There is a saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
On the other hand, there is the saying that you are never too old to learn.
Avon resident Bob Stella is a painter and this is one of his works. (Submitted)
Well, Avon resident Bob Stella definitively embodies the latter, as the most famous local artist didn’t pick up a paintbrush until he was eighty.
Most may know Stella as a local restaurateur who has owned five well-known eateries in Lorain County since the 1960s.
And while he has worn many hats in his nearly 90 years, becoming a painter was not something Stella thought would become his passion.
He was born in 1935 on the east side of Cleveland.
Stella left school in seventh grade to work in an auto body shop.
He was drafted and served in the United States Army as part of the 35th Field Artillery Infantry Division in the 1950s.
Stella was assigned to Schweinfurt, Germany, as part of their patrol division and began running the kitchen to feed the 500 men stationed.
It was this early love of cooking that led Stella on his future career path, which took a slight detour after completing his military service.
He began his return to civilian life as a truck driver and later as a Dandy Potato Chips salesman.
But Stella wanted to run his own business, so he decided to become a franchisee for a company called Open Pantry, a convenience food supermarket.
“I really wanted to start my own business,” he says. “I didn’t want to work for anyone.
“I started doing auto body work myself, and then I got drafted into the military, so that was that. After the army I still wanted my own business.
“I was really good at marketing in the store because when I was a kid my mom had a little grocery store and I would go there after school and work with her all the time. I was really into learning business but didn’t really realize it.
“So I marketed things in the Open Pantry that they weren’t marketing that did really well.”
Stella said he fondly remembers being one of the first franchises to offer Kodak films.
He later opened his own private supermarket to compete with Open Pantry, Convenient Food Mart and others.
But Stella admits this may not have been the best business decision, as the big chains essentially bankrupted the small mom-and-pops in the ultra-competitive industry.
“We ended up closing the store, losing $150,000 at the time, and I still had about $8,000 in the bank,” he said. ‘I had no job, no education, and I went to Sheffield Lake and decided to try pizza.
“I opened a pizzeria. At that time there were not many pizzerias. Pizza wasn’t that important back then.
“So I opened Stella’s Pizza and here are lines down the street. It was so successful. Eventually I got a call from local builder Bucky Kopf asking if I would put a restaurant in his new shopping center, and that’s how we ended up with Avon Lake Landing.
“I ran that for about fifteen years, and eventually it became Stella’s Italian. But I wanted to do something different and I thought yogurt would be the next big thing. So my wife and I opened a yogurt shop in Oberlin in the 1980s called The Swiss Yogurt Company.
The serial restaurateur had a few more places after that, but his health began to deteriorate and he withdrew from daily work.
Stella developed a breathing condition that he said has baffled experts in finding treatments.
He said he only felt good when he was sitting.
To paint
Stella wondered what he should do with his free time, and what he could do while sitting to keep his creative mind active.
Paint.
“I decided to buy some brushes and paints,” Stella said. “The reason I decided to paint was because I had followed my father-in-law in Canada for forty years but never picked up a brush and he was one of the greatest artists in all of Canada.”
Stella’s late father-in-law was Umberto Brunia professor at the Beaux-arts Institute of Art in Montreal, Canada, was revered throughout Quebec for his artwork.
“So when I was 84 years old, I bought these brushes and started painting,” he said. “And after throwing away three-quarters of it for a year, it finally started working for me.
“I found the guy online in Florida and he had a new way of painting, and he made his own paint. It was very thick paint.
“I started watching him and thought, I want to do that, so I bought his paint, which was expensive, and started painting with a brush and a palette knife.
“It’s usually done with a palette knife because it’s very thick.”
Stella has had a number of showings for his paints and has sold dozens of them.
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His pieces are for sale at Talents33491 Lake Road, in Avon Lake.
Stella creates the pieces from his imagination and creativity and does not offer work on commission.
“I’m not good at it when someone tells me, paint this for me, and I say no, thank you,” he said. “I just do this for my own pleasure, and it has to come from me.
“What gives me joy is that first and foremost you have to think conceptually. There’s a lot of thinking involved in painting because you have to figure out what colors there are, how the colors go together, and what looks good together.
“Then you have to figure out the subject. I’ve always loved creating, which is why I had so many businesses. I’ve always loved creating new things, so every painting is new.”
Stella is married to Yvonne and the couple live in Avon.
They share four children, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
And the 89-year-old says he tries to paint a little every day.