Judy Kohin
Biography
The following article on Judy Kohin, written by Elizabeth Covington, is from the Telluride Watch, March 12, 2004
Who is Black And White and Comments on Local Happenings?
“The whole book has been ambitious,” said Valley Cow creator Judith Kohin of her collection of Valley Cow cartoons, “Four Seasons with the Telluride Valley Cows.” Kohin was taking a short break from hand building 200 unique, hardback books, a select collection of cartoons sketched over the past 17 years (absent a few sabbaticals).
From politics to love to changing seasons in the mountains, for nearly two decades the Valley Cows, at Kohin’s behest, have commented on and poked fun at Telluride’s idiosyncratic ways. The best of Kohin’s, and the Cows’ best, are collected in “Four Seasons,” a book that was four years in the making.
“I collect cartoon books,” Kohin said, thus gathering her own in one place was a logical step.
Tonight Kohin is unveiling her book at a reception at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, 5-7 p.m. At the reception, she is selling limited edition copies of 200 hand-bound books.
Oddly enough, Kohin’s Colorado cows had their origins as dairy cows in Maine. A fine arts major at Bates College in Maine, Kohin arrived at the first class for her senior thesis unprepared. Students were supposed to announce the subject of their theses and Kohin had no idea. She had spent her junior year abroad in France and while out of the country did not get the message that she was to bring a topic to that first senior thesis class.
“There were only four art majors and I positioned myself so I was the fourth person to talk,” she said with a grin, remembering that moment of panic nearly 20 years ago. While the others talked, Kohin racked her brain. Her last-minute choice: farm scenes in Maine depicted in a series of paintings and etchings.
The following day she borrowed a friend’s car, drove out to the countryside, and found a pasture with a barn. For several weeks she painted pastoral scenes, until she was interrupted by a cow.
“There was a cow on the farm and he walked into the painting,” she said. A barn, trees and now a cow. The cow was “fun,” said Kohin, and a greater challenge than the pastures and barns.
Kohin followed the cow’s lead and over the next month, before Maine’s winter snows set in, she focused on the farm’s cows. When the weather turned bad and the cows moved inside, she moved inside with them, setting up her easel in the barn aisle.
“The dairy cows were tied up in the barn, in the stalls,” she said, with their heads to the wall and their rumps turned to the walkway. A row of windows behind her cast a soft winter light on her subject matter.
Kohin spent the winter in the barn with the cows, painting their rumps, their tails and their udders, which she found to be the most interesting anatomical part of the cow.
“It was a great show,” she said. “Very successful.”
After graduating from Bates Kohin left the East Coast for the Rocky Mountains and landed in Telluride. After securing a job as assistant cook at Skyline Guest Ranch, Kohin arrived in Telluride in 1985 in time for Bluegrass. While driving into town she passed Telluride’s black and white valley cows.
“I still had cows on my brain,” she said. “I hadn’t finished with them, so on and off I drew and painted” the local bovines.
At the time Jonathon Webb was penning cartoons for the San Miguel Journal and Kohin lighted on the idea of cartoon cows talking and commenting on goings-on about town.
In her first cartoon the cows confused Bill Graham (the Grateful Dead promoter and one time Telluride second homeowner who brought that band to town) with Billy Graham (the fire-and-brimstone-inspired evangelical preacher). The cows, who were moved out of their pasture to make room for the Dead Heads’ vans, thought it odd that a religious gathering was coming to town.
From that humble beginning Kohin is by her own estimate 1,000 cartoons down the road, and over the course of producing a weekly cartoon (and during one two year period a twice weekly cartoon) has delved into topics as diverse as llamas (who at one time were the cows neighbors to the east), the San Miguel Valley Corporation, Donald Trump and hunting season. The cows have also poked fun at the Telluride R-1 School Board, the Telluride dating scene (there are only three types of bachelors in town and in Kohin’s scene the still-hopeful lady contestant has already dated all three), and the Galloping Goose (which according to the cows should have been painted black and white and named the Valley Cow Express).
“My goal is to poke fun, playfully,” said Kohin. “But they are true and honest. A few people have been pissed off” by the cows’ sharp comments. “I think that is because they can’t laugh at themselves.”
HANDBINDING A BOOK
Book creators either bind a book or create the content, Kohin pointed out. Very few, like Kohin, undertake both.
With the assistance of eight friends Kohin sorted through her 1,000-plus cartoons. She also pulled from the archives newspaper articles to accompany some of the cartoons. The articles give the reader some sense of what was going on at the time the cartoon was created.
To bind the book Kohin gave a lot of thought to the mechanics of creating a book. “I had to think about how to create 200 books, how to set up that many on a production line,” she said. “And something not so complicated that it would take too long.”
Nonetheless the binding process was involved. For each book Kohin cut out two pieces of board (for each cover) two pieces of cloth (for the inside of each cover), “and then there was more cutting and gluing,” she said. Each cut must be “very precise. That has been hard for me. Precision in art is not something I’ve done. You have to measure to the 64th of an inch.”
The result is black and white (of course) faux fur on the front cover and a selection of hundreds of cartoons inside. The title page is a lovely, hand-colored cartoon depicting the view of the Telluride valley east of town and Kohin’s cows dancing in celebration – a book published in honor of them and their unique and insightful views of Telluride.
An opening reception for “Four Seasons with the Valley Cows: a collection of cartoons by Judith Kohin,” will be held Friday, March 12, 5-7 p.m. at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. Hand-bound, hard cover books, part of a limited edition of 200, will be for sale for $165. Kohin hopes to publish a paperback edition in July.
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Other notes:
Judy spends a lot of time on the river. Combining her love of art with kayaking, she does watercolors of all the rivers she's been on.
For her "Interactive Watershed" project she is most interested in the confluence of the San Miguel and Dolores Rivers, but she is also interested in Keystone Falls, which are very dynamic and hold deeply personal associations for her and her partner, Midnight. It may be that she focuses on the full length of the San Miguel River, doing watercolors as she goes.
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Telluride , Colorado
December 2006