Local artist Rod Hubble’s exhibit at the Farmington Museum and Visitors Bureau winds up Oct. 31. His prolific art production exceed 3,000, with 130 currently on display.
Hubble, born in Clovis, New Mexico, in 1947, he started painting as a self-taught artist professionally in 1973. He was raised in Farmington area after moving to the city at age 10.
“We moved around a lot,” he said, as his father worked as a driver of a propane truck.
Many of the works are for sale, some have been sold, and others are on loan from various galleries or private owners.
Hubble has founded 5 galleries over the years, including Taos, Santa Fe and Farmington. He closed the last one in Farmington in 2018 when “health issues” forced him to close.
“And I just decided not to do the retail thing anymore, but it was always successful,” Hubble said.
At his two Farmington locations, Hubble displayed the work of other artists, including a potter and jeweler. One of his first business partners was a woodworker, who made “beautiful furniture,” Hubble said.
“I feel so very fortunate to have been married to drawing all my life,” Hubble says in his artist statement. “Not only the last 50 years, but well before. I have favored drawing with my old school pencils. It was always what I did.”
Hubble provided the Tri-City Record an informative tour of his exhibit, which he said took three years to organize and assemble.
One of the first paintings, a monochromatic, was eye-catching. Hubble said it was an early painting “only blues, gray and white palette” – only from imagination. The image of a wolf jumped out. “You’ll find all kinds of things, faces – rarely planned, but occasionally,” and mostly incidental to his work.
The diversity, including water and nature scenes, fruit, animals, portraits, pencil drawings – even very small, detailed paintings on rocks, of Hubble’s work is remarkable.
“Anguish in Repose,” painted in 1973, depicted a bearded man wearing a royal red bishop-type hat. From his imagination, Hubble said “Maybe a King” is the title of the character.
“I just started drawing, and I knew what I wanted – I think I made a mistake (got ink somewhere) so he had to be in repose, so I had to put him reclining rather than sitting or standing,” Hubble said.
Hubble said that from the time he was 12, he wrote a lot of poetry and thought that would be his medium. During this time he used a calligraphy in much of his work, including his signature. “Autumn Capture,” a three-stanza poem, was framed with reddish leaves and written with calligraphic text.
“Unfolding gold impels my eyes to watch, I catch the gentle sage that fills the gorge,” it begins.
He discussed another painting, “Summer Gone Into Winter,” that depicted what appeared to be a forest goddess with long, flowing blond locks and a green cape and a bare tree branch in the background.
The sequential exhibit moved from the 1970s to the ‘80s.
“I didn’t get much from the 1970s. The pandemic had started when I was gathering work, and I couldn't get over to Colorado where my career began.” Hubble said, adding that it was in Manitou Springs.
“In 1973, I had moved over there and accidentally became a painter instead of a poet.” Hubble said.
“Philosophy vs. the System,” 1983, was a small pencil drawing of a wizened, bearded man wearing a turban, creatively backed by old newsprint with white backdrop, tastefully framed in gold. Hubble started with a photograph and added the hat and beard, he said.
“Daybreak,” an acrylic painting featured on the exhibit invitation, was a captivating nature scene. “I use a lot of water in my acrylic and let it drip and create puddles and I pad it with a rag or a towel,” he said.
Hubble used pastels to “soften” the image on one of the works,
He pointed to a painting “in loving memory” of his nephew, Scott.
“Flower Muse” was largely from imagination, but “it's hard to say they’re from imagination because you observe life. You know? I see you. I understand your anatomy,” Hubble said, adding that you have to “see anatomy to understand it.”
“You notice that wherever you stand her eyes follow you,” he said.
That skill is accomplished by understanding how eyes work.
“If I was painting your portrait, for example, and you were looking at me when I painted you. Your eyes in the painting would follow the person, any person, who was looking at it,” Hubble said.
Hubble’s “Gallinas de Spencerville” (1984) was done when he had a studio in his parents’ barn. “These chickens were my neighbors,” he said.
In “The Reedgatherer,” he portrayed a woman who was “very much like a sister to me.” He said her family and his were very close.
“I thought she was beautiful and had seen this field of reeds in Aztec. … I thought that would be a beautiful place to pose a model,” Hubble said.
More than half the paintings will be returned to their respective galleries or private collection.
Plein-air painting, meaning “in the open air,” is one of Hubble’s favorite, but he’s not able to get outside as much as he’d like to. “Plein-air paintings are usually very fast,” he said.
Hubble’s time in Taos took him outdoors to capture the beautiful landscape. “Taos Rain,” painted in 2006, featured a foreboding black, purplish sky over a colorful, surreal field of dreams.
“I would say I spent on this 24-by-30 (inches) painting about 24 or 25 hours,” Hubble said.”
“Rain at Rio Grande Gorge” was produced from a photo because the rains came in while Hubble was plein-air painting. “Taos Meadowlands” (1996) grabs eyes, emotions and senses.
“And many. many people love this one. I think it might be favorite painting in the exhibition,” Hubble said.
“When I turned around to leave it started to rain … and this beautiful rainstorm was happening over Taos mountain,” Hubble said, adding that he produced 2 paintings from that excursion.
His “Sacred Heart of Divine Mercy,” depicting Jesus Christ with rays of light, including one emanating from a wound in his hand. It creates a powerful, thought-provoking image.
Hubble said he was studying the Catholic religion because everyone there (in Taos) was of that faith. He said throughout his life he’s done paintings of Christ, particularly during the Easter season. None has been of this scale or “importance.”
He said the painting is just the underpainting and he still needs to finish it with added colors. If Hubble decides to do more work on the painting he said he would likely work from a print, adding more colors, because “I also like it very much this way.” he said.
Hubble said that most paintings begin with drawing, and in this case it started with a sketch on an envelope. He said he used his own hands in the mirror to create the hands.
Hubble taught privately and at San Juan College for six years.
Moving into the works from the 2000s, a painting of a horse taking a sip of water was next to one of two horses grazing high on a cliff. Hubble explained that while driving he had seen the horses perilously high, raising the question of how it got there.
He said they were driving back from Window Rock all along red cliffs. “We both looked up and saw the tiny white horse right on the edge of the precipice with an old mare behind. … We talked about the horse for months.”
Hubble said water is his favorite scenery to paint, as his piece “Whispered Lake – Vallecito (2016) demonstrates his prowess at realism in capturing water and reflections of trees.
“Water captures the reflection of the images on its surface and in a contrasting duality with what it reflects it becomes an artist itself. So I merely collaborate with the water,” he said.
Finally, Hubble said two plein-air paintings were paired to show the desired full view of a tree because one canvas wasn’t large enough to capture the scene. Hubble said many times artists will do a small plein-air study to work from on a large painting.
Hubble said he tries to paint three or four hours every day, but does take a day off occasionally. He planned to go hiking the next day.
“You know, life is full, and there are other things you have to do in life. But, “these are all my children. I really dedicated my life to art,” Hubble said.
Hubble’s work can be seen at www.rodhubble.com.
