MEET THE LEGEND: Art of Cundro

Anthony Cundro expresses his thoughts.

Although Cundro has been making art for quite sometime now, we recently just discovered him. The first time we heard of Anthony Cundro was when we met up with Timmy Price for the first time; and during our conversation, he told us that he really liked what we were doing for the area and referred him to us. Shortly afterwards, we contacted Cundro and scheduled a meeting.

Q: What was it like growing up where you did and how did it influence you?.

A: "I grew up in Northeastern PA and I’ve always felt it shaped many things about me. The people here work hard and they work endlessly. There is a ton of pressure to get into a trade and join the workforce and while I did have a moment where I really thought I’d be an electrician, attending the classes and everything, in the end I think it pushed me even closer to art. What I’ve found is that art plays a role in people’s lives just like the trades. It’s a beacon of hope and a way to experience something outside of the day to day. I think that’s something really important and I do my best to make sure my work is something people can really tune into."

Q: When did you start creating?

A: "The second I was holding a pencil it started. I always had an urge to take what I saw and turn it into something that made sense to me. I feel it’s a large portion of who I am at this point and I can’t see it ever stopping."

Q: How would you describe your style? How has it evolved?

A: "Style is something I struggled with for a long time. I chased everyone else’s style for years upon years and wondered why I wasn’t always happy with what I was making. This stupid cartoonish simplistic style kept coming out and I tried my best to mask it and watch another tutorial on how to properly shade facial features. Sometime in the middle of high school, something shook loose and it hit me. That was my style. My style has become something that’s easy to digest but has layers to it. I feel like while I honestly suck at shading and have no regard for anatomy and proportion,there’s a weight to it and people can take something away from the silly things I create."

Q: What’s your creative process??

A: "My ideas start as single concepts. To name a few that have been common recently: protection,retribution, legends, prophecies, hidden power, etc. I’ll get stuck on one of these and start to for man example of it in my little world of creations. Is it a creature? An event? A story told around a campfire? I try to fit it into a world and make it a thing that feels tangible and real. Something that was around before I made the drawing and will continue long after it’s replaced with new ones.Once I have that down I bring it to the sketchbook and chip away until I feel like I’m adding minuscule details that have no real bearing on the project anymore. At that point I consider it done and present it."

Q: Are you working on any projects are you working on now?

A: "I’m actually working on a couple. One of them is a comic book/graphic novel I’m still nailing down the story for and testing out concepts for as well. That’s still a long time away but more recent will be my short film. It’s about halfway done and doesn’t have a name but in regards to my previous work it will be nothing short of revolutionary. To some people it’ll probably just be run of the mill boring art movie junk but to me personally it’s 5 steps up from anything I’ve ever done and I couldn’t be prouder. That’s coming soon, most likely before Christmas."

Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years/ future plans???

A: "I used to try to have an idea of that but it almost never ends up anywhere near what I say so in amore general sense; I want to be creating, growing, and still producing the art that makes me happy."