Hometown artist returns to his Detroit roots to paint comissioned mural

Palm Coast Observer
Neighbors

The first thing you notice on walking into David Rubello's home is the obvious lack of adornment, artistic or otherwise. The walls, carpeting and everything else is sort of just beige-ish. There is no clutter, either, save for a single coffee table stacked with dozens of thin volumes of poetry.

The place has the feeling of, well, a blank canvas.

Isn't that a bit odd for an artist whose been at his craft for most of his 81 years?

Rubello chuckles at the observation.

"It's all," he said, gesturing upward with a single finger to his forehead, "up here."

Rubello has lived with his wife, Mary Keithan, also an artist, for the past 10 years at their home in the F section of Palm Coast. They feel comfortable here. The weather is pleasant. It's a nice quiet neighborhood. They bounce off of other creative types in weekly meetings at Denny's in a circle they simply call "The Art Group."

The couple met years ago when Rubello, a Detroit native, was teaching at Penn State, where Keithan is originally from. Both are visual artists, she concentrating primarily in photography (Keithan, in 2012, was the artist-in-residence at Everglades National Park); he, as a photographer, poet and painter.

The latter discipline has brought Rubello the most notice. Rubello studied drawing and painting at the School of the Arts and Crafts Society of Detroit, earning a bachelor of fine arts from the Academy of Fine Art in Rome in 1961; he earned a master of fine arts from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1972.

"My work is geometric," Rubello said. "I have an abiding interest in visual perception -- that is, how we see things and what we think is there, and maybe more than what is there. It's dark and then it's light. ... It's telling a story."

Several years ago, he began painting a number of pieces featuring bold, color-blocked patterns and shapes. With each, he said there was a feeling of something "leftover" that he wanted to pick up on and explore in the next painting, launching what he calls his "Ribbon Series."

"I promised myself I would do a hundred of these," said Rubello.

He's currently at No. 89.

In his photography, too, there is the idea of zoning in on the everyday details we see -- such as the pastel-colored lines of the outside of a beachside ice cream shop in Flagler -- and highlighting them in such a way that they appear surprising and larger than life.

Last year, Rubello was contacted by a businessman in Detroit who remembered a bright geometric mural of Rubello's he had grown up seeing on the side of a city building. It's since been painted over. The man, who was opening up a new eyeglasses shop in downtown Detroit, commissioned Rubello to design a mural to decorate the interior of his store. The work, which Rubello called "Blue Echoes," was installed (under Rubello's direction) in December 2016.

Rubello was there on hand for the opening, and was treated like a celebrity returning to his hometown. The experience was gratifying; it felt to the artist like coming full circle, coming home. In talking to Rubello, it's apparent the vast reservoir of his creativity shows no signs of drying up anytime soon.

He paints every day.

"Every morning when I wake up," said Rubello, "I feel like I'm just getting going."

David Rubello and Mary Keithan will exhibit their works along with five others in The Art Group (Donald Kolberg, William Mazziotti, Katherine Elshant, William B. Brant and Mary England) on April 7, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at The Casements, 25 Riverside Drive, Ormond Beach.