Author Description

I've spent my life as a filmmaker. But through my 40 years making both documentaries and features, I've had to get out of the dark, out of the cutting room and be in nature. My family has a history of doing this via painting. Both my grandfather, Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, and my mother, Ellen Rubbo, painted plein air. So It was natural that my way of getting outside, has been to set up an easel, let the wind buffet my canvas, let the bugs land in the sticky oils, and people stop to be curious and comment. Be an impressionist. This book is about the results of all that painting in Canada, in Finland, and in Australia. In some cases, it's been so intense that as well as making the movies, I've become the village painter, the teller of the local story. I argue in the book that, taking ownership of a scene by painting it, is a wonderful way to soak up the restless energy we all have, energy which can see us carving up the countryside before we know it. I tell that by painting, you leave your mark but make no mark, and that's a very good strategy. It's also a story to cherish and art I think, is 50% story. Because selling was never the object, I have virtually all the oils I've ever done. Those I don't have I've recently repainted for the book. That being so, it's been quite easy to put them all together into this book to record a lifetime of art on the side. I have also more recently started art which is activist. I've been using my art to draw attention to beautiful places and buildings which are under threat from development. I've done this in our village of Avoca Beach, north of Sydney, opposing the redevelopment of the charming single screen, Avoca Theatre.