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Photograph by Vicki Thompson

Egyptian Show: Artist Cory Wade is hosting her one-woman show, 'Expressions of Ancient Egypt,' at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum through December.

Egyptian digs are inspiration for one-woman show

By Mary Gottschalk

Cory Wade is one San Jose artist who is not insulted when someone looks at her abstract expressionistic paintings and says, "I don't get it."

"My feelings are never hurt. I'm not defensive," says Wade, who has a one-woman exhibit of 60 of her paintings at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum through Dec. 30.

As her work is always abstract expressionism, she has seen her share of perplexed viewers.

"If someone walks up to the canvas and says, 'What am I supposed to get?,' my answer is 'Whatever you get.'

"They don't have to get something. I want them to be co-creators with me. I want the viewer to be a co-creator," she says.

"If someone says, 'I'm not sure I'm getting it,' I love it. I say, "That's what it's all about. Let's put it together.' "

Given her attitude, it's not surprising Wade is not unhappy when a viewer sees something totally different in her work than the vision she had while creating it.

At an exhibit earlier this year at the Triton Museum, Wade says a woman came up to her after looking at "The Search for Osiris."

When the woman asked Wade where she got the idea of painting "ghosties," Wade told her she was envisioning birds while painting the piece.

When the woman told her, "It's clear they are ghosties," Wade says, "I said, 'Maybe we can agree they both fly.' "

Wade believes that because her work is expressionistic, it is also therapeutic.

"I believe my art is very healing for people," she says.

"No one can feel despondent looking at these canvases. Instead of having a literal reference for every canvas, the viewer is invited to construe what they see or what they need to see. This isn't true for representational or literal art. If it's a red barn, it's always a red barn."

Eclectic Upbringing

Due to her father's work, Wade was born in Java and spent her early childhood in Southeast Asia and Indonesia.

Although her parents decided to settle in Georgia so she would have a stable upbringing and American education, Wade says those early years were influential.

She is a lifelong vegetarian and says, "I can't tolerate cold because I was born in the tropics.

"I began my life on an island in a culture that had so many different strands of languages, history and cuisine that mainstream American life seemed odd to me. I felt like an international citizen.

"I have blond hair and blue eyes, but my own background mitigated against that stereotype."

Wade's allergies caused her family to relocate to the Bay Area before she started high school. She's remained here ever since, except when she was pursuing her doctorate at the University of Washington in Seattle.

After completing a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Stanford University's creative writing program, Wade stayed on to teach there.

She also earned a law degree at Santa Clara University, and today, is a full-time senior lecturer in historical linguistics and ancient culture there.

Art World

To say that Wade is passionate about her art is an understatement.

The Almaden home she shares with her husband, Kevin Curdt, a judicial magistrate, is totally devoted to her art.

"My husband and I donated all our furniture to Goodwill about a decade ago, to make room for my art," Wade says.

"I often rise at 4 a.m. and I work for a couple of hours, and when it becomes dawn, I start reviewing and preparing my lectures. I teach all day, come back at 4 or 5, and I start painting. I forget if I've had dinner or if the laundry is stacking up."

Describing her husband as a saint, Wade says, "painting has taken over all of my non-teaching hours."

In fact, she says she uses her academic salary to buy paint, to pay for the mahogany and birchwood she prefers to paint on, for frames and for storage facilities of finished art as she creates more than she can store at home.

Although Wade is familiar with all painting mediums, her preference is for acrylics.

"It's by far the best medium. It can withstand ultraviolet light, mold, the extremes of hot and cold. Its ability to endure and its longevity is everything to me," she says.

"Sometimes I joke that I want my paintings, like the pharaoh, to live forever. I want them to survive, as Shakespeare said, 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' "

Rosicrucian Exhibit

Wade's paintings in the Rosicrucian exhibit range from 8 by 10 inches to 4 by 5 feet, and some are diptychs and triptychs.

"I like to work big," Wade says. "I have many wall-size pieces I have to store because they're room-size. They're gigantic pieces that belong in museums. My preferred size is maybe 3 by 4 feet. I like a little over life-size."

Prices of the pieces in the show range from $350 for the smallest pieces to $16,000 for one of the diptychs. Most canvases are in the $2,000 to $8,000 range.

While paintings are traditionally flat, Wade describes hers as "sculptured paintings. They're three-dimensional. My pieces are highly contoured and sculptured with mountainous quantities of pigment.

"People can't keep their hands off them. Bless their hearts, they can't help it, they have to touch the surface. They're very tactile."

Egyptian Influences

While Wade says her life is divided into the two worlds of art and academia, she does make time for Egypt, the inspiration for this show and much of her art.

With her husband, she visits Egypt at least once a year and sometimes twice, often participating in archeological digs.

"I need to see the tomb paintings and the monumental structures," she says.

"These are very high and very harmonious creations of the human consciousness. It's such a holistic integration for me to see these.

"There is something so magnetic and compelling about seeing the physical evidence of the ancient world. It's best preserved and best accessible in Egypt.

"We can see the best that our species has done in what has been preserved in Egypt. This was a glorious high point for human civilization."

"Expressions of Ancient Egypt," a one-woman show of paintings by Cory Wade, is on exhibit through Dec. 30 in the gallery of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Park and Naglee avenues. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $9 general, $7 for seniors and students with identification, $5 for children 5 to 10 and free to children under 5. The museum is closed on Dec. 24 and 25.