Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994 TAG: 9404250129
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-18 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PATRICIA FAIN HUTSON CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: NEWPORT LENGTH: Long
His tranquil scenes of weathered mountain barns, old country homes, rivers, a bush of brilliant red berries beside a country gate - some scenes already gone, others threatened - are but a few of his works of mors than a decade.
The artist's latest print is the historic covered bridge spanning Sinking Creek at Newport. "End of April" reflects the beauty and the color of spring in the tulips planted by the Newport Historical Society.
So it seems appropriate that Tuckwiller picked today for his annual open house from 2-5 p.m. at his Newport home, studio and gallery on a Giles County mountaintop.
"If I had pradicted long ago exactly how I'd like my life to turn out, it couldn't have been more perfect," said Tuckwiller said, who works and lives with his wife, Janet, and their daughters, Amelia, 11, and Gloria, 7, in a light-and-airy Gulf Coast cottage like those designed for the Mississippi Delta.
The artist says he enjoys meeting people and always wants to remain accessible to the public, especially for the comments that will help him witk his work. He is an artist, but he also is a businessman.
``Painting a masterpiece is only one part of an artist's success," he said. "Marketing is an essential part." He said he has friends he considers better artists, but they have trouble selling their work.
Tuckwiller, 40, is known as a realist whose work reflects the quiet beauty of pastoral country scenes. He has released 52 limited-edition prints at prices ranging from $25 for small unframed prints to $150 for framed prints. Sixteen of them are sold out and represent 6,900 signed and numbered prints.
He also sells his original paintings for prices that range from $195 up to $4,000.
The artist says there is no shortage of suggestions from friends and neighbors of scenes to paint, but he has endless choices of his own. Among his personal favorites are his new painting of the Newport covered bridge at Clover Hollow as well as "any scene along the New River."
He has lost count, but he estimates he has completed about 60 paintings during the past year. Tuckwiller participates in half a dozen shows a year in the New River and Roanoke valleys. His work has won many awards and has been included in magazine and newspaper stories, business publications and television programs. In 1988, Tuckwiller received the Outstanding Young Men of America Award and in 1991 was inducted into the Greenbrier East Alumni Hall of Fame.
Tuckwiller, a native of rural Greenbrier County, W.Va., took his first art lesson at age 12 and received a bachelor's degree in art from Concord College in Athens, W.Va. He tried commercial art in Roanoke and substitute teaching in Northern Virginia, neither of which was satisfying. He wanted to be an artist, but his oils were not selling and he almost gave up.
By chance in the mid '70s, he wandered into Picadilly Gallery in Winchester, met gallery owner and acrylic artist David Knollton, and started working for him as a mat cutter. During their friendship, Tuckwiller learned arcrylics and how to sell his work.
The result was Tuckwiller's first successful public art show in 1979, followed a year later by his first limited print. Many followed, but that first print of Harper's Ferry remains his best-known and most popular work.
Tuckwiller left Knollton in 1982 and both artists went their separate ways, Knollton north to Syracuse, N.Y., and Tuckwiller south to the rustic mountains of the New River Valley.
After a dozen years, Tuckwiller's work can be found in more than 3,500 private and corporate collections in the United States and abroad. Many New River galleries display his work, including C&S in Dublin, The Palette Art Gallery in Christiansburg and the Narrows Art Gallery.
The artist also opens his own gallery at University Mall in Blacksburg in November and December. By appointment, members of the public also may visit his gallery and studio on the mountaintop.
Tuckwiller is particularly enthusiastic about commissioned paintings, realizing their sentimental value to his clients. He has even painted scenes that no longer exist from clients' memories and old photographs He charges from $350 to $1,500 for commissioned paintings.
Two years ago, Tuckwiller introduced a new product line of full-color note cards featuring his selected works already in print. They are available at the Palette and sell for $5 for a box of six prints.
Business is so good that his wife, who taught at Virginia Tech for 13 years, resigned in 1992 to direct Tuckwiller Productions, a partnership created to manage his expanding artistic, historical and environmental endeavors.
Last fall, she took the job as Giles County administrator.
Tuckwiller is not all business, however. The artist has donated his time and his art to more than 100 community projects that focus on education, culture, religion, health, social needs, and historical and environmental preservation.
He also is a charter member of Citizens Organized to Protect the Environment (COPE) in Giles County, where the pastoral scenes captured by the artist's brush are always threatened by asphalt and power lines across the landscape.
The open house will be from 2-5 p.m. today at Tuckwiller's home on U.S. 460 between Route 42 at Newport and the turnoff for Mountain Lake and will be marked with signs.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB