Tucker Arts Community Continues to Grow

There is no better way to spend a morning than by sitting in a local art gallery, surrounded by gorgeous paintings, having a conversation with a renowned artist. I had the pleasure to meet Candace Sturgis – owner of The Atlanta Fine Arts Academy, located in our very own Tucker – and her son, artist James Richards. If you’re someone who thinks the art gallery experience is intimidating or overwhelming, TAFAA will change your mind. The space is comfortable and warm, the walls covered with amazing landscapes. Sturgis and Richards are both extremely down to earth, and they were more than willing to tell me about their gallery, its pieces and Richards' journey as an artist.

The Gallery

TAFAA opened its doors in May, 2011, and currently, residents and visitors alike can enjoy the work – as well as the sought after instruction – of Richards. Other reputable artists’ paintings surround you as you stroll around. You can also see some paintings from Richards’ mentoring students.

“One of our plans is to bring other artists in to do workshops, too” said Sturgis. But currently, Richards is the sole instructor. He holds monthly workshops, typically taking two days. “We focus on landscape painting, but I also do studies on certain subjects, such as boats…I teach the fundamentals through demos and guided student painting,” he told me.

When asked how the gallery was conceived, and why it found its home in Tucker, Sturgis explained: “James had recently finished a workshop at Lake Burton, and we were talking about the fact that people wanted to keep painting. So we started looking for a place that would work geographically and financially – I live here in Tucker – so this just made sense. It was all about timing really, although now James is getting busy and being pulled in so many directions.”

While it’s true he does have showings and workshops on the books for the coming months, Richards will be calling TAFAA his home base for the foreseeable future.

Eventually, he would like to have a larger space with garden and outdoor areas where students can paint outside, the type of painting that Richards himself prefers and for which he is recognized.

The Artist

Richards is respected for his plein air painting, a process that was greatly popularized during the mid to late 1800s. French for “in the open air,” en plein air painting is characterized by artists and their box easels, set up in whatever landscape strikes their fancy, capturing what they see before them on canvas.

Richards uses a limited palette – only the primary colors and white – and he says, “Everywhere I go is my favorite place to paint.”

His career as a painter has progressed somewhat backwardly. Instead of receiving formal training and starting from a specific point with a precise focus, Richards was everywhere. “Sometimes a painting would work out, sometimes it wouldn’t,” he noted. Not until he mentored in Athens, GA with a photographer friend who informed Richards he was “throwing darts,” did he begin to develop a concentration.

Taking a workshop with famous landscape artist Scott L. Christensen and reading the books he recommended – John F. Carlson’s Guide to Outdoor Landscape Painting and Edgar Payne’s Composition of Outdoor Landscape Painting – also had great influence on Richards.

He’s now been painting en plein air for about ten years. He worked his way inversely through the history of art, drawing inspiration from Picasso and Cubism, then from Degas, Van Gogh and other Impressionist painters. “I saw an Impressionist exhibit at the Smithsonian in D.C., and it changed my life. I decided that was the direction I wanted to go,” Richards said.  

In addition to the workshops and mentoring classes Richards teaches at TAFAA – there is a waiting list for his mentoring classes, with people traveling from states as far away as North Carolina and Illinois – he plans to keep busy. He will be teaching several workshops at Lake Burton, in Door Co., WI and Apalachicola, FL. He’ll also be showing in Carmel at the annual American Impressionist Society’s exhibit and teaching workshops in the same area.

But residents of Tucker can meet and learn from this artist in their own backyard. The Atlanta Fine Arts Academy is located at 2200 Northlake Parkway, Suite 150, Tucker, GA 30084, next door to beloved local restaurant Old Hickory House. “Restaurants are great places to work next to. The best workspace I had was next to this small café,” Richards said; as if to prove him right, we had a visitor drop in after his meal next door to peruse and compliment the resident artists on his paintings.

I was personally delighted to find TAFAA, to learn that the arts community in Tucker is still burgeoning. Call the gallery and speak with Candace Sturgis; set up a time to stroll the through the space and meet Jim Richards. If you’re lucky, you may be able to catch the artist behind the brush.