Rising From the Ashes: Carol Cohn Exhibition Catalog

RISING FROM THE ASHES CAROL J COHN NOVEMBER 18 – DECEMBER 31 2017

RISING FROM THE ASHES CAROL J COHN NOVEMBER 18 – DECEMBER 31 2017

73 C Pine Street u Montclair, NJ 73seegallery.com u 973.746.8737 Hours: Tues. – Sun. noon to 6pm Closed Mon. or by Appointment

The precise role of the artist is to illuminate the darkness, blaze roads through the forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of it’s purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human place.

– James Baldwin, The Creative Process Art is the set of wings to carry you out of your own entanglement.

– Joseph Campbell The moment of change is the only poem.

– Adrienne Rich

Exhibit Statement The irony of a late in life divorce after a long marriage comes not with the frantic search for a partner or procreation, which occupies so much of our youth – but with the search for deeper meaning and connection with what comes next, with or without a partner. This chapter of my life and the work in this exhibit reflects my search for deeper meaning and learning to live in the present.

– Carol J Cohn, 2017 On the precipice of any great change, we can see with terrifying clarity the familiar firm footing we stand to lose, but we fill the abyss of the unfamiliar before us with dread at the potential loss rather than the jubilation over the potential gain of gladnesses and gratifications we fail to envision because we haven’t’ yet experienced them.

– L.A. Paul, The Paradox of the Transformative Experience

Curators Statement

Carol Cohn. Wow.

W

here upon Cohn and her husband of twenty seven years decided to divorce Cohn’s therapist suggested she call upon her creativity to process the closing of this chaphter of her life. What emerged is an ever growing body of work exploring the the daily emotional roller coaster of divorce. This has resulted in a remarkably prolific eighteen month watershed in her life that has produced a poignant body of work sure to arouse emotion, thought and impetus for the viewers own transformation.

This exhibit was curated from more than 80 works produced during this period enabling the visitor to join in and follow the transitions in her perception over the course of these tumultuous months.

The earliest works such as “Impermenance”, “Truth”, “Rashomon” and “Shattered” delve into the early stages of broken identity, disruption and sparring leading to “Facing the Unknown” and the awakening to an unforeseen future and the beginning of letting go and accepting what will be. As the months moved along so did Carol, creating works that captures empathy towards others experiences as in “Broken Man”. Those that chronicled the divorce process itself with “Colaborative Divorce” and “The Law /Triptych”. And others that celebrate her growing into her new personal space embracing solitude, “The Bliss of Solitude”, her private pleasures, “Stolen Moment” and looking to the future with a renewed sense of personal power, “The Goddess”. It is a narrative of life’s challenges and overcoming in iconic symbolism of universalunderstanding. The work, as noted by one visitor, is “super honest, intimate and bold”.

Cohn Exhibit “Rising From the Ashes” at 73 See Gallery, photo © Nick Livitin, 2017; used with permission of artist

Carol is also a writer and has written a short insight into her personal relationship to each work paired with a quote that echoed with her at the time. These act as enhancements adding a context to enter each piece more profoundly. We have chosen to include these in the catalog so that you may benefit from these insights.

Cohn allows herself to go deep and has tapped the full range of feelings that emerge in her works uncensored. With her masterfully skillful hand she has created powerful, engaging works touching on universal themes from softly buzzing tensions, to wrenching grips of conflict, to the humanizing acknowledgment of growth and acceptance. Each emits a quiet intensity of profound self-awareness.

Cohn is an artistic warrior able to take on the deep inner world she inhabits and has allowed her process to be one of soul journeying tapping literal and metaphorical imagery that can be understood on multiple levels, not just as personal inner exploration or technical proficiency and expertise. The works are drawings in graphite, ink and mixed media. While it is most satisfying to view the original works in person, I am delighted to present you with this catalog. Each of the original work are also available as the highest quality fine art prints allowing you to affordably enjoy your favorite piece in your own collection.

– Mary Z, curator, 2017

1. Facing the Unknown We are left facing the unknown for many reasons throughout our lives. Illness, divorce, and death – may disrupt our plan.

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. – John Steinbeck

Archival ink on illustration board, custom frame with archival matting, 18 x 22 $1200

Graphite on handmade paper, custom frame with archival matting, 33 x 25 $1800

2. Broken Man When I met a man who had truly loved his wife, I was so sad -Sad that she had betrayed him and died.

Sad that he still loved her.

Sad that he might never love again.

And sad that I might never be loved that way.

Wishing, hoping and regretting are the most common and dangerous tactics for evading the present. – Sammy Davis Jr.

3. #He Too Men have been victimized as well. Humans hurt. Humans harm. The cycle continues until we talk about the commonalities of the human experience.

The idea that, for men, virtually all sex is welcome likely contributes to dismissive attitudes toward male sexual victimization. Such dismissal runs counter to evidence that men who experience sexual abuse report problems such as depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, loss of self-esteem, and long-term relationship difficulties.

Under the CDC’s (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) definitions, the assault on the girl (if even slightly penetrated in the act) would be categorized as rape but the assault on the boy would not. – The Sexual Victimization of Men in America: New Data Challenge Old Assumptions Lara Stemple, JD and Ilan H. Meyer, PhD, American Public Health, 2014 June

FPO

Graphite on Handmade Paper, custom frame with archival matting, 23 x 32 $1800

Pastel and Archival Inks, Illuminated Custom Frame, 14 x 22 $4000

4. Autism Self portrait Raising a child with special needs is a singular journey.

The term Aspergers comes from the Austrian Physician, Hans Asperger, who first identified the syndrome in the 1930s. Because he was deemed a Nazi collaborator, his findings were not translated into English until 1981 when Lorna Wing, a researcher at Oxford, made the work accessible.

Asperger wrote, “We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fulfill their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers.”

David Mamet, the brilliant playwright, spoke of Aspergers in How the Jews invented Hollywood, believing that the studio founders were all Aspies. He talked about PROSOPOGRAPHY – the collective biography of these men. I don’t believe in race, but I do believe in tribes. These men had fathers who were financial failures and mothers who pushed them to achieve. All from within a 200 mile radius of Warsaw and all came from impoverished eastern European backgrounds.

–––––––––––––––––– Print Installation at Cornerstone Montclair, a center for children with special needs.

Limited Edition Signed Giclee prints 16x20 $300

5. The Bliss of Solitude The Bliss of Solitude reflects my ability at last to have creative time with myself.

In creating any form of art, the artist has conversation with himself or herself. Each mark they make, each color they chose, the paper or canvas, all require a conscious decision, a choice. The beauty of solitude is the mental space it provides, something that I did not have time for in my marriage.

Being solitary is being alone well; being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your own presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement. – Alice Koller, writer who explores the philosophical and psychological issues of self-identity.

Author: An Unknown Woman, 1991

Mixed Media on Handmade Watercolor Paper, custom frame with archival matting, 20 x 36.5 $3000

Graphite on Illustration Board, custom frame with archival matting , 16.75 x 19.75 $1500

6. Stolen Moment I love to read and Stolen Moment is that time when you can and still love that magical child sleeping nestled in your arms. The connection between words and art are present in all my work. The solitude is in your experience with those careful words chosen by the writer drawing you into to their world.

Loneliness becomes a lover, solitude a darling sin. – Ian Fleming Author of 14 James Bond Novels, more than 35 million copies sold.

7. Seek Inspriration For me, it was the wonderful fairy tales and brilliant illustrators that I admired from an early age.

They were my friends and comfort in my fantasy of my life. I think I read The Snow Queen a hundred times; in it the sister saved the brother. A female hero! But which stories about the condition of the heart are the reliable ones and which are the self-deceiving fictions? Bruno Bettelheim and others wrote about their lessons long after I believed in happily ever after.

“Every fairy tale, it seems, concludes with the bland phrase “happily ever after.” Yet every couple I have ever known would agree that nothing about marriage is forever happy. There are moments of bliss, to be sure, and lengthy spans of satisfied companionship. Yet these come at no small effort,and the girl who reads such fiction dreaming her troubles will end ere she departs the altar is well advised to seek at once a rational women to set her straight.” ― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

Diptych / Archival ink and pastels on illustration board, Custom Hand made cherry frame, 22 x28, $2500

Archival Inks, Colored Pencil and watercolor, custom frame with archival matting , 27 x 23 $1400

8. Release We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them. – Simone Weil

Acrylic Paint, Archival Inks on Cardboard, custom frame with archival matting , 25 x 27 $1800

9. Shattered This was a singular moment. The false idol I had constructed of myself was broken.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. – Lao Tzu

Archival Inks, custom frame with archival matting, 15 x 12 NFS

10. Sorrow Honor your sorrow. No matter the reason, it is real.

If you have been divorced, you know it hurts - especially if your marriage had lasted many years. Whatever the circumstances of your relationship, and whatever the nature of its ending, there is always grief and regret – perhaps regret over the ending, or perhaps regret over not ending the relationship sooner – or perhaps both. Nonetheless, move past the grief and regret. No matter how painful, divorce, like all endings, opens the door to new beginnings.

– Jonathan Lockwood Huie –––––––––––––––––– Limited Edition Signed Giclee prints 16x20 $250

11. Truth What goes on behind the closed doors of a marriage can never be fully revealed.

But it is your truth and you must honor it.

Truth is a land without paths. – Tiziano Rerzani, Le Grand Voyage de la Vie

Archival ink, pastel, watercolor on illustration board, custom frame with archival matting, 15 x 18 $1500

Archival ink on 3 illustration boards, custom hand made frame with hinges, 31 x 13 $3500

12. The Law / Triptych Getting a divorce is never easy or painless. I watched my parents’ marriage crumble into shards, causing so much harm to my siblings. I knew then at 19 that life was not a fairy tale. I watched my sister divorce, leaving her with nothing. Now it was my turn. I stood alone but I was stronger and knew I would eventually be happier on my own.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but You can decide not to be reduced by them. – Maya Angelou

Archival inks and watercolor on illustration board, custom frame with archival matting, 17 x 20 $1800

13. Rashomon We each have our own interpretation of what happened, of what lead to the end.

I had to remove this from my home, out of sight from my child.

Your heart will never lie to you, That’s your mind’s job.

– Medusa

An Art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all. – Cezanne

Archival Ink on Illustration Board, matted and custom framed, 21 x 17 $1500 Published May Edition, New Jersey Family Law

14. Collaborative Divorce A divorce begins when you don’t even know what questions to ask.

My experience with Lawyers in corporate America was dismal. I wouldn’t even date one when I was single, and yes, there are several in my family. But I liked my attorney with his 17-year-old twins girls.

You need to be able to cry and curse or whatever you do in front of them. Check that out in the first meeting.

Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do. – Oprah Winfrey

15. Rising from the Ashes I was determined to rebuild my life on my own terms. I was going to be the phoenix rising from the ashes, born yet again.

You’re not a victim for sharing your story. You are a survivor setting the world on fire with your truth.

And you never know who needs your light, your warmth, and raging courage.

– Alex Elle –––––––––––––––––– Limited Edition Signed Giclee prints 16x20 $250

Graphite and Archival Ink and scorched image on Illustration Board, Custom Frame, 14 x 22 $2500

Pastel on archival paper, 32 x 24, $3000

16. The well intentioned but uninformed This is about the so called experts – they are everywhere, family, schools, .. but..

This is FOR all the other mothers who dealt with them.

This is not for irresponsible stupid people like Jenny McCarthy who spread a scientifically debunked theory and caused harm.

The journey of Motherhood is fraught with inexplicable moments of terror for every Mom. But after Sandy Hook, every Aspie Mom trembled. I met with them. I watched their fear. I heard their stories of violence.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

– Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech, Jun. 12, 1942 (Happy Birthday to me!)

17. What you love matters I can do anything with my hands; play the piano, guitar, draw, paint or knit. You name it. Each gives me a unique joy. Whatever brings joy to your life honor it.

It’s what you love.

The Aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle

Archival Ink, custom frame with archival matting, 21 x 25 $2500

Archival ink, colored pencil on illustration board, 22.5 x 20.5 $1500

18. Jump In When you feel ready, go boldly forward.

“She will not be able to fulfill her function if she remains with a man who derides her glory.”

– Marianne Williamson

19. Impermance About 18 months ago, I was sitting at the downtown Whitney Museum trying to understand a massive video installation. It captured what had become of the site of the 1932 Berlin Olympics.

I wasn’t sure I liked it but I took out my ever present notebook and wrote IMPERMANENCE. Not a word I would use in conversation.

Earlier that week, my husband and I had decided to divorce after over 25 years of marriage.

At 4am the next morning, I woke up, drove to the park where I had personally witnessed the falling of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and drew this sketch.

“I always think everything is going to last forever, but nothing ever does.

In fact nothing exists longer than an instant except the thing we hold in memory.”

– Sam Savage, Firmin

Colored pencil and achival inks on paper, custom frame with archival matting, 20 x 23 $1000

Archival ink on illustration board, custom frame with archival matting, 11.5 x 10 $900

20. The Time Is Now I read a great deal of Art Costa’s work when I was in graduate school. His brilliant theory of Habits of Mind enables one to employ skills, which assist you in behaving intelligently when confronted with problems with unknowable answers; (and what isn’t in these tumultuous times?)

calling on insight from all the senses, creativity, perseverance and reasoning.

By practicing these skills, which also include listening with empathy, metacognition (thinking about thinking), and finding humor, Costa maintains they will become habits and produce powerful results.

Pastel on Fine Art Paper, custom frame with archival matting, 29.5 x 27 $4000

21. First Touch I wanted to show the beauty of the first time I held my child in my arms. Sometime my design sensibilities come first and in this case it was of a lovely over swelled heart. Within this – would be my feelings.

“Once there was a tree and she loved a little boy very very much, even more than herself” – Shel Silverstein

22. My Marriage Killed a Part of Me Sometimes a random conversation can yield interesting ideas. When a new friend told me how she felt in the aftermath, I immediately saw this image. #TOOMANYGUNS The precise role of the artist is to illuminate the darkness, blaze roads through the forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of it’s purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human place. – James Baldwin, The Creative Process

Pastel on Fine Art Paper, custom frame with archival matting, 21.5 x 29.5 $2500

Graphite on Fine Art Paper, custom frame with archival matting, 16 x 20 $2500

23. Missing Touch This drawing was so difficult for me.

I was aching. It was just a day when a touch was needed to calm me down and make me feel loved. It was an awful day.

“Touch has a memory”

– John Keats

24. Scroll ABANDONED in the ECLIPSE The term is derived from the ancient Greek noun ἔκλειψις (ékleipsis), which means “the abandonment”, “the downfall”, or “the darkening of a heavenly body”.

The ancient Chinese believed that solar eclipses occur when a legendary celestial dragon devours the Sun. One ancient Chinese solar eclipse record describes a solar eclipse as “the Sun has been eaten”.

Even more recently, in the nineteenth century, the Chinese navy fired its cannons during a lunar eclipse to scare the dragon that was eating the Moon.

I am not so different in my history of abandonment from anyone else after all.

We have all been split away from the earth, each other, ourselves. – Susan Griffin

Individually Printed 36 x 49 Scroll on Arches paper from Original Art with Buddha finials.

Limited Edition of 10. $1600

Mixed media, collage, custom designed frame, 37 x 50 POR

25. Manifest / 26. Goddess The power of intention is the power to manifest, to create, to live a life of unlimited abundance, and to attract into your life the right people at the right moments. – Wayne Dyer You did not come to face reality, you came to create reality.

– Abraham Hick

Individually Printed 16x20 Scroll on Arches paper from Original Art with Buddha finials.

Limited Edition of 50. $400 DURGA is the warrior goddess, the form of the protective mother goddess who combats the forces that threaten peace and the dharma of the good. She empowers creation. I have given her seven arms representing the seven vows of Hindu marriage also known as Saptapadi.

When hearing from another ( you Mary) how the breaking of the vows was so painful, I started to explore the nature of marriage vows in the world. Saptapadi resonated as the most beautiful and concrete imagining of what a real partnership, real love is about. I then tattooed each arm with multicultural symbols of what I wanted to manifest in my life, with or without a partner.

The accompanying piece, the scroll, is a guide to each symbol’s meaning. There is much more work to be done in this journey and this is just the beginning of a new chapter.

Pick one, any symbol and tell yourself that your goal today is to manifest it in your life. Concentrate on the experiences you have which address that desire. Practice recognizing these moments to manifest what you deserve.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Degas

FAIRY TALES ARE NO LAUGHING MATTER Â

For me, it was the wonderful fairy tales and brilliant illustrators that I admired from an early age. They were my friends and comfort in my fantasy of my life.

I think I read The Snow Queen a hundred times; in it the sister saved the brother. A female hero!

But which stories about the condition of the heart are the reliable ones and which are the self-deceiving fictions? Bruno Bettelheim and others wrote about the lessons in fairy tales, long after I believed in happily ever after.

Fine art print on archers archival paper, 16 x 20 $300

I. For all the little girls who enter the wood alone

I had to make my own journey through life independently.

My family support was very limited.

It didn’t stop me, but I was certainly harmed along the way because of the absence. #MeToo

“When I first read Anne Frank’s ‘Diary of a Young Girl,’ I saw for the first time that a girl could be a writer and that it had something to do with survival and with ethics and fighting against evil. I admired her, though her diary remained terrifying and mysterious to me. She was a character in a real fairy tale - fairy tales are brutal. “ – Kate Bernheimer

Fine art print on archers archival paper, 16 x 20 $300

I. Sleepless Nights

That princess in her bed felt it. Sleeping alone is one of the toughest adjustments after Divorce.

“Every fairy tale, it seems, concludes with the bland phrase “happily ever after.” Yet every couple I have ever known would agree that nothing about marriage is forever happy. There are moments of bliss, to be sure, and lengthy spans of satisfied companionship. Yet these come at no small effort, and the girl who reads such fiction dreaming her troubles will end ere she departs the altar is well advised to seek at once a rational women to set her straight.” ― Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Fine art print on archers archival paper, 16 x 20 $300

II. What We Know

 We are attracted to what we know whether good or bad for us.

There is comfort in the familiar and it takes courage to understand that your past does not have to define your future. “Most of us never really grow up or mature at all we simply grow taller. O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales. – Leo Rosten

Fine art print on archers archival paper, 16 x 20 $300

IV. Did I Understand My Choice – EVE IN THE GARDEN

As a young woman, how was I to understand the choices I might make?

Growing up in a home with a broken marriage, what had I learned?

Weren’t we all damaged?

What were my models?

There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love – Erich Fromm

Index of Images

All images are available as limited edition Fine Art Giclee’s, signed and numbered on Arches Archival paper. To order please contact the gallery at info@73seegallery.com.

1. Facing the Unknown

2. Broken Man

3. He Too

4. Autism Self Portrait

5. The Bliss of Solitude

6. Stolen Moment

7. Seek Inspriration

8. Release

9. Shattered

10. Sorrow

11. Truth

12. The Law / Triptych

13. Rashom

17. What You Love Matters

21. First Touch

14. Collaborative Divorce

18. Dating Pool

22. My Marriage Killed A Part of Me

15. Rising From the Ashes

19. Impermance

23. Missing Touch

16. The Well Intentioned But Uninformed

20. The Time is Now

24. Scroll Abandoned in the Eclipse

25. Goddess Scroll/ Manifest

26. Goddess

Fairy Tales

I. Little Girls

II. Sleepless Nights

III. What We Know

IV. Did I Understand My Choice - Eve in the Garden

Biography Notes A graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University, Carol J Cohn was the founder of the renowned SummerArt program at the Montclair Art Museum, while serving as the director of the Yard School of Art. She is also a published commercial illustrator. Her work most recently appeared in the May 2017 edition of New Jersey Family Law covering Collaborative Divorce in New Jersey. She has taught Art classes to Special Needs Children and Teens and is currently teaching a great group of 65+ students! Carol is the former VP of Marketing for WHT Television, U68 Music Video, and Home Shopping Network.

Carol spent 10 years as a commercial photography agent and is the former VP of SPAR (The Society of Professional Reps in the commercial photography & illustration biz) as well as the Former Marketing VP for WHT Television, U68 Music Video, and Home Shopping Network.

“Woman, I am one, and I discover in every trait, every face, pose or attitude all the women I would like to be: a child woman, a mother woman, a funny woman, a sexy woman, a sweet woman, an intellegent woman, a woman woman.”

– Linda Le Kiniff

Exhibitions “A Life Reimagined” Solo Exhibition April 27th thru May 20th 2017 WADE MAXX GALLERY 618 Valley Rd, Upper Montclair Juried show: MSDA 125TH ANNIVERSARY

“Opening doors to the Sights and Sounds of the Arts” October 22nd Opening

November 10th – December 10th Print Exhibition

1 ARTISANS POP UP

Clairidge Theatre Esplanade, Church St, Montclair November 15th

TREND GALLERY - Grand Opening Group Exhibit “Fairy Tales are no laughing matter.”

411 Bloomfield Ave. Montclair NJ

November 18th (Opening) – December 31th Solo Exhibition

“Rising from the Ashes” 73 SEE GALLERY 73 Pine St., Montclair

Articles “Montclair Artist C.J. Cohn Turns Divorce Into Art”

by Brian Glaser, Baristanet Montclair NJ

73 C Pine Street u Montclair, NJ 73seegallery.com u 973.746.8737 Hours: Tues. – Sun. noon to 6pm Closed Mon. or by Appointment

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