Loretta
Cuda in her studio. |
Loretta Cuda recalls that it was in the
fourth grade that she made the decision to become an artist.
She lived in Pittsburgh, PA at the time, and while she
wasn’t quite yet ready to pack her bags, bid the family
adieu, and make the big move on her own, she did know that one
day she would be an artist and she would “move to New
England and paint the rocky coasts of Maine.”
About her fourth grade epiphany, she recalls very
vividly how her teacher, a Ms. Cox “did something
unbelievable the first day of class”. It was unbelievable,
she says, because the Catholic school she attended earlier
rarely allowed student such artistic license. Ms. Cox showed
her “where the watercolors were, the crayons, the poster
paint, glue, paste, paper, brushes, scissors etc. and
incredibly said to proceed with our own project.” |
A teacher’s encouragement, according to Cuda,
opened her eyes to possibilities she could only dream of as she sat
alone in her home and copied cartoon and comic book characters and
drew objects from around the house, a pastime her father thought
unproductive to say the least. His doubts “didn’t discourage me
a bit,” she says with the kind of conviction you would expect from
someone who had her mind made up about career so early in life.
By junior high she was seeking opportunities to
learn and responded to a matchbook solicitation to draw and submit a
copy of a picture from the cover. “I drew the profile of the
pretty woman’s face and sent it in.” Sure enough, she soon received a sample lesson, completed it
and sent it back, and was “accepted” to attend a “famous
artists school”. Her
parents disapproved, though, and instead of enrolling in school from
a matchbook cover, she, perhaps wisely, continued with her high
school education and pursued her artistic interests there.
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"Inborn
Potentia",egg tempera, 3"x 2.25", © by Loretta
Cuda
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It
is said that circumstances often determine the course of our
actions. If that is so, her disappointment over being told she
would not be able to attend the mail order art school provided
the opportunity she would have to grow and learn as a budding
artists following a different path. So, during her high school
years Cuda painted and drew and earned the reputation as a
good classroom artist. The assignments followed:
decorate the classroom and its windows and borders during
holidays, etc.. Cuda’s talents were clearly evident and
quickly noticed by one of her high school art teachers. He
thought she had enough talent that he did something
extraordinary: He “brought his paint box of oils to school for me
because our high school didn’t have oil paint.” His name was Mr.
Kirshbaumer. “In those days we didn’t know teachers’ first
names,” she says with amusement. |
Oils
opened up a whole new vista for a young Cuda whose interest and talent
slowly continued to grow. She attended Saturday art classes at Carnegie
Mellon for two years until high school ended. Her compass set, she
hoped to enroll in the art program at what is now Virginia
Commonwealth University, but her father, seeing no future in art
for his daughter encouraged her to pursue other interests. “I
eventually convinced him to let me look at the art school.” What she couldn’t convince him to do, however, was to let her
evaluate the school’s art program on her own. Doubtful, but willing
to see what it was that interested his young daughter, he accompanied
her the Richmond Professional Institute (Richmond later became
Virginia Commonwealth University) to take a look around for himself.
He was hardly amused, Cuda says, “when he saw what he thought
were a bunch of beatniks.” Like many other fathers of the era, she
says, “he didn’t want his daughter to go to class at a school
where there were beatnicks. So I changed my major to psychology and
painted on the side.”
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"Radishes",
egg tempera, 4"x 6" © by Loretta
Cuda
|
By the early seventies Cuda, independent and
determined to pursue a life’s course of her choosing, left Virginia
Commonwealth before graduation and came to Boston to do what she
wanted: paint. She enrolled at the Mass College of Art and took
classes at the Museum School, and worked at whatever job she
could manage -- antique dealer, cab driver -- all the while reserving
the evenings for her art.
As the years passed Cuda continued to paint. This
is a theme that resurfaces throughout her life: her single focus on |
one day being an artist was always present. “I never, ever gave up
on the idea that I was going to be an artist full time,” she says.
“I got into restoration because I was very good at painting small
details and matching color. So I was hired as a part time inpainter.”
By the mid nineties, Loretta Cuda, was an
accomplished but, as yet, undiscovered artist. Her painting
technique and concentration became so fine-tuned, she says, that
when she paints, mostly evenings, and often through the evening to
early morning hours, she would lose sight of time altogether.
“Time stops” she says when she paints in egg tempera. “I’m
no longer aware of my surroundings. I don’t hear; I don’t think
I see; and I’m not even aware of my own body, or what my hand is
doing.” The experience, she says is a little “magical, mystical
and spooky”. “I think these periods last anywhere from 20 to 30
minutes. I’m not really sure. I just know that when I’m again
aware, or conscious, of the painting -- like a part I might have
been having difficulty with -- it’s done, or darn near done.”
She says the experience only happens when she uses egg tempera.
Around 1995-96,
Cuda showed her work to an artist friend who lived on Martha’s
Vineyard. “She saw my work and said the Vineyard would love my
work.” Doubtful, but encouraged to make the journey, Cuda traveled
to Martha’s Vineyard, and showed her work to six galleries. What
happened next surprised her, but not those who knew her work: “I
took seven small paintings with me and set up appointments with six
galleries. All six galleries said, yes, they’d love to show my
work. I settled on one of them.” The experience repeated itself
when she showed her work elsewhere. In 2000 for the first time in
its history, the prestigious Vose Gallery in Boston decided
to show the work of living contemporary artists. They saw her work
and asked her to participate. “They chose five artists and I was
one of the five.”
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"Strawberry
on a Shelf", egg tempera, 2.25"x 3" © by Loretta
Cuda
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Today, Loretta Cuda’s work is her hallmark: small egg tempera
paintings, sometimes as small as one inch by two inches,
almost always objects, never landscapes, except as seen
through the window of room interiors, and always framed in
wide black frames. Why black frames? She tried other styles
and colors: gold, silver, platinum, but the experience was a
nightmare, as she recalls, because of the smallness of her
paintings, and the bright colors she uses for her egg
tempera work. It was just too difficult to match a frame to
her style and bright palette. “So with two |
friends who
worked as framers and gilders, we sat down to solve the
problem. They settled on a color that was just perfect:
black. Today, Cuda’s work stands out precisely because of
its size. They’re not bigger, thicker, looser, but just
the way she likes them: small, colorful, a little abstract
and offbeat, and surrounded by wide black frames.
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"Bing
Cherries", egg tempera, 5"x 7" © by Loretta
Cuda
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Of
her work today, she says her paintings are evocative of the works of
14th century Italian and Netherlands painters -- clear,
bright colors, the linearity, the detail, and as having a “a tad of
humor and maybe just a touch of lusciousness, richness, or
edibility.” She sums it up this way: “When I fantasize about my
paintings hung in a great big gallery, scores of people pass by,
greatly intrigued by the great big paintings all around. Then, every
now and then, a person stops, draws close, and sees a pair of high
heels filled with grapes, or a luscious strawberry nestled on a
seashell. They pull back and there’s a tiny smile on their face.
That’s nirvana.”
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