To start a project, Dottie said, Sometimes I do sketches. With sketches I don t always have a clear sense of exactly how the piece is going to come

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Louise Hill
5 years ago
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1 Dottie Cohen Dorothy (Dottie) Freedman Cohen was born and raised in Atlanta, GA to Miriam Kaufman and Adalbert Freedman, their only child. Dottie s mother is a descendant of the Moises Lazarus Straus branch of the family. Dottie s mother was a bank officer and her father was a lawyer. Growing up, however, he did not practice law but rather was the southeastern director of the American Zionist Organization. While she was not raised in an observant home, and the family belonged to the reform Temple of Atlanta, Dottie was sent to an Orthodox Hebrew School to learn the prayers and to get a better Jewish education. Dottie was surrounded by art as a child. Her father s passion was classical music and theater. Her mother, Miriam, grew up with a brother and father and was not attracted to the feminine arts like needle point or knitting. She liked all of the arts and was a great appreciator but was not an artist herself. Dottie was always interested in art but did not become artistically creative until after college. Her creative mind started forming during her time at Antioch College. She described the school as very left-wing, politically active; an artsy school. The people who attended were not run of the mill and the campus was experimental in many ways. They had a co-op program that would allow students to study for three months, and then work for three months. Because she didn t know what she wanted to with her life, she chose jobs that sounded like they would be fun or would be a good experience. She loved to travel and spent a year of college study in France. During her time in Europe, she was not making art, but loved the architecture, sculpture and music After college, Dottie moved on to graduate school, which she hated. She felt done with school after her college experience. She dropped out of graduate school. By that time, she was married to Leland Cohen. She began working and soon became pregnant. It was then that she started doing artwork. She first started by drawing. Her husband was in graduate school. Since she didn t have much to do all day, she would draw. After her daughter Shoshana was born, Dottie decided to go to take art classes. She was accepted into a Master of Fine Arts program. While attending graduate school, one of her teachers, a metalsmith, inspired Dottie to work with metals. She began making jewelry, although she took a wide variety of classes. She could draw and do prints but was not adept at painting.

2 To start a project, Dottie said, Sometimes I do sketches. With sketches I don t always have a clear sense of exactly how the piece is going to come out. I start sketching. And then the sketch starts talking back to me. And then I might do something different or run another direction, and that starts talking back to me. If I don t sketch it, I just play with metal. I texture it, or lay it on itself, or form it; a lot of play, experimenting and fooling around. Then something might pop out that is good, and something may not. In recent months, Dottie has had a difficult time with the political climate in the United States. The news consumed her to the point where she needed to make a change. She realized how toxic the news had become and so she shut off her TV off and retreated to her shop to work. She started creating and that freed her up. She has always been inspired by other artists and loves learning new techniques. Dottie says she knows when to scrap a project. If she hates how it has turned out, or if there are flaws, she refuses to sell the piece. She also won t work on commission since she finds the process too stressful. She would rather just create something and, if people like it, they ll buy it. If they don t like it, they won t. She tries to learn from each piece, especially the ones that don t work. Dottie said that pretty much every technique is her favorite while she s learning it. She ll do it for a while and then try something new. One of the techniques that she finds the most fun is corrugating. She is also excited to try to combine using felt and metal to make jewelry. When the Straus Historical Society s Joan Adler and Catherine Smith visited GA, Dottie generously gifted them each a necklace with an ostrich, the Straus logo, stamped into the metal. Dottie said she had just learned a new procedure and thought it would be a great project to try it out. She took a variation of the ostrich that is on the Historical Society s stationary and put it through a photopolymer process. Dottie described this process, whereby the light shines through a film onto a sheet of photopolymer. And then you do some chemical things with it. And then it becomes like a linoleum blot with an image on it. It s a different process than making a linoleum blot. That s the photopolymer part. But then it ends up with parts being depressed and raised. You take the metal clay, you put it onto that and you get the ostrich. Then you fire it up, and there you go! I can make repeats because I have that plate, the photopolymer plate. Dottie also creates art that has social consciousness. Creating something that is both aesthetically exciting and makes an interesting social point is not easy. She made a necklace with both Israeli and Palestinian colors, as well as a line of jewelry made from bullets. More recently, she has started to use her jewelry to work with people who are marginalized. She was invited to join an organization in her hometown of Newnan, GA that works with the homeless, survivors of domestic violence, people with developmental disabilities and others. The founder of the group wanted to create a space for people with a variety of issues so that they can practice art. The founder had an experience where art saved her life and she believes that could happen to others. When asked what motivates someone to be artistic, Dottie replied, I think it s a force you re very attracted to. But it can t just be that. If you re going to do it, it has to be habit, and some sort of system. You can t wait to be inspired because that might never come. I used to think that s what artists did; they got inspired and then they went crazy. But I m beginning to think that most people just work very hard at it. And a lot of what they make is crappy. And that s just part of it. Even Picasso had baskets full of wadded up papers. As for recognition, Dottie commented that for some people, it may mean that you are not an artist unless you become famous. That means a large percent of people will not be artists. But for Dottie, she does need a little recognition, in the sense that she wants people to buy the jewelry she makes. It s not about the money. Having drawers filled with pieces doesn t make her happy.

3 She said, You make something with your hands, and somebody else finds some pleasure from it. And that s a connection that s really wonderful. I don t like to think about art in a very high and mighty way It makes me crazy, sometimes. It makes me crazy reading art journals, or reviews of art or artists. It s not that I m anti-intellectual; not that at all. It sounds so pedantic and show-off-y and ridiculous. So, I think that s why I have trouble with this whole thing about what defines an artist. I think what comes up for me are all those highfalutin things that people say about artists. I don t want to see those. To me an artist is somebody who makes something and gets pleasure from making something either beautiful or interesting. And that s their work. That s what they do. It s not like they have magical power... I am just really pleased to have a purpose. To create something that s pleasing, and that other people can share and enjoy. Maybe that I can share with other people, and they will enjoy it and get pleasure from it, that s what art s to me. Dottie Cohen s Website: dfcmetalarts.com

4 Straus Pendant

5 Bracelet Necklace

6 Earrings Necklace

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