Barry Cohen

On January 1st, 2010, it will be ten years since Barry Cohen passed away. I often wonder how much influence I should attribute to Barry for my interest in folk art and its subsequent influence on my work.
I was just out of art school when I met Barry. He was the close friend of an aunt of my then girlfriend, Barbara. Her aunt Sally asked me if I'd ever had a desire to teach art or do workshops with kids. It turns out that Barry headed an organization (which was actually government-funded at the time!) called Community Environments and sponsored all kinds of teaching workshops for kids in NYC.
But before I got involved with teaching, I was a handyman, building this or that and doing minor stuff for friends or friends of friends in need. Barry wanted a loft bed built for his tiny 1st floor apartment on Sheridan Square. this was no mean task-when I went to size up the project, I saw that every square inch of his place was covered with his collection and his art. This would have been in the late 70's.
There were huge stoneware jugs displayed everywhere. he showed me handgrained doors (I didn't have a clue about their existence before this), weathervanes, decrepit but stunningly beautiful for their simplicity and their very primitive-ness and all sorts of other "smalls". Barry had just started collecting old hand cut valentines and excitedly showed me several of these.What he showed was not lost on me, but it was all fairly new to my eye and took me some time to absorb-but I certainly could appreciate its age and see the maker's "fingerprint".
I wish that he had spent more time in showing me his work, which was almost indistinguishable (to my unlearned eye) from his collection of folk art. What I remember most were some recent drawings he had done using strong tea as pigment. But he never explained his constructions, which to me looked like shelves and containers for holding even more fragments from the past.
The worst part of the job was getting the lumber into his apartment and not damaging anything before it was put into place. I learned the value of his collection much later-after I'd nearly glazed huge stoneware puzzle jugs with 2x4s or almost backed into delicate displays with power tools. I got the bed built and hurt nothing (well, maybe I scraped the bedroom ceiling once).
The image of his apartment has set with me many years. I wish that I'd had more time with him now to talk not only about his work, but with his absolute obsession with collecting.

More about Barry:
www.nytimes.com/.../antiques-just-plain-folk-the-art-of-everyday-objects.html

This one is titled "What Calls You"-I built the figure up from chicken wire and cloth

and the built it up with modelling paste. Trying to break away from the carved head

is tough -the results from the armature/modelling method are pretty unpredictable... is this a good thing or a bad thing?

nothing to report

I've been trying to work out the modelled heads-guess I can't expect success at every turn and I'm trying hard not to get discouraged.

Of course, there is little control over what I'm making-they look like humans alright, but they seem so cartoon-like and I'm really not too crazy about this.

Like anything else, these figures will require time, but I hope to not get TOO tight with them and "lose my lead"...kinda like having your cake and eating it, too. I want that spontaneous product that captures all my preconcieved notions, yet not have to work too hard at it, knowing that the "tighter" I get with the medium, the more I defeat what I'm after. How to keep the elusive lookng and feeling elusive...

This is another skipper. She kind of "fell" together. Wonder if I'll ever learn to skip rope?

A Good Show

Went to Baltimore City over the weekend to have a one day show (Bazaart) at the Visionary Art Museum there. After this weekend, I want to say that it feels like the economy may be coming back-or, at least, folks are less scared (for better or worse) of spending money. Sold a few pieces that were "hot off the press". I'm not going to say that I'm getting sentimental and that it pains me to see work go, but at least two of the pieces will be missed-"The Passenger" and "Pensive"-I'd just finished them and probably needed to stare at them just a while longer...oh, well.

Besides having a good long interrupted talk (darn those pesty folks who don't know that I'm at this venue to yak and instead want to buy my art!) with my friend Bob and his wife Nancy, I ran into two friends who I haven't seen in forever-I lived up the street from the in NYC on Broadway-Carl and Mary were below Canal street-I was above Canal street-talk about bringing back some good old memories AND seeing some really wonderful, creative, good-hearted and smart people...you take for granted some of the folks you meet, thinking that you'll probably have the chance to encounter people like this again. This is simply not true, unless you are very lucky or one of those who lives forever. Carl and Mary are unique-two people who I've crossed paths with and know myself to be the better and richer for it.

Here are the two pieces (boo-hoo) that I sold that were just out of the studio.

On the left is "The Passenger" and the one on the right is "Pensive". Isn't my photography getting a little better? I'll be doing a new website when I figure out lighting-and hopefully, this will be very soon.

Thanksgiving Story

So the lost dog (turns out his name is "little") was reunited with his owner thanks to an ad he placed on Craig's List along with some photos of the dog.
The dog was initially attracted to my friend when he heard the sound of a woodsplitter that a hired man was running out in the yard. The sound was familiar to the dog-as it happened, the dog's owner is a tree guy, who splits wood for extra moolah. Since the dog was almost 20 miles from home, the poor thing truly was lost!
Anyhow, both dog and owner are together again (Jamie said that when Little saw his owner-this big guy-she couldn't hold the dog back and the meeting was especially tearful. I know this situation from "losing" Delilah when she would go on one of her "walkabouts"...talk about emotional...just wathc them waterworks when it comes to anything dog.
In January, so Cara sez, we might get another dog-and probably a cat as well.

This one is called "Almost"-as you can see, an old, cut-up hand lettered sign spells out the title of this sculpture.

A New Dog in Town

Out to try something new-I'm about to purchase some modelling material (not clay, to which I seem to have a real aversion -I may have to take a clay workshop just to see if have good reason...) called Winterstone. What I'm thinking is that I'd like to make this material into the consistency of putty and roll some stuff-meaning bits of lint, dog hair, string, dust-and create some figures-or at least heads with shoulders out of it.

The whole idea is to spend less time with the head/figure and more on my background and the overall piece-so much of my work is supported by the heads/figures and I'd like to take the emphasis and spread it around a little. Barring this, a new approach is needed here as I'm feeling stale. This has been a strong feeling with the coming of the fall and the DST time-change. Along with it came a sort of depression, a feeling that I can get "through" my work much like I could get "through" my house with the lights off (or my eyes closed)-I know things a little TOO well.

We'll have to see how/if this works. It will help that my last show of the season is exactly a week from today...

We had a little stray mutt-dog in the warehouse/office for the past two days. He must be all of a year old and weighs 27 pounds (we had him on the UPS scale)-we've been trying every possible name for him (he belonged to someone, for sure, as he is pretty well fully trained) to see if he responds-no dice. The group opinion has it that he was dumped and, even though Jamie and Michelle have posted "lost dog" notices up all over, he won't be claimed. I hope that this is so because, despite the fact that they both like big dogs, this little guy is seducing all of us. He can jump straight up in the air pretty far, never mind right into your lap. He seems to love riding in the truck and, no surprise here, loves to play. It's fun to be around a dog that is so different from what I'm used to ...if this dog isn't a Sparky, I dunno what the best name would be for him. But I'll leave that up to Jamie, as I think she has already fallen hard for him.

This one has no name yet, but is part of the big heads, as you can see. I included Raising Doubt here as well, which is uppermost and preceeded the new head by several months.