Local artist realizes her desire to paint by designing poster
for Saddle Horse Show
Marti Miller Hubbell was born to paint.
She just didn’t realize it until her first year at San Benito
High School.
”
I took a general art class as a freshman,
”
Hubbell said.
”
I picked up a brush and a light bulb went on. I know a lot of
artists start holding brushes and painting as children, but that
just didn’t happen to me.
”
Local artist realizes her desire to paint by designing poster for Saddle Horse Show
Marti Miller Hubbell was born to paint.
She just didn’t realize it until her first year at San Benito High School.
“I took a general art class as a freshman,” Hubbell said. “I picked up a brush and a light bulb went on. I know a lot of artists start holding brushes and painting as children, but that just didn’t happen to me.”
She continued taking art classes in high school, and her senior year researched various art schools she hoped to attend after graduation. Her parents, long-time local ranchers, had other plans for their daughter, however.
“I had an art school picked out, but my parents felt it wasn’t a stable career, and not a good thing to have to fall back on,” Hubbell said. “So they said no. I can’t really fault them, because they were right. Right now in my life, I am where I am supposed to be.”
Today, the 61-year-old former legal secretary has rediscovered her passion for painting, using her talents not only to create portraits of ranch life but to design posters for the San Benito County Saddle Horse Show and Parade. This year’s poster, in honor of the rodeo’s 75th anniversary and featuring a cowboy circling a steer, proved especially challenging, Hubbell said.
“The powers-that-be specifically asked for a generic rider on a stock horse, as San Benito County is pretty famous for its stock horse riders,” she said. “And when you show stock horses, there are different phases you must go through, and one of those is circling the cow. That’s what they wanted me to do. But I wasn’t entirely familiar with the process, and even though I had photographs, I wasn’t sure of the positioning.”
Hubbell said she was not pleased with her early efforts, and asked her husband, John, to help her by acting as a model.
“John got on his horse and tried to show me, but the cow wasn’t cooperating,” she said with a laugh. “The cow kept acting up and hitting his horse with her head. I finally used lots and lots of photographs and mostly my imagination to come up with the final design.”
The finished product – a myriad of browns make up a beautiful stock horse and a steer, while a cowboy with a silver belt buckle and a white shirt and hat rides in front of a row of deep green trees and a white corral fence – presently hangs in various store fronts throughout San Benito County.
“It took a really long time to finish,” Hubbell said. “It tested my patience and unfortunately, revealed my shortcomings. But I’m glad I did it. It was an honor.”
This is Hubbell’s fourth poster for the rodeo, and she also created the poster for the 1999 California Rodeo in Salinas. She says she enjoys creating the posters because of the opportunity they provide to showcase a slice of life in San Benito County not everyone knows about first hand.
“It’s fun to try and capture an image from the rodeo that excites people and gets them interested in coming out but also reflects the rodeo’s history,” she said. “And it’s challenging for me. Ordinarily, I’m sitting in my studio painting what I want. With the posters, they say ‘here’s what we want’ and then I have to make it happen in a way we both like. That pushes you to do your best.”
Becoming a successful artist was a dream Hubbell once believed was not meant for her. After her parents’ decision about going to art school was handed down, Hubbell took the necessary courses to become a legal secretary, and at 19 went to work for the county’s then-district attorney, Barney McCullough. She married in 1972, and the birth of her children, Justin and Becky, followed soon after.
After her first marriage ended, the single mother met John Hubbell, a local ranch hand who had two children of his own from a previous marriage. The couple was married in 1981, blending their families – which meant Hubbell now had very little time for herself. They still live on a ranch overlooking Santa Ana Valley east of Hollister.
“During my first marriage, before my second child was born, I would dabble in pastels on weekends,” she said. “But with two kids, my work load got heavier and I just didn’t have the time. And when I met John, well, then I had four kids on weekends. The kids were all pretty close in age, and it was hectic. Some artists can work in some pretty noisy situations, but I can’t. I need the quiet of the studio.”
Hubbell says she had not touched a pencil or paintbrush in 17 years when her sister-in-law, Barbara Miller, informed her that she was signing Hubbell up for an art class at Gavilan College.
“She told me she wasn’t letting me make any more excuses about not pursuing my art,” Hubbell said. “I took the class and never looked back.”
Hubbell quit her legal secretary job in 2002, deciding to focus on her art full-time. She uses her life as the member of a long-time ranching family – her grandfather was an original San Benito County homesteader who settled the Miller family ranch in 1882, which today is run by her father and brothers – as inspiration for her paintings. Her works tend to feature cowboys and cowgirls performing various ranching tasks, as well as scenic portraits of the area, because, she explains, “I paint what I know.”
She has had her work displayed in several local art shows, but says she has not approached any galleries because she doesn’t feel she has a big enough body of work. She plans to continue painting, and has stressed the importance of following dreams to her children, both of whom have been “very supportive” of their mother’s new career.
“I’ve told my children that you have to do what you love,” she said. “I think if you’re passionate about something, you’re going to be pretty good at it. Life is too short to spend it at a job you hate.”
Some of Hubbell’s artwork can be viewed online at www.martimillerhubbell.com.
