MATTHEW BURNETTE, Staff Writer

Customers at Jugheadz Juice were given an up-close look at the artistic process on March 28.

Newly local artist Musa Suber set up an easel and spent the day working on some of his paintings and chatting with curious patrons of the juice establishment.

Suber, who moved to Tennessee from Jacksonville, typically can be found painting at Fred Deadman Park but decided on a change of scenery for the day so he went to Jugheadz where some of his artwork is available for purchase.

“He is a new vendor that we have here in the shop,” said Brittany Morrison, whose husband Justin is the titular Jughead. “He just came by today and was like ‘Hey, I’m gonna live paint today, and I was like ‘Okay. That’s really cool. Why not?’”

Morrison explained that they had had an artist there during music events before, but due to his medium, he was relegated to the outside area of the business, so an artist like Suber who can paint indoors was a nice treat for customers.

“It’s really cool,” she said, adding that Suber has a very seamless method for customers to purchase his artwork. “It’s a nice little extra element.”

Suber started painting over a decade ago but only recently got serious about it in the last two or three years after the loss of his father, which painting and selling his artwork at different events and venues, he says, has helped him cope with.

“It helps me heal a lot better and by showing my art and doing these types of portions I’m able to talk to different people and they tell me about their stories and things like that, and I feel like it’s more of a just a therapy session with it,” he explained. “They’re able to get what they need off of their chest and also instead of going to a therapist and talking about what’s going on, I’m able to talk to the person that’s coming up and we talk about everything.”

Though more in tuned with who he is an artist now, Suber says when he first started out he had trouble finding his voice.

“I was in Jacksonville on the beach trying to sell art and I didn’t know how to express what I had on the canvas. It was more of beach scenes and different things like that,” he recalled. “I kind of slowed down a little bit and took about a year off. I went to a business school for art and things like that. When I went to the school, it taught me to express myself.”

While Suber does make money selling his art, he says that he doesn’t necessarily paint just for that reason. He also enjoys expressing himself and connecting with others.

He cited an encounter he had at his first festival that he set up a booth at Canvas Community Church. A lady approached and initiated a conversation about one of his paintings that was inspired by his late father.

“When I spoke to her and told her my story she started bawling out crying, and I was like ‘I’m sorry’ and she was like ‘No, you just reminded me of my dad’ and how she had a tough time with him and how he had just passed, so we kind of talked a little bit,” remembered Suber. “She teared up which made me tear up a little bit and we kind of hugged and kicked it a little bit and she got one of the paintings and we actually still keep in touch on Facebook.”

That conversation, according to Suber, influenced his approach to his creating and selling his art.

“From that moment on I was like ‘This is really, really cool’ and every show after that I took the same process and have just been real with my art,” he said. “Instead of a sales pitch, it’s my actual story.”