After years of accounting, and being a wife and mother, Susan McCubbin is nurturing a gift that has always dwelt within her.
By STEVE BAAL
Published August 12, 2005
CLEARWATER - The eyes of the old man peered down on Susan McCubbin from her bedroom wall for years, and she often spent hours staring back. His was a weathered, bearded face sketched in charcoal by McCubbin's grandmother.
Hers was the soft, smooth face of a child, flush with visions of becoming an artist.
"That dream always lived inside me," said McCubbin, 56, of Ozona. "Now I'm living the dream."
When the Clearwater Fine Arts Festival opens Saturday for a weekend run at the Harborview Center in Clearwater, 80 artists will be showcasing their talents: painters, sculptors, photographers, and jewelry and fiber artisans.
McCubbin will be among them with her bright watercolors, which capture seaside life along the Pinellas Gulf Coast, competing for $10,000 in prize awards.
It has been a long road for McCubbin. Competing genes of creativity and practicality have long wrestled in her blood. Her grandmother had shown enough talent to earn her way into art school, but she eventually settled down and married a farmer.
McCubbin sketched endlessly as a child, but her parents shook their heads at the idea of art school for their daughter and enrolled her in business college.
"I still crammed in as many art courses as I could, though," McCubbin said, laughing. But for the next 30 years, she worked as an accountant. She married and started a family, moving from California to Florida when her husband was transferred in 1993.
Yet art still called to her.
"I always knew an essential part of me was missing," McCubbin said. "Finally, I decided to do something about it."
She began by attending workshops at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center in 2000. Two years later she retired to devote herself full time to her watercolors and colored pencil drawings. That decision not only boosted McCubbin's dreams but also those of the youngest of her two daughters, Elizabeth, who aspired to run track.
"Beth was heading into high school and it allowed me, as a work-at-home mom, to take her to extracurricular activities, which she wouldn't have been able to attend," explained McCubbin. "It was a wonderful experience, and it paid off, too."
Elizabeth, who starred in cross country and the 800 meter run at Palm Harbor University High School, earned a track scholarship this fall to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.
Her mother's passion began paying off, too. McCubbin had a colored pencil piece accepted to the International Colored Pencil Show in 2004. She began attending art festivals, and selling her work.
"Festival are exciting," she said. "People looking at your work see more, and their feedback is terrific. Of course, the best thing is when someone says, "I've got to have that.' "
Among other local artists presenting at the Clearwater Fine Arts Festival will be: Dan Trebesch, Marilyn Jones and Leslie Belcher (jewelry); Carol Kohnke, Jason Lachtara and John Terlip (clay); Lynn Merhige (sculpture); Kathy Crotts (photography); Terry Duncan (watercolor); and Sandra Williams (acrylic paint).
"It's going to be a great event," said festival director Bill Scott. "Lots of terrific artists representing every medium are attending. Plus, it's indoors, in air conditioning. In August, who could ask for more?"
If you go
WHAT: Clearwater Fine Arts Festival
WHEN: Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
WHERE: Harborview Center, 300 Cleveland St., Clearwater.
COST/PARKING: The event is free, as is parking at on-site lots.
