A Portrait of the Artist: Marcie Wolf-Hubbard

Multimedia artist, Marcie Wolf-Hubbard does not just paint en plein air. Her most recent foray has been into graphic novels collaged onto kitchen cabinet doors.

"I get the cabinet doors from a salvaged building materials collector in Blandensburg. Once, I went there looking for tar paper and wound up returning with cabinet doors," said Wolf-Hubbard, who has been using them as a surface for storytelling for the past three years.

"Mousetrapped," a 15-piece graphic novel about her seven-month-long effort to curb and permanently put an end to a mouse infestation in her 1923 SEARS home in Silver Spring, is currently on view at The Arts Barn in Gaithersburg. Nine of the 15 original colorful panels are in the show in the Invitational Gallery.

An illustrated account of the artist's real life trials and tribulations fighting the mouse infestation, the cabinet door narrative sequences the events through the collage medium. Below is the artist's own description of the cabinet door that is most significant to her in the mouse infestation removal saga:

"The one artwork I would highlight from mousetrapped is 'Mouse Haven,' which includes my drawing illustrating when I scared the mouse. He ran - it was a blur - from behind the stove- when I was grinding coffee beans with my electric grinder. That's why I included the coffee grounds and coffee filter in the artwork.
 
"The trap that finally worked is also included. I've given it a first Prize Ribbon, and I describe how I found the trap at Home Depot, and how my hero, who works at Home Depot, told me about the trap that actually WORKS! I painted the letter 'V' several times around the frame of the cabinet. 'V' stands for victory and demonstrates my enthusiasm for a product that works. Everything else I purchased before was just a waste of money. Also, the trap is re-usable, and I call it 'my lucky trap,' since I was able to catch several mice with it. For a visual reference, 'Mouse Haven' is an illustration of the stairway to our dirt cellar.

"In the textual portion of the collage, I talk about my friends on my Mouse Patrol Team, who were supportive and could empathize with me in my rodent problem."

Overall Wolf-Hubbard's work is gestural while maintaining a narrative structure.

"It's like a diary looking back at that time when I was struggling," said Wolf-Hubbard, who showed "mousetrapped" at the 2008 Artomatic and encouraged viewers to submit their own stories about rodent infestations that were hard to beat on post-it notes, which they posted next to her painted cabinet doors on exhibit.

Following the Artomatic showing, Wolf-Hubbard created a book of her panels on Blurb.com and included some of the audience submissions after the epilogue. Being able to share her story and find fellow sympathizers has been central to her saga during and beyond when she found an outlet for it in painting.

In some of her more traditional works, the cartoon format and stenciled letterforms yields to a Euclidian sense of space that defines a recognizable place and a setting rather than a narrative that is unraveling before our very eyes. Her more representational work, including snow landscapes invites the viewer into the place she constructs through the rules of perspective and foreshortening.

Although her work has been featured prominently at Artomatic and other venues such as the Arlington Arts Center, Zenith Gallery, George Mason University, University of Maryland, American University, Del Ray Artisan's Gallery, Parker Gallery and The Anne C. Fisher Gallery, Wolf-Hubbard has an upcoming show in March.

The show will be at the Takoma Park Municipal Building throughout the month, and a reception on March 3 will go from 6 to 8 p.m.

When she is not producing her own work, Wolf-Hubbard teaches young students. Her many artist residencies have taken her to Glen Echo Park, Maplewood Park Place in Bethesda, The German School of Washington, DC, and throughout Carroll County Public Schools among others.

She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design and Illustration from Maryland Institute - College of Art in Baltimore and a Bacholor of Arts degree in Studio Art from the University of Maryland in College Park. Some of her illustration clients include: Simon and Schuster Publishing, Foreign Policy Magazine and The Washington Post among others.

Her work can be found in the permanent art collections of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Red Bull North America, Chai Residences, Scholastic, Inc., and The University of Maryland, University College, College Park. She is married to a sculptor, David Hubbard. Together, they are currently collaborating on an illustrated children's book, titled The Shiny Shell. The Shiny Shell is an eco-adventure book following the adventures of a young boy as he explores ecological conditions on planet Earth.

To find out more about Marcie Wolf-Hubbard, click here.

To preview her book "mousetrapped" on Blurb.com, click here.