Mina Cohen—The Art of Giving

Story by Debbie L. Holmer

Shape and color are very important to me. I see them in my mind and the painting becomes intuitive inventions. The large paintings are filled with fields of color and amorphous shapes. The small scale works enable me to focus my energy on a ‘detail’ of the story. Color and texture play an integral role in the paintings and are a means by which I define and unify the various elements of the picture surface. My iconography is based on experiences from my personal life, Judaica, and my place in the world. Although there is often narrative content, I strive for a degree of mystery. —Mina Cohen, www.partnersgallery.com

Born in Toronto, Canada, Mina Cohen grew up mostly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She arrived on the Mendocino Coast twenty-six years ago when her husband Dr. Jeffrey Berenson took over Dr. Don Hahn’s practice for a year. “We decided that there was no better place to raise children than the Mendocino Coast so we stayed on after Dr. Hahn and his family returned from Europe.” Since then Mina and her husband have been an integral part of our community. “We have two daughters who I am most proud of,” says Mina. “They think Mendocino was a great place to grow up but have made homes in Chicago and New York, at least for now. They are both working for non-profits, one in low-income housing and the other with foster children.”

Although she always enjoyed “making things” as a child, Mina never thought of herself as an artist until she was in college. “My parents told me I could be anything I wanted as long as I could make a living. I had to drop out of school for a time and worked various jobs and realized I could always make a living, so why not study art.” Mina went to college in New York, Jerusalem, and then graduated from the University of California in San Diego in 1974 with a bachelor of fine arts’ degree and received her master of arts’ degree from Sacramento State University in 1978. She also has a certificate in college counseling from UCLA.

After graduation from college, Mina entered juried shows and rented alternative spaces with friends to do their own shows. She worked in a gallery in San Francisco so she knew many of the art dealers and eventually got a one-person show at the Dana Reich Gallery downtown. When that gallery closed she showed her work at the Larson Gallery until moving to Mendocino. “Getting your first one-person show makes it a little easier to get subsequent shows. I got tired of the promotion thing, and being in a cooperative gallery like Partners Gallery in Fort Bragg, California, means I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m occasionally invited to be in group shows here and elsewhere so I’m satisfied.”

She has had solo and group exhibitions all over the United States, and her work is in private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe. Mina has been an adjunct faculty member at College of the Redwoods, Fort Bragg campus since 1998. She has been a contributing writer to a number of publications through the years.

She just had a one-person show at Partners Gallery in Fort Bragg in April that was quite successful, but says she probably won’t have another one-person show for at least fifteen to eighteen months. “It takes me that long to produce a show as I don’t like to be rushed and like to ‘sit’ with the work before putting it out there.”

Mina considers herself primarily a painter though she’s done some sculpture and printmaking. “I use any kind of material that suits my fancy at the moment,” says Mina. “It might be collage items such as fabric, paper, buttons, toys, game pieces, etc., or it might be traditional painting media like oil or acrylic paint. I like to use pastels and am totally fascinated by texture that can be derived from encaustic (wax) or, more recently, gel mediums.”

Is her body of her work about personal exploration, or an expression of social or historical accounts/concerns? She says, “It’s about both. I’m always thinking and I like to work in series. Sometimes the ideas work themselves into a series of paintings and sometimes they don’t. Recently I was thinking about doing a series of a hundred paintings based on a book called ‘100 People Who Have Ruined America.’ [100 People Who Are Screwing Up America by Bernard Goldberg] The individuals were among some of the people I admire most in the world. It was an absurd list but I decided it would take me too long, so I’ve abandoned it. I might come back to it someday. I often choose a topic to explore based on something I want to know more about myself. It becomes an excuse to study something. A few years ago I completed a series of paintings related to the Jewish mystical tradition because I was curious about the visual aspects of it.”

Mina works in her studio every day early in the morning. She works on a number of different things at the same time; working with them until they reach a certain point, then sets them aside and works on something else for a time. “Rarely, a fully formed idea develops but most of the time I start with one idea and end up somewhere else. I usually work on things for at least a month or more.” When she leaves the studio she makes decisions about what she will do the next time she’s in there so there isn’t any wasted time.

She believes that formal training helps develop the discipline to produce work constantly. “Also,” Mina continues, “I teach art history so I have a pretty good knowledge of what has come before me. I’m sure I am influenced by other artists, from the past and the present.”

For the young artist starting out, Mina recommends “coming up with a schedule that works and sticking to it, making sure you spend enough time working is key. Don’t wait to be ‘inspired’ because it doesn’t happen that way.”
Where does Mina get her inspiration? “Many places—my recent show was inspired by two river trips I took in Utah on the Green and Colorado rivers. So landscape is one inspiration. My husband is a rose and tulip fanatic and I’m about to play around with some still lifes.”

She dedicated one series of paintings to her mother, Judy Meisel. In this series, Mina tells the story through paintings and text of her mother’s experience as a Holocaust survivor. “The stories are hers, as told to me in a first person voice and sometimes in a third person voice. As one of the youngest survivors, she has been on a mission to educate as many people as possible about the horrors of the Holocaust to bring about change.

“At the time it was a way to prepare myself, as my mother had breast cancer. Thankfully, she’s doing fine now and living in Santa Barbara, California. But at that time I started to think about the mortality of the person. She’s the survivor of the Holocaust and I’m the child of a survivor. It’s not a story that will or should ever go away. When she’s gone it will be my job to tell the story. How do I do that? Well, I’m an artist. I create art about her story.” Mina’s mother, Judy Meisel, travels quite a bit as a speaker about the film “Tak for Alt.” The film tells the story of educator and Holocaust survivor Judy Meisel’s experiences during World War II and inspired a lifelong campaign against racism.

“October Surprise” (called this because it was just before the 2004 elections) is another of Mina Cohen’s series. “Since 9/11, our leaders have embarked on a campaign they never had to consider before, how to make our geographically isolated country safe from terror. This artwork is about questions and not about answers. Is it possible to be safe from terror? In the series I explore the Homeland Security system of color-based terror alert levels. Ironically, they are in the colors of the rainbow. Do you know what level we are currently at? Have we ever been at the low level (there is no such thing as no level)? We are on the orange level. Does this make you feel safer?”

Mina admires many other artists. “Recently,” she states, “I saw a Cezanne show in Philadelphia that blew my mind. I travel quite a bit and always visit the museums. While I didn’t expect it I saw a Bronzino drawing show at the Met in New York a few months ago that I actually went back to see twice because they were so beautiful and unexpected. He is known for his painting and these are drawings that have never been seen before. The purity of line amazed me.”

Living on the Mendocino Coast is “like living at full-time summer camp! When I was growing up on the East Coast we spent all our summers at overnight camp. This is like that all the time!”

In her spare time, Mina likes to ride her bicycle almost every day with her husband, Jeff. “I love being outdoors and we live in such an amazingly beautiful place. If you get on a bicycle you can ride for miles and see no one, only nature and wildlife. I love to travel almost anywhere but my two current favorite places are Chicago and New York because that’s where our children are. I like to read and I love to cook.”

Mina is a mentor to two tenth-grade girls in the Partnership Scholars program. She is also actively involved in the Jewish community, serving on their board of directors.

She works with musician Susan Waterfall every year on her Mendocino Music Festival concert, producing the visual aspect of the performance. Last year the show “They Left a Light” was a powerful concert of music by composers who died in the Holocaust so it was very personal to Mina. They’ve performed it an additional two times this year. They are now working on this summer’s concert, “Hallelujah America.” Mina says, “It’s inspiring working with Susan who is so dedicated to her music. I’ve learned a tremendous amount since working with Susan.”

So much is changing in our world. We’ve learned from the great artists of the past that there shouldn’t be a boundary between art and the world. Where does the artist fit in?

“The morning of 9/11 I was in my studio as usual and I listen to the radio when I’m there and was listening to the news. I heard the whole thing unfold since I’m there at 6:00 a.m. At a certain point I stopped what I was doing, got a fresh canvas out and painted an entire painting about that moment as I knew my life, my children’s lives, and the world would be forever changed. It just flowed out of me. It was the words of Elie Wiesel, from his book The Town Beyond the Wall, in which he tells the story of man asking God to change places. God agrees and when it’s time to change places again, man refuses to give up being God. I’m glad to have art to get me through difficult times as well as happy times.
Don’t think that I’m so sober all the time, though, as I actually have a lot of fun making art. If it isn’t fun most of the time, it isn’t worth doing.”

There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for mankind. —Hannah Senesh, 1921–1945

For more information about Mina Cohen, visit Partners Gallery at www.partnersgallery.com. Also visit www.survivorstory.com where Mina, as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, paints her mother’s story. Contact Mina Cohen at P. O. Box 269, Mendocino, CA 95460, (707) 937-1319 or (707) 937-1034 (fax), or mcohen@mcn.org.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?
—Rabbi Hillel