Opening Reception: Life Was Her Art, Selections from the Carmona Collection

Carmona: The works of Ana Maria Carmona Cusick
When: Sunday, May 8, 2016, 2-5pm
Where: Maslow Gallery, Shields Center for Visual Arts and Kresge Gallery, Insalaco Center for Studio Arts
Display Hours: 10 AM – 3 PM, Monday – Friday
Cost: FREE and open to the public

Ana Maria Carmona Cusick (1935-2011), was known to friends and arts enthusiasts as Carmona. In her time, she was an artist who created watercolor Chinese inspired pieces of art and Annamese ceramic design. Carmona’s friends and family knew her as someone who had a perceptive mind and unique ideas. Her interest and talent in soprano operatic music influenced her greatly, and she was given opportunities to travel because of it.

While singing in Italy, she discovered blue and white Persian and Chinese pottery and decided she wanted to learn the skills to make them herself. She specialized in classical landscapes, waterfalls, flowers, and birds that she saw there, painting in watercolors on rare papers and silks.

Her artwork has an immense amount of detail in it, really showing where she got her Chinese inspiration from. Overall, her fan-base and everyone she taught believed her style perfectly described her personality and they loved being around her. Carmona’s artwork reflected the beauty and light inside her, and portrayed various unique elements of design.

Her husband, Daniel L. Cusack, graciously donated her artwork to Marywood after she passed. So go check out Carmona’s work, because her background is so unique from other artists, that her work could inspire you, without having to leave the country and sing opera!

To learn more about Carmona, here is a website with some information on her and her artwork.

Images Courtesy of Ana Maria Carmona Cusick