Finding Your Mark

By Christopher Schink
THE PALETTE MAGAZINE #25
March/April 2008

"I'd like to do one of those" is the natural response of most painters when they first feel the urge to learn to paint.  Early in our careers, all of us have come upon a painting that we wished we had done and that we hoped we could someday duplicate.  We find ourselves attracted to a particular artist with an appealing style that inspires us to take up the pursuit of painting.

In time we usually distance ourselves (or outgrow) these early influences.  we find new inspiration and discover other ways to work.  We explore and experiment, and eventually, if we're lucky or work hard (or both), we develop a way to think and paint that is identifiably our own.

Nevada artist Valerie Cohen has taken that journey, progressing from enthusiastic beginner to a skilled and knowledgeable artist with a mature, distinctive style.  Although the early influences on her painting style are still visible, the results are uniquely her own.  In this article, she describes her journey with humor, insight, and candor.

(The above painting is "Topo Map #3 - Blue Sage" by Valerie Cohen, 30x22 Mixed Media)

Valerie Cohen describes her development

A seed planted
Back in 1973, I saw my first Milford Zornes show (See painting to the right - Watercolor).  There were a hundred landscapes - Red Utah canyons, because he had a studio at Mt. Carmel, just east of Zion - and also Mexican beach scenes.  I thought right then: "If I were a painter, this is how I would think."  But of course, I had no such intention.  I didn't start painting for another fifteen years.

When I did start painting, I had no idea how intellectually difficult it would be.  By the time I wised up, it was too late: I was already an addict. 

My first teacher
I chose Milford Zornes as my first teacher.  For a long time, I was scared witless of him - his critiques in those days were long and incredibly brutal.  But we became friends anyway.  He taught me two things: (1) You have to work like a dog, from sunrise to sunset, day after day.  You have to be really, really stubborn.  One time I asked him how he had gotten through his own early years of painting badly; he answered, "Sometimes you just have to give in to your ego."  And he taught me (2) that any painting, even the most traditional landscape, is abstract; it's just a piece of paper with pigment on it.  He refused to teach me technique.  He said, "You'll figure it out by trial and error.  I won't tell you what colors.  I won't tell you what brush.  If I teach you my technique, then it won't be yours." (He did give me a brush, though - a basting brush he got for 50 cents in Vermont.  I still use it sometimes.)

Finding a subject
I never painted the Great Basin until I moved to Nevada, seven years ago.  At first I thought I couldn't do it, because there is no "there" there.  You have a hard contrasting horizontal line right across the middle.  You see this same line in a lot of bad desert photographs.  Above the line are some far away mountains and some big clouds on top.  Below the line are some puny bushes.  There's not a whole lot to work with - no palm trees, no VW bugs, no crowds of people to help fill your space.  After a while, though, I realized I wanted to keep it as empty as possible.  I like stark designs:  snow, rock, anything above timberline, dead trees, freeways, Navajo weavings (which are landscapes).  When I do a long series about the Great Basin, it's a step-by-step process of taking out the stuff I don't need.  Now I'm even taking out the color.  Have I gone too far?  Have I taken out the landscape altogether?

(The above painting is "Topo Map #3 - Red Sage" by Valerie Cohen, 22x30 Mixed Media)

Taking criticism
Zornes can still dish out that terrifying critique - oh yes, he can! - even though he turned 100 yearas old in January, 2008, and he's been blind from macular degeneration for many years.  A few weeks ago, I sent him prints of my sage and topo map paintings and this is what he said: "What's missing is how the shrub is rooted into the ground.  You have to make a tension between the root and trunk and branches.  Assume we are looking underneath a shrub into a landscape.  We need a sense of scale.  We need a rhythm between foreground and background." "What?" he asked, "is this a picture of?" (Yikes!)

(the above painting on the right is "Topo Map #2" by Valerie Cohen, 22x30 Mixed Media)

Valerie Cohen describes her recent series

Topo Map Series
Using watercolor and ink, I am engaged in a kind of dreamwork geographical information system that layers topography, biogeography, and cultural shapes of Western deserts.  This years-long project calls for a most careful adjustment to the scale and dynamics of vast but nuanced landscapes.  The purpose is to challenge and alter the common perception that Nevada is all brown and desolate.

A long tradition
I come from a tradition of realistic landscape painting, having been first taught by Milford Zornes of the "California School."  After a while, though, I lost interest in the sky.  Next I got rid of any mountains unfortunate enough to be in the background.  Pretty soon I was staring little plants right in the eye.  Then I took those plant motifs to bigger and bigger paper, playing with three types of relief, or depth:

• DEEP SPACE (What appears to be endless sky or bottomless water)
• SHALLOW SPACE (shaded layers within foliage, particularly within Big Sage, Nevada's official flower)
• FLAT SPACE (freehand contour lines, with written text and place names)

Following the map
Official topographic maps use contour lines to join points of equal elevation.  Contour lines draw graphic representations of landforms, such as mountain ranges and desert sinks.  Other natural features overlie these contours, to depict streams, lakes, and forests.  Another map layer adds man-made cultural features, such as roads, county lines, townships, buildings, mines, irrigation ditches, landing strips.

Maps of the United States were the province of the Army Corps of Engineers until, after the Civil War, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) was created to classify public lands according to geology, mineral resources, and military planning; thus, maps are part of an imperial strategy.  (The USGS does not own the moon, but it has produced a topo map of the moon!)

Any hiker in the wilderness hopes that whoever drew the map was a sober and responsible scientist ... and, hey, we all trust the government, right?

My goal
Landscape is not a solved problem.  I want people to look at these paintings and to wonder.  Why are some things swirling around, and other things sitting still?  Why are some things so big, and others so small?  Why do some objects appear and disappear, like * fata morgana *?  In what ways are the past, present, and future all wrapped up together in the West?  I'm having more fun painting this series than I've ever had in my life!  I want the viewer to ask, "What's next?"

My destination
Where is this series going?  If I knew that, I'd get bored and do something more useful, like clean the toilet or walk the dog.  I do suspect that the series is going Deep into the Flat.  It's going abstract.  As I gradually erase the conventions of horizon, background, and so forth, the inner swirls and explosions of life have come to predominate in my images.  Abstraction is the shape of thought.

(the above painting on left is "Topo Map #8 - Speed of Light" by Valerie Cohen, 30x22 Mixed Media)

*(fata morgana is an optical ilusion in which atmospheric refraction by a layer of hot air distorts or inverts reflections of distant objects.)

A NOTE ON TOOLS:
Arches 300 pound watercolor paper (full sheet and single elephant), unstretched.  Watercolor; a dab of acrylic if need be.  3" masking tape.  India ink applied with all sizes of points (crow quill, B and C), brushes, and the occasional stick.  Graphic pens (Prismacolor, Sharpie ultra fine, Pigma Micron).

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Born in 1946 in Pasadena, California, Valerie Cohen completed B.A. and M.A. degrees in English at the University of California.  She has worked as a typesetter, illustrator, writer, ski patrolman, and National Park Service Law  Enforcement Ranger.

Cohen began painting full-time in the mid-1980s, studying with Milford Zornes, and later with Christopher Schink, Skip Lawrence, and Katherine Liu, before giving up workshops entirely.  Cohen has had many solo exhibits, and her watercolors  have appeared in national and international juried shows, including the California Watercolor Association, San Diego Watercolor Society, Arizona Aqueous, Taos National, and Watercolor West.

Cohen's paintings illustrate A Garden of Bristlecones: Tales of Change in the Great Basin, by Dr. Michael P. Cohen (University of Nevada Press, 1998).  Cohen recently published a book about her late mother: Woman on the Rocks: the Mountaineering Letters of Ruth Mendenhall (Spotted Dog Press, 2007).

(the above black & white painting on the right is "Walter Lanz Tree" by Valerie Cohen, 13.5x10.5 Ink)

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