Louisville historic homes stilled and brought to life by artist

If you go

What: Hanging of Leah Bradley’s Louisville paintings

When: 6 p.m., June 22

Where: The LoCoYo, 917 Front St., Louisville

More information: leahbradley.com

LOUISVILLE — The more Leah Bradley drove through downtown Louisville on her way to work each morning, the more taken in she was by the wide assortment of quaint and charming homes that seemed to line each and every street.

She marveled at the unique architecture and bright colors, she was struck by the tidy porches and shuttered windows. Until one day in March, Bradley broke out her easel and her brushes, took up a position on the side of the road, and began to paint… and paint… and paint.

Two months later, she has painted — oil on wood panel — 30 houses in the historic downtown district, and she has her eye on 20 more.

“I kept admiring these little houses because they seemed like little still lifes to me,” she said Friday, as she took up her station in front of a house on Jefferson Avenue. “They seem like little shrines to the beauty and comfort of ordinary things.”

Bradley, a professional artist who specializes in still life paintings, said most homeowners whose houses have been captured by her brush don’t even know it. It takes her about three hours to complete a painting.

Many of them hang on display at Eyeworks, an optometry office and eyeglass shop on Main Street where Bradley’s husband works.

That’s where Deb Kulcsar first saw the paintings and wanted to know if Bradley would paint her house on Jefferson Avenue, which is listed on the local historic register.

“One thing led to another and I said, ‘I gotta have one of those,'” Kulcsar said. “They’re fun and bright — you look at them and there’s action in them.”

She and her husband commissioned Bradley for $140 to paint their small

Queen Anne home, which Bradley had largely completed by mid-morning Friday. She used broad brushstrokes and a generous color palette to render an impressionistic view of the home.

Kulcsar can’t wait to see the finished product. She notes that her house, where she and her husband have lived for nearly a quarter century, was featured in an old postcard of the city and looks largely the same today.

“This is a great tribute to how cool downtown Louisville is — the history, the Italian influence, the culture,” she said of Bradley’s effort.

Linee Perroncel, who stumbled upon Bradley one day as the painter interpreted another historic home with her paintbrushes, was so impressed by what she saw that she asked Bradley if she

wanted to hang her paintings inside Perroncel’s downtown Louisville frozen yogurt shop, The LoCoYo, next month.

“They’re fun, whimsical paintings and the couple that I’ve seen sort of embody what we do here at the shop,” she said.

The showing, which coincides with the one-year anniversary of The LoCoYo’s opening, begins June 22 and runs for two weeks.

“There’s something very genuine and authentic in her work that’s reflected in the town itself,” Perroncel said.

Bradley doesn’t know how much longer she’ll continue painting the old homes of Louisville, but she wants at least to get to the ones that are in danger of being razed. She still kicks herself for not setting up her easel in front of a home on Pine Street that recently fell to the wrecking ball.

“There’s so many of them that have been torn down,” she said. “They are small, human-scale houses where people lived at a more simple level. There’s something very meaningful about that.”

Contact Camera Staff Writer John Aguilar at 303-473-1389 or aguilarj@dailycamera.com.