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Oleda 2007
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Born in Plant
City, Florida, near Tampa, in 1934, Oleda Baker was raised
in Miami. At age 26, married and the mother
of a 1 ½ year son, she traveled to New York City
to become a high fashion TV and photographers' model. Her
modeling career, primarily under contract with the prestigious
Wilhelmina Agency, was her main activity for the next dozen
years . . . but that's not all she did.
While still modeling, she authored her
first book, The Model's Way to Beauty, Slenderness and Glowing
Health, published by Prentice-Hall. She went on to produce
seven more Beauty/Health books, published by Doubleday,
Putnam and Ballantine, as well as a quasi-autobiographical
novel, titled Reluctant Goddess, published by Jove. She
promoted the books touring the country doing TV Talk Show,
Radio and Newspaper interviews.
Still modeling and while writing her second
book, I Hate to Make Up (Prentice-Hall), Oleda founded Oleda
and Company, Inc.(1971), a Beauty/Health/Anti-aging products
company, specializing in Skin Care, Hair Care, Vitamins
and Supplements, Makeup, and Spa Products, among others.
Today, Oleda is still CEO of Oleda and
Company, Inc. that now offers some 300 products internationally
and maintains an extensive Web site, www.oleda.com.
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Oleda Age 36
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Oleda Begins to Paint
At age 36, still modeling for Wilhelmina
and writing her early books, Oleda developed an inexplicable,
strong desire to put her feelings on canvas. So, one day
she simply walked into one of New York City's art supply
stores and purchased everything in sight in order to get
started. She had never had a brush in her hand, nor had
she ever had a lesson in Art-and to this day still has not-but
somehow she knew she just had to paint; and she discovered
she had an uncanny, innate talent for it.
After
completing her first ten paintings, a dear friend and
art collector, whose personal collection
included original Monet's and Rembrandt's, on seeing Oleda's
work took her to show three of her paintings to art expert
Victor Hammer of Hammer
Galleries. Mr. Hammer, although he disavowed his expertise
in naïve art, thought enough
of them to have them sent to Mr. Otto Kallir, a renowned
expert in the field.
Mr.
Kallir wanted to see more, so Oleda took three additional
canvases and met with him in his Manhattan
studio. Mr. Kallir thought so highly of Oleda's work that
he invited her to be one of five artists in the last
show
he would give before retiring. "I will introduce you
as my new, young artist," he said.
Sadly, Oleda could not accept this wonderful
offer. Mr. Kallir wanted thirty paintings from her for his
show, which was only a few months away, and Oleda, so new
to painting, and not sure of herself, didn't know if she
could paint even one more, much less produce that many in
so short a time. Moreover, she was then under contract with
a publisher to complete a new beauty/health book, she was
still modeling for Wilhelmina, and she was working on the
startup of her new company. Taking on another project of
completing twenty more paintings was just too much to commit
to. Still, Oleda's elation that such a famous art expert
would even consider her work stimulated in her an even stronger
desire to paint.
In
the 1980's Oleda had two shows in New York City at which
many of her paintings were sold. One
collector of naïve art, Mr. Allen Fortunoff, purchased
three of her works.
In
1986, Oleda was invited to exhibit her paintings at the
Wichita Art Association Museum. They exhibited
thirty canvases and asked her to be guest speaker at the
museum's members' only dinner, introducing her as the "New
York Naïve Fantasy Painter." They also arranged
TV talk show and newspaper interviews to help promote the
museum and Oleda's art. The museum bought one of the paintings,
My Sister, Francey, for their collection,
Shortly after that, Oleda closed her studio
in New York and moved her residence to Texas where, for
the next eighteen years she focused on the operation of
Oleda and Company, Inc., and, without a studio in which
to do so, produced no paintings during that period.
Oleda's Artistic Rebirth
Oleda and her husband, Richard, were married
in 2001 taking up residence in Boca Raton, Florida. Richard,
after seeing Oleda's paintings and pictures of her previous
work, and sensing her deep desire and love of creating oil
on canvas, had an art studio constructed on their home so
that Oleda could begin painting again. Delayed by the damage
caused by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, the studio was finally
completed in 2006. Ever since its completion, Oleda, after
more than twenty years without a brush in her hand, has
been in it almost every day, once again painting her feelings.
After the studio was built, a dear friend, well known in
the art world, inspired Oleda to take her work very seriously.
She is doing just that
Oleda's
paintings express beautiful thoughts, flowers, animals,
birds, trees, angels, happiness, friendship,
and most of all, love and peace
it's very rare that
she will paint an unhappy canvas
but when she does
.it's still an expression of her feelings!
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