I've been fortunate to interview artist Mel McCuddin over the years. In 2021, he and Gloria, his wife of 69 years, allowed me to peek inside their Spokane Valley home for an Inlander Health & Home article. There, his artwork hung alongside works from local and regional artists, travel mementos, and drawings by the couple's grandchildren.
Surrounded by this artwork and his loving family, McCuddin passed away peacefully at the age of 89 on Monday, Sept. 26, after a brief but rapid decline in health.
McCuddin was a big man, standing at least 6 feet, 2 inches tall, yet by all accounts he never made anyone feel small. Instead, he talked softly and carried a big paintbrush, so to speak, letting his canvases speak. Over the past 40 years especially, McCuddin crafted a universe of figures — humans, animals, birds, fish — emerging from glowing backgrounds with titles ranging from humor to irony.
"Top of the Food Chain" for a painting of a shark. "Flag Day" for an image of a squarish man with a small head and striped shorts. Mostly, however, McCuddin's titles gave few clues to each painting's meaning, which may be why his work has been so popular.
Extremely popular, says Sue Bradley, owner of the former Tinman Gallery. McCuddin was "one of the few artists in our region that could generate a buying frenzy at a show's opening," she notes. The other was Harold Balazs, McCuddin's lifelong friend.
McCuddin didn't seek notoriety, but obliged when asked to talk about his work, like for The Art Spirit Gallery, where he had shown since 1997. He is also represented at Mango Tango Gallery on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Mel and Gloria were longtime arts supporters, frequenting exhibitions in North Idaho as well as Spokane, says Art Spirit's Blair Williams, who curated McCuddin's final exhibition at the gallery, planned before he died, and on display throughout this October.
Kind, humble and generous. These are the words people I spoke with used to describe McCuddin, whom they admired both personally and professionally.
"All my life, I've never seen him be disrespectful to anyone," says his son Neil McCuddin, noting that he and his siblings, brother Mason McCuddin and sister Colleen Cicarelli, "won the parent lottery."
KSPS television producer Scott McKinnon met the McCuddins in 2021 for a Northwest Profiles feature. McKinnon describes Mel as "one of the most engaging and unassuming" people he'd ever interviewed.
"Mel is a gentle spirit, a rarity in today's society," says Beth Sellars, a former art curator for the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (when it was the Cheney Cowles Museum), who helped jumpstart McCuddin's career in 1987 with a two-person show.
"When I hear Mel's name I can't help but smile," adds Williams.
McCuddin started painting in the 1950s, influenced by modernists Willem de Koonig, Francis Bacon and Modigliani. Those early works were more abstract than the figurative paintings McCuddin has become known for and which bemuse some and bewitch others.
"[Mel's] ability to reach out and get people's imaginations racing is just fascinating," says son Neil, who remembers how as little kids, he and Mason would scare themselves silly over his dad's painting of a railroad worker.
Sometimes people's imaginations got the better of them.
When "The Patriot" with its upside-down flag, a distress symbol, landed Mel's painting in USA Today, McCuddin was dismayed at the supposed controversy. And when Neil asked if his father would capitalize on his newfound fame, the elder McCuddin declined.
"I just want to paint," Neil recalls his father saying.
Karen Mobley, the former Spokane city arts director, loves how McCuddin's "sense of humor emerges in his paintings — the quirky people, the animals with the human-like eyes, the curious juxtapositions of scale and pattern."
McCuddin's painting technique was unconventional and intuitive, paralleling how Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo described his process of releasing the figures from the marble he carved. After layering paint onto the canvas, McCuddin would smudge some areas, wipe away others. He'd look at the painting in different ways — in the mirror, upside down, with smeared eyeglasses — then enhance shapes as he saw them emerge.
"[Mel] always discussed the finished paintings with a sense of wonder, as though he were the conduit for what the painting wished to be," Sellars recalls.
Through Oct. 31, open Wed-Sat from 11 am-6 pm
The Art Spirit Gallery, 415 Sherman Ave., Coeur d'Alene
TheArtSpiritGallery.com, 208-765-6006
McCuddin's success includes being featured on the cover of books, inside the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, and in McCuddin: The Inner Eye, by former Spokesman-Review columnist Doug Clark and his wife, Sherry.
Despite his success, the mostly self-taught McCuddin remained humble and kept pushing the boundaries of what he could do with his art.
"[Mel] never really made sales his priority, preferring to make the art for its own sake," says his son Mason.
Mason started collaborating with his father in the 1980s, photographing the senior McCuddin's artwork, including for his final exhibit.
Mel was concerned that some of his new paintings might not be received as well as the "usual" figurative paintings, notes Mason, who was struck by his father's humility. "He's this big deal painter who it seems like everyone loves, and he's worried that people might not like this new work."
Mason also asked his father if he would change anything or had any art regrets, to which Mel replied that he would have played things less safe and taken a few more chances.
"The gist was pretty much 'don't wait and don't stop growing.'" ♦
Editor's Note: A longer version of this story was published on Inlander.com on Sept. 27.
