October Issue 2000
Watauga Arts Council in Boone, NC, Presents a Retrospective Exhibition of Work by Richard Tumbleston
The Watauga County Arts Council will present a retrospective exhibition of works by Richard Tumbleston in The Jones House, Mazie Jones Gallery, in Boone, NC, from Oct. 4 through Oct. 28, 2000.
During the past ten years Richard Tumbleston has invested over half of his professional time publishing off-set lithographs of his highly detail paintings. Now the artist is beginning to make a shift back to concentrating on original works. The number of original paintings produced has been limited, due to his focus on reproductions, making it difficult for a large collection of Tumbleston's paintings to be gathered together for a one person exhibition.
"I am grateful to those connected to the Jones House for inviting me to show my work in the Mazie Jones Gallery. It has been ten years since my last one person exhibition, and eighteen years since my last major exhibit in Boone," Tumbleston comments. "Boone and the surrounding area has been a choice place to live and work for the past twenty-one years. May I express my thanks to all those who have supported and encouraged me during these years in the mountains. It is an honor for me to have this opportunity to show this retrospective collection of paintings in Boone."
The retrospective will feature over thirty-five original works. Among them will be recent works completed this year, drawings that were completed in the early sixties when the artist was twelve and fourteen years old, and even an abstract acrylic from his college studio art major stint. "I am looking forward to showing these earlier works; they have not been shown since I began working full-time as an artist in 1977. Most people will be surprised to see the abstract works; some will be shocked," states the artist. "They are a far cry from the representational work I have been doing during the past twenty-three years."
Each of the five egg tempera paintings in the exhibit features a figure or portrait of an individual. Egg tempera painting is an ancient medium revived by the American painter, Andrew Wyeth. Tumbleston remembers traveling up and down the eastern seaboard to see egg tempera paintings by his favorite artist, Andrew Wyeth. "Finally, after over fifteen years of looking and reading everything I could get my hands on about Wyeth's work, I did my first egg tempera painting in 1993," Tumbleston remembers. This small painting of an apple tree branch with apples that the artist saw one October afternoon on Monhegean Island off the coast of Maine will be displayed as well as the four egg tempera paintings that followed.
Egg tempera is accomplished by mixing pigments in their dry power form with distilled water and the yoke of an egg. This carefully blended mixture is applied to a panel prepared with multiple coats of titanium white and rabbit skin glue. Tumbleston applies tempera with small brushes weaving and cross-hatching thousands of brush strokes. The paint drys to the touch in seconds or less, and each passage of paint is transparent. "For me, one of the beauties of an egg tempera painting is that you can see through the layers of pigment; the light vibrates between these layers, adding depth and vibrancy," Tumbleston comments.
There is another medium Tumbleston works in that incorporates transparent glazes; it is the seldom used alkyd or griffin paints. The primary difference between egg tempera and alkyd is that alkyd drying time is slower so the paint can be blended on the surface like traditional oil paint before it drys. Alkyd can dry within minutes or a few hours depending on how it is applied, therefore repetitive glazes can be done more quickly than when using traditional oil paints.
Nine alkyd oils will be featured in the retrospective. Again the artist has used numerous layers of paint to create an aliveness difficult to accomplish in other painting mediums. Tumbleston often paints people he meets along the way. They are usually individuals who have worked outside most of their lives and who have acquired a high and refined integrity. These realities and qualities of the people he paints are evident in the artist's alkyds. Again, if you are accustomed to only seeing the images that have been published as limited edition reproductions, these paintings of people will speak to the innermost part of the self as you become introduced to these quietly done, and kept, paintings by the introspective artist. "I always have deep personal reasons and motivations for doing these paintings; and I am honored to have known profound individuals who exemplify qualities that I only dream of claiming as my own," the artist states, referring to the people in his paintings.
In addition to these paintings that have been seen by so few, five of the alkyd originals that have been reproduced as off-set lithographs will be shown. Hands of Service which features a lady's hands working on an old quilt top which was made in Watauga County will be on display. The limited edition of this painting is co-published with the North Carolina 4-H Youth Development.
Reverent Silence portrays Santa and a clothes-pin angel doll made by Catherine Cole of Boone; The Ancient One is a provocative summer afternoon landscape of the profile of Grandfather Mountain. Madison River Memories is an alkyd of the Madison River near West Yellowstone, Montana. This limited edition is a joint release with River Network, The Nature Conservancy, and The Madison Gallatin Wild Trout Foundation, with funds from sales going to a conservation effort on the blue ribbon trout fishery, the Madison River.
Last in this quintet is Tumbleston's most recent limited edition, The Carriage House at Cone Manor, which is a joint effort with the Blowing Rock Stage Company to raise funds for the new Blowing Rock Community Arts Center. Over seven hundred hours were invested in this painting to capture the details and drama of late afternoon winter light. Featured are the one hundred year old monumental carriage house and carriage trails that maze through the Blue Ridge Parkway landscape.
Referring to The Carriage House at Cone Manor, Tumbleston states: "I am drawn to this place, to these old buildings, and to these carriage trails, with a passion." The artist writes: "Recalling time spent on the carriage trails, we are cast into a drama. The drama is like one where we remember beloved ancestors... it is a drama where those ancient lives become intimately joined with the living, We come to know that the shape of our very presence is molded in the clay touched by hands that reached deep into the earth long before our first breath was taken. Perhaps art is doing some of its best work when it keeps us grounded, grounded to the earth, grounded to history, and to the narratives of one's life. Art encourages the questing person to go individually... to go with reverence... to go with awe to places where the old can be released and the new embraced. Yes, we, on the maze of our paths, move through places where soul, spirit, and the arts meet. And it is sacred ground... this place where we meet."
Words like those above, written by the artist, will accompany many of the paintings in the retrospective. The joining of Richard Tumbleston's personal thoughts and statements with the paintings enhances the mix of years, and mediums, and subject matter, offering a lyrical, as well as visual, quality to this art exhibition.
In addition to the egg temperas, alkyds, early acrylics, and drawings, sixteen watercolor and drybursh watercolors will be exhibited. Watercolors of landscapes, flowers, and people have been gathered for this retrospective. One watercolor, Blossom was painted in 1986 and displays an oriental disposition and stillness. This simple painting of two apple tree branches, one old and the other young, with opening blossoms is a quiet painting which reflects the old saying: "Less is more."
"Looking back, I can see that I was influenced by a scissors cut artist from the South Carolina Lowcountry who was popular for his stories and silhouettes when I was a child. The simple method of cutting a silhouette out of black paper and pasting it on white paper drove home to me the beauty of the simple elements of design," Tumbleston remembers. One scissors cut that Tumbleston did in 1975 will accompany the paintings in the retrospective.
Watauga County's Sesquicentennial was celebrated in 1999. The official painting, Watauga , which commemorated the county's one hundred and fiftieth birthday will be featured. This dry brush watercolor incorporates diverse collection of structures and symbolic elements connected to Watauga County's history. Referring to the county's sesquicentennial the artist wrote: "Wouldn't we, in our celebration, be wise to look upon the streams, valleys, and mountains as sources of life to be guarded and treasured. May we preserve Watauga County's natural treasures, its bounty and beauty, its magic and mystery; and in our time with nature's gifts may we make "mountain memories" that those who follow us will cherish and celebrate."
The retrospective will be composed of over thirty-five works spanning forty years. When did it all begin? When did Richard Tumbleston first discovered his interest in art?
It all began when he was eleven. Home and sick with the mumps, Richard found consolation in a children's drawing set. After graduating from college as an art major with a second major in religion, he continued post graduate studies, earning a Masters of Divinity in 1977. The focus of his formal education was the relationships between the arts and theology and psychology. Though he was interested in formally researching and teaching the interplay between these three fields, he still remembers his "liberating" decision in 1976 to dedicate his full attention to painting.
The artist has been living near Boone since 1979. He was reared in the coastal Lowcountry of South Carolina, where his formative childhood impressions of salt marshes and what he calls the "aura of mystery" were memorably humanized by the people of the southern flatlands. In his father's country store, his gift of observation was born and nurtured. "The South Carolina lowlands is a place where the art of story telling weaves words and images into a union no southern child could ever escape or completely abandon," states Tumbleston. Out of this place the artist was born and experienced his beginnings. Combine that heritage with twenty one years of living in the mountains of North Carolina and the result is a unique blend, and polarity, of images. Then add the four individual mediums Tumbleston works in and the harmonies and polarities are amplified.
Most of the original paintings in the retrospective will be offered for sale along with a variety of limited edition off set lithographic reproduction.
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