www.masbakersfield.com

Color her world

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Ruth Darrington wants her customers to feel at home. Enter her store and you’ll hear soothing Latin music by Trio Los Panchos and smell a sweet scent in the air.

There’s a feeling of comfort when you walk into Kuka’s Folk Art, Home Furnishings and Accessories art store/gallery, where Darrington showcases Latin-style art and home decor for everything you need to bring eye-pleasing comfort to your own casa.

Kuka’s — located at 1609 19th St. in the heart of Bakersfield’s downtown emerging Arts District  — displays a variety of beautiful art pieces ranging from a wood Virgin Mary by Jacobo Angeles of Mexico to whimsical clay vases by Guillermina Aguilar to rooster paintings by local artist, Alberto Herrera.

Not only is Darrington’s merchandise beautiful, it’s affordable, too. Items are priced from as low as 99 cents and go up to $2,500.

“I am not an artist, but I love and appreciate art,” she said. “Our people are so incredibly talented ... It shows what people can do when they use what they are gifted with.”

Darrington’s gift is her passion for art and crafts.

The seventh of 11 girls — her father was a farmworker and her mother a stay-at-home mom — Darrington never experienced the joy of visiting an art gallery.

Instead, she found inspiration in anything art-related on the pages of any and every book she could check out from the school library.

“I was a reader!” said Darrington, a Kern County native who was born in Delano and raised in Lamont. “I looked at picture books and it drew me to art.”

Wanting to expand her horizons, she came to a decision that would change her life.

By age 20, Darrington enlisted in the U.S. Army and became a communication specialist where she met and married Julius Darrington.

After leaving the Army, Darrington enrolled in college and obtained a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. She would later teach language arts at a middle school in Colorado Springs, Colo.

While visiting her sister, Jennie Wilson — who owns several folk art galleries in the Southwest part of the United States — Darrington renewed her passion for art.

“It was in her heart,” said Wilson from her home in Pennsylvania.

Darrington, along with her family, moved to Bakersfield in 1999. She continued teaching language arts while dreaming of her own future art gallery and store.

Together, the sisters worked out the details for the business and collaborated on a name.

Wilson came up with “Kuka’s” in honor of their late Tia Ruth’s nickname; then, it was time to come up with a logo.

Since Darrington understood the importance and the idea of Mexican folk art and crafts, she knew the perfect person for the job — her friend and local artist, Alberto Herrera.

“She asked me to create her logo for the store and if I would like to display my paintings and sculptures there,” said Herrera, known for his brightly-colored paintings of roosters and women’s faces.

It was only natural for him to create a rooster as the logo for Kuka’s.

Herrera’s one-eyed, colorful rooster, stands straight and full of pride, over the front of Kuka’s new retail space, which opened in June.

Darrington’s dream for an art gallery of her own came to be with the first Kuka’s location at 24th and O streets. The store would remain there for three years before moving to its present location.

Kuka’s is owned by Darrington and her husband of 38 years, Julius. The couple are the proud parents of three adult children and two granddaughters.

Up until a year ago, when Darrington retired from teaching, her husband and another sister, Irene Troncozo, operated Kuka’s and Darrington helped when she could after work or on the weekends.

Now able to devote all her time and energy to the store, Darrington has truly found her calling, she said.

It’s something Wilson knows first-hand and she sees how it’s happened for Darrington, too.

“You have to love what you are doing,” said Wilson. “She loves what she does and knows her products.”

Darrington takes that passion and knowledge and passes it on to her customers in a very homey atmosphere, according to Wilson.

“She gives you the feeling that you are welcomed and accepted to come into the store,” said Wilson. “It’s a very unique place.”

Occasionally, Darrington and Wilson visit Mexico on buying trips to gather appealing art pieces for their stores.

Darrington strives for quality in every piece destined for Kuka’s. If a customer is satisfied and appreciates her eye for colorful designs — to the point they’d like to include them in their own home — then that’s satisfaction enough for her, she said.

Darrington said she takes great pride in her artistic selections and stocks her wares in hopes that her customers find them interesting, beautiful and worthy for their home decor, just as she does.

Customers seem to agree, finding that there is nothing quite like Kuka’s.

“I appreciate her having a business here,” said Dr. Carlos Guerrero, a Kuka’s customer for almost two years. “It’s a one of a kind business and I am a buyer of impulse. I buy what I see.”

And for Darrington, if another piece of folk art winds up in someone’s living room ... well, all’s colorful in her world.