Pushing 80 years old, popular Sudbury painter says he\u2019s shutting down his Applegrove Street gallery and framing business so he can spend more time in his home studio<\/p>\n
If you live in Northern Ontario, chances are you\u2019ve seen Sudbury artist John Stopciati\u2019s work hanging on the walls of businesses and people\u2019s homes.<\/p>\n
Working in a variety of media, including watercolours, oils, acrylics and pastels, Stopciati depicts Northern Ontario scenes \u201cwithout using an artistic licence,\u201d as he puts it – his paintings are so detailed, they\u2019re almost like photographs in their realism.<\/p>\n
But if you\u2019d like to visit Stopciati Gallery and Custom Framing on Applegrove Street, located close to the Sudbury Courthouse, time is running out.<\/p>\n
Stopciati, who turns 80 next year, said he\u2019s closing his gallery at the end of 2025, consolidating his art activities at his home studio and putting some of his art into storage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While his originals and reproductions will still be available for purchase through his website<\/a>, he will be ceasing his framing business entirely.<\/p>\n Stopciati said the economy isn\u2019t currently great for artists, and he\u2019ll be able to spend more time painting if he\u2019s not at his gallery, which opened 38 years ago in Copper Cliff, moving first to Lorne Street and then the Applegrove building, which he owns.<\/p>\n Much like Manitoulin Island\u2019s Ivan Wheale<\/a>, a respected Northern Ontario landscape artist who painted up to the end before passing away this year at age 90, Stopciati said he\u2019ll also always be an artist.<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s the way I’m going to go,\u201d he said emphatically. \u201cThere’s no retirement. My studio is all set up. It always has been. It’s just I haven’t been attending to it as much as I should have, and this move of shutting this location down is going to permit me to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Stopciati, who goes by John but whose first name is actually Giovanni, came to Canada from Italy with his parents at the age of five, and grew up in Creighton Mine, a mining community close to Lively that\u2019s now a ghost town.<\/p>\n He was always known among his peers for his artistic abilities, and when he was in Grade 8, he won a scholarship that allowed him to attend a painting course at the Sudbury library. \u201cI sort of got into oil painting then,\u201d Stopciati said.<\/p>\n But becoming a full-time artist was many years away, as he worked his way up in the grocery store industry, from parcel boy to manager in Toronto by age 22, eventually moving back to Sudbury to open and manage grocery stores in the South End and Chelmsford.<\/p>\n \u201cI was burning the midnight oil at home in the studio, painting at night until midnight, going into work, back and forth,\u201d said Stopciati.<\/p>\n After spending 23 years in the grocery biz, and finally getting tired of \u201cbabysitting 150 kids,\u201d referring to his mostly youthful part-time employees, he decided to walk away and \u201cstart from scratch,\u201d opening his gallery.<\/p>\n While he has progressed in his artistic techniques over the years, Stopciati said he\u2019s amazed that when people look at his paintings from 50 years ago, they ask him if it\u2019s new work.<\/p>\n Besides the Northern Ontario scenery so iconic in his paintings, other notable works include a collection of 15 pieces depicting pow-wow dancers in Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island.<\/p>\n Because the pieces were created a good quarter-century ago, between 1999 and 2002, some of the dancers he painted have now passed on.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stopciati said his attention to realistic detail was especially important in those pieces.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don’t get it correct, they’ll come and tell you, because every piece they have is significant,\u201d he said, adding that often, pieces in dancers\u2019 regalia have sentimental value, including having inherited it from family members.<\/p>\n Stopciati said he wants to thank everyone who has supported his gallery over the years, and invites people to come check his large collection of originals and reproductions out before it closes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The gallery is located at 153 Applegrove St. His current hours of operation are Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can contact Stopciati through his website, www.johnstopciati.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n