Rural Studio A Catalyst For Fine Art
Italy, France, New York. Stephen Schultz and Rome Stuckart looked all over the world for a place to call home.
Eight years ago, the nationally known painters settled on East Hope, joining about 200 other residents.
“We wanted a simple life, to get away from the disruptions,” said Stuckart, sipping tea in her home overlooking Lake Pend Oreille.
“I don’t function well in the city, and it is so beautiful here.”
The couple’s next-door neighbors turned out to be Edward and Nancy Kienholz - world-renowned sculptors.
“To have Ed Kienholz (now deceased) be your neighbor and not know it was pretty surprising,” said Schultz. “We had no idea he or so many other artists were here.”
Stuckart and Schultz, married 11 years, said the transition from urban life to rural Idaho was challenging.
Gallery owners and art lovers want to see the duo’s original pieces and visit their studios before investing in their work.
But it’s inconvenient to travel here from Chicago or New York.
To compound problems, both Stuckart and Schultz paint on 6- to 8-foot-tall canvasses. They rent a moving van to haul their work to galleries and museums.
A deal Stuckart tried to seal with a Chicago gallery collapsed recently. The gallery couldn’t get past the shipping problems and the remote studio.
“That happened to us about six times last year,” Schultz said.
Stuckart, 40, works out of a basement studio in their home. Schultz, 50, paints in a cavernous outbuilding equipped with flood lights and a pool table.
He delves into realism, painting life-sized human forms that contain a bit of myth, history and current events.
Stuckart’s style changed dramatically after moving to Idaho, shifting from realism to more abstract art.
Much of her work now involves nature - not landscapes, but paintings that let viewers almost step inside a piece of the forest.
It was after arriving here that Stuckart earned a Guggenheim award, a prize handed out by top artists in the nation.
“Moving here was a real catalyst for me,” Stuckart said. “This is the first place that has felt like home for both of us.”
, DataTimes