Emma Cuddy, a senior art student at the University of Idaho, has been painting since she was young, but focused on oil paintings in high school. This love for oil paintings grew, and she began doing portraits and now football art pieces.
Cuddy loves to paint, but the idea for the football pieces was not hers; it was Richard Pathomsiri’s. He is the director of video production and multimedia content for the athletic department and the brains behind the paintings.
“Originally, we had tried to conceptualize a reveal for our 50th anniversary jerseys last year, and one of my interns at the time, Katie Slade, told me that it’d be cool to do a painting and to reach out to Emma,” said Pathomsiri.
Pathomsiri reached out but never heard a response, so he decided to move on until he saw Cuddy at an art show, saw her talent, and followed her on Instagram. Cuddy then saw the message and reached back out, thus leading to the powerful duo creating the beautiful masterpieces. Pathomsiri came up with the idea for the paintings for a movie called “Dreams.”
“There was a segment where the character wanders through a bunch of instant van Gogh paintings, and I think it reflects our intimacy with art, and I realized that the betrayal of differentmediums can be used for something completely different. So that’s when I reached out to Emma and said, ‘Hey, we should do football game week paintings,’” said Pathomsiri.
Each painting is different for each week of the football team playing. The paintings are based on the mascots of the rival school the Vandals football team is playing that week. The two had the ideas of having the football player fighting or doing something with the other teams mascot.
The idea was to have the paintings have a dramatic or comical light of the other team. Such as the game against the Abilene Wildcats, the vandal football player is holding the mascot like a kitten. Shining the battle in a comical light.
When given how intricate these paintings are, one has to wonder how much goes into these paintings.
“The first painting I did was about 30 hours. It sort of varies the amount of time on each one; sometimes they are easier, and sometimes they are harder,” said Cuddy.
Cuddy spends about the whole day in the studio working on the paintings and her senior painting. The athletic department is kind enough to support Cuddy with paint and other supplies she may need to create a masterpiece.
The poses that the football players are placed in were not taken from football pictures; they were posed specifically for these paintings. Some paintings are in a manner in which football players do not naturally pose.
“When media day came along, we made note of the players that would have to pose specifically, and we had them hit an extra pose or two, and we had to make sure the lighting was right too so Emma could emulate that in the paintings,” said Pathomsiri.
The plan as mentioned above is to paint a different painting every game; there could be a possibility of extra paintings if the football team wins a game. With these paintings taking a while to come to life, no one expected them to be a huge success.
Cuddy thought there would be a general interest from the community, especially in the vandal family. But she never thought this crazy idea, out of the ordinary, would take off so much.
“When was the last time you saw a hand-painted football graphic?” said Cuddy.
Along with Cuddy, Pathomsiri never thought that this would create such a buzz about going against AI art. He thought there would be general praise, like Cuddy, from the community and art fans.
But he never expected the reception in the first three weeks to be so phenomenal, especially with the spirit of those thinking they are going against AI.
“I have told many other people that Emma and I never had that intention for it to be against AI, and I don’t think either of us relies on AI, and I think both of us will firmly believe that people can still make great things,” said Pathosmiri.
Neither of these great minds expected this would gather national attention and have so much praise.
What happens with these amazing paintings once they are done? Once the game has passed that the painting was made for, they are auctioned off to the highest bidder. All proceeds go back to Cuddy and the athletic department to continue the art.
But are there other goals with these paintings? Pathosmiri has some ideas.
“There has been a demand to have a public showing of at least all 12 of them together… figure out a way we can put them all in a bar for a week or a local restaurant or a gallery or something like that.”
With the beginning of the football season, all good things have to come to an end. But does that count for these paintings? The two minds behind this idea have thought about painting other university sports, such as basketball. But will Emma be around to paint it?
Cuddy shared she plans on taking a gap year and sticking around Moscow before continuing to grad school. She would like to stay with the athletic department and continue painting these amazing concepts for other UI sports.
The idea, the process, and the product makes these paintings unique and something different anyone has seen in quite a while. With the rest of the football season ahead, Cuddy and Pathosmiri have some amazing ideas ahead.
Grace Boehland can be reached at [email protected].