Tubbs Gallery

Melissa B Tubbs — Navigating Lights and Darks
 
Melissa B Tubbs has always been an artist, she may well be Alabama’s most-honored artist.  As part of the Alabama Bicentennial Celebration, she was commissioned to create 25 drawings of buildings that have played a part in the architectural history of Alabama for a travelling exhibit titled Celebration & Preservation: Drawing Alabama’s Architectural History.  These drawings depict homes and businesses from 1820 (one year after Alabama became a state) through 1997, with a project from Auburn’s Rural Studio. Preparing to execute the drawings, she travelled the state, photographing the architecture and gathering relevant historical information which was published in a catalog of the exhibition.  Tubbs envisions herself as a preservationist with pen and paper, she reminds us that “The wise man preserves that which he values and celebrates that which he preserves.”

Tubbs earned a bachelor’s degree in visual design from Auburn University and embarked on a successful career in commercial design.  In the mid 1990s, her sister asked her to make a drawing of her father-in-law’s house for a Christmas present—Tubbs did so, and discovered her love of pen and ink.  Her finely-honed abilities meshed with the technical challenges of the medium.  Her method of working is her own: she begins by taking multiple photographs at different exposures of her subject.  Having captured the details revealed by sunlight and shadow, she begins a drawing by envisioning a broad composition in light and dark.  She then works on small sections of the drawing, gradually building up darks with very fine hatchings and cross- hatchings.  She then considers the drawing as a whole—defining dramatic areas of shadow, adding incredibly subtle details in lights and darks, and creating textures so realistic, they seem to fool the eye.  The result is magic. 

In Tubbs’ work, the viewer sees through the artist’s eye, and suddenly the subject is richer and more beautiful than it was before Tubbs depicted it.   Viewers familiar with Tubbs early work, particularly the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts commissions and her details of New York  City exteriors and monuments, are familiar with striking and dramatic compositions.  When working on her smaller drawings—such as her letters of the alphabet, the artist seems to be a bit freer to experiment and let her sense of humor and her love of nature show.  Her most recent work is especially beautiful—here and there is a delicacy in the movement of shadows and leaves on fragile trees.  A bit of Impressionism seems to have found its way into Tubbs’ world of light and shadow.
 
The artists she admires most are Albrecht Durer (German, 1471-1528) and Barry Moser (Contemporary American, b. 1940).  Both men are printmakers, and both have prodigious works, both are masters of light and dark.  She is in good company with these men, when there was no technique to accomplish her goals, Tubbs invented one. 

Tubbs accomplishments are legion:  reproduction prints of her original drawings were used as set decoration on Charlie Sheen’s show Anger Management. Two of her drawings were created for Strathmore Artist Papers drawing pad covers. She created a three-dimensional ornament for the official White House Christmas tree in 2001.  She is a recipient of the prestigious Eben Demarest Trust Grant from Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, PA. She has exhibited extensively and her award-winning work has been shown throughout the United States and internationally.  She has had numerous solo shows in museums and dozens of publications.   Her latest exhibit at the Gadsden Museum of Art, Gadsden, AL is titled Andrea Palladio: Shaping American Architecture.