Yela Loffredo: Scupture is my vocation
“Art is all that means purity, spiritual growth and spiritual fulfillment,” says the Ecuadorian sculptor Yela Loffredo.
Despite the passage of time, her look is sweet. She speaks passionately about art and the inspiring work of Rodan “that a French artist who was a garbage collector and then became a genius of sculpture and painting. His Work has filled me because it’s almost perfect,” says Yela .
Her house shouts art from the entrance, the walls are hung with paintings by renowned artists in Ecuador “I have acquired them with the passing of the years,” she says. Abstract human figures, some tall, others short, live permanently in the sculptor’s living room and tell the story that begins in 1924 when Yela was born.
Daughter of an Italian father and Ecuadorian mother, Yela was the thirteenth child of a family of 14 children. She showed an affinity for the arts from an early age, she studied ballet with Professor Raymond Maugué while studying at Guayaquil high school, during that time she met the man who would become her husband and father of her children, Paul Klein Wolf.
Years later she married her boyfriend and became the mother of five children, yet one of her younger daughters had a kidney problem that motivated her mother to take her to the United States to receive treatment. And it was the Greenwich Village in New York, where several paintings and sculptures were exhibited, that captivated Yela to study fine arts on her return to Ecuador. She completed the school of art after 6 years, and perfected her sculpting and painting techniques. She later graduated “at the age of mother with children,” like she says and focused on the profession she has dedicated to until now, “the last sculpture I made was three months ago” she says.
“I think I’m one of the few Ecuadorian sculptors,” Yela says proudly. Shee later teamed up with other artists in the city to form what now is the Cultural Association of Las Peñas.
Yela’s artworks have a figurative style, she prefers to work with the bronze because “it’s the noblest of all materials, is quite expensive but then I work with marble and resins, although it is expensive too,” says the artist who exhibitis her works in her house, located in Las Peñas neighborhood, or in Salon de Julio every year.
“It takes dedication and love for art, don’t let any setback overcome you and continue with your vocation, for the vocation of art is one of the most rewarding things in life” is the advice given by the sculptor to future artists.