, James Hyuntay Stuber, born November 12, 2005 (he's in for a ride).
And this year, finally this year, an exhibit in Berlin, and a colony and more exhibits in Macedonia.
Honest. That's the miracle of life. No matter what happened the day before, if you think positively, and persist, ANYTHING can happen, and it often does, and sometimes the very next day. Observe: Kwang Suk Park. Boddhisatvas do exist. Thanks Yobo.
1. Constance Pappalardo Says:
April 8th, 2007 at 7:48 pm e
I am speechless Doug. Thanks. Your honest self-portrait is very moving and inspiring.
Your closing paragraph hit home and I will forever keep those words close to my heart. For those days we all know too well.
Damn Pollack! You da man!
2. Mary Mendell Says:
April 14th, 2007 at 8:55 am e
Doug, thank you for this moving statement on the power of art to help us deal with our lives.
3. inox_art Says:
April 14th, 2007 at 4:30 pm e
1372 & 1572 are very cool. Noticed our backgrounds seem to have a similar feel, so I think I can appreciate what you’ve been through. Well done!
Konrad
