Remembering Jim Tubb’s ‘visual music’
Kitchener’s Registry Theatre is primarily known as a performing arts venue: dance, music, drama and so forth. Less familiar to people is a low key visual art program that’s been running for a number of years now: a rotation of exhibits in the lobby.
The exhibit space has been wellequipped with a professional hanging and lighting system. The walls are a special shade of green. In 2006 the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation provided funding to repaint the front of house and lobby area. The walls and ceiling were scraped to reveal the original paint colours. There is general agreement that the compulsory green happens to be a very suitable background for art displays
The shows, which run for 2-3 months, are curated by veteran Waterloo region artist Nicholas Rees, who is known, among other things, for the Kitchener’s “Industrial Artifact” installations; for public art works like the “Anvil” outside City Hall, and as the City’s inaugural artist in residence.
The current exhibit is especially noteworthy: a selection of paintings by the late Jim Tubb, chosen to complement the third annual Winter Jazz Festival, which The Registry co-hosts with the Jazz Room in Waterloo in late February.
I hadn’t seen the exhibit yet, so Registry programming director Lawrence McNaught arranged a special viewing for me this week. Nicholas Rees was there too to fill in some of the background to how the project evolved.
Jim Tubb, who passed away on February 3, had been part of the regional arts scene for as long as I can remember. I first knew him as a patron and donor. After an early retirement from 25 years of work as a stock broker and investment adviser, he became an accomplished visual art practitioner in his own right.
For the last decade of his life he was a prolific painter. He worked primarily with acrylic and oil paint sticks on canvas or plywood.
From 2004 on, “visual music” has been a dominant theme in his work. It started with what he called “art of listening” paintings driven by the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. A weeklong workshop with Canadian painter Harold Klunder and a rereading of Wassily Kandinsky’s book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” were also seminal influences.
The Registry exhibit shows how his work in pursuit of this visual music theme flourished over time. Almost anyone, certainly anyone with an appreciation for 20th century music, will enjoy this work. It follows a previous exhibit along similar lines featured at The Registry in 2013.
At his invitation, I visited Jim at his studio on Duke Street West last fall. He’d warned me beforehand about his mobility issues – that he was on oxygen 24/7 and required a wheelchair when he went anywhere. After I got there, he explained how serious his health issues were. He knew he was dying.
The jazz festival exhibit at The Registry was already in the works. Nicholas Rees had been in a few days earlier to begin the selection process.
The studio was spacious, and filled to the rafters with work. Nigel Strothard dropped by. Best known as the proprietor of the recently closed Nigel’s Athletic Direct shoe store in downtown Kitchener, he’d started working as a kind of studio assistant for Jim in exchange for knowledge and inspiration.
In keeping with Jim Tubb’s legendary generosity, I went home with, not just one, but a set of paintings to grace my home.
The generosity continues. As has been the practice with Registry exhibits, most of the pieces are for sale. In keeping with Jim Tubb’s instructions, 20 per cent of the proceeds will be donated to support the good work of The Registry Theatre.
The Jim Tubb exhibition can be viewed before and after any of the upcoming shows at The Registry. Lawrence McNaught is also willing to arrange a viewing by appointment. He can be reached at programming@theregistrytheatre.com. Links: www.registrytheatre.com jimtubb.com