The pursuit of transcendence

By Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey
Reader Staff

It’s not a painting of the forest. It is an alternate reality and an invitation to enter; to be immersed in the beautiful chaos of the woods, where nature speaks a language we lack the words to imitate.

It is “Trestle Creek,” an oil painting by Romey Stuckart measuring approximately six feet tall and eight feet across, hung front and center upon entering the unassuming warehouse-turned-art-studio on Poplar Street in Sandpoint.

Stuckart couldn’t be interviewed for this story. Still, her spirit emanates from sources that persist since her death in 2020: her writings, the recollections of her loved ones and, perhaps most of all, from her art.

Standing in front of “Trestle Creek,” the viewer gains an understanding of Stuckart that transcends the results of any interview. With texture and color, the artist has captured not an image of fallen snags and running water, but a feeling: to walk in the woods and feel truly at home.

Romey Stuckart’s painting titled “Riser Creek.”

“She is not taking a snapshot and reproducing that,” said Kally Thurman, curator of Stuckart’s collection. “She is actually giving you the experience of being there. Those canvases are so large that you feel like you are walking into that world.”

Stuckart and her husband, fellow artist Stephen Schultz, moved to Hope in 1987. Stuckart painted “Trestle Creek” — as well as similar works with names like “Denton Slough” and “Riser Creek” — around that time, though her explorations of nature in its macro form account for only one era of her art. Her later work focused more on the micro — explorations of energy and the molecular, as much about the creative process as the result.

“She was in another mind,” Thurman said, also calling Stuckart “a leap in human consciousness.”

Stuckart’s dedication to elevating the Idaho art scene is being honored at the state level as she, along with Schultz, has been recognized with an Excellence in the Arts Award as part of the 2022 Governor’s Awards in the Arts, a biennial recognition facilitated by the Idaho Commission on the Arts, established in 1970. Artists are set to receive their awards at a public ceremony on Monday, Nov. 28 at the Idaho State Museum in Boise.

Asked what it meant to be honored as a couple, Schultz said, “I really, really liked that. I thought it was great.”

It rained the day Schultz invited the Reader to tour his and Stuckart’s Sandpoint studio. The dark morning skies stood in stark contrast to the bright acrylics strewn across his workspace, where he was currently putting the finishing touches on “Diorama: Natural History,” a substantial painting measuring 12 feet across and nearly eight feet high. Like Stuckart, Schultz prefers canvases that lend themselves to world-building rather than caricature.

“I worked on this through Romey’s dying and since her death, and it needed to be completed. Now, it’s an hour away, perhaps,” he said.

Stephen Schultz and his work “Anthropology.” Photo by Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey.

Schultz’s paintings and drawings have taken on a variety of styles over his nearly 60 years as a practicing artist, but a vein of storytelling runs through his work. Figures interact with their environments in unpredictable ways — unpredictable even to Schultz — and “associative narratives,” as he called them, rather than linear narratives are formed.

“My paintings start without an idea. They start as scratches — making marks on a canvas just to break the surface,” he said. “Then, something occurs — something happens. It’s like you’re walking down the street and you bump into somebody you weren’t anticipating seeing. It would change the course of your day, or you build on that. It’s a conversation.” 

Schultz and Stuckart were married for nearly 40 years, and moved from Hope to the remodeled Sandpoint warehouse around 2000. Eyes turned to “Diorama: Natural History,” Schultz reflected on the mix of emotions he’s felt since losing Stuckart to brain cancer in November 2020.

“There’s relief and grief and ‘OK, what’s next?’ All that. Loneliness. All those things that everyone experiences with the passing of someone,” he said.

The couple’s studio space has a buzzing warmth, cultivated over decades in both the art on the walls and the partnership between the artists. That warmth continues to hold Schultz in his creative endeavors, which he said still excite him — coaxing him downstairs each day, into the studio, to pick up his brushes once again.

Stephen Schultz and Romey Stuckart. Courtesy photo.

Learn more about the Governor’s Awards in the Arts at arts.idaho.gov/awards. To view Stuckart’s work and learn more about her, visit romeystuckart.com. To learn more about Schultz and see his work, head to swspaint.com or find @stephenschultzart on Instagram.