Jeff Cochran began painting at age six and has had plenty of time to experiment with a variety of styles. He painted chimpanzees, still lifes, and as he explains, ''really just experimented with a lot of things''.
Currently Cochran is working in what he has dubbed as his ''meditative style''.
''This is the most tranquil, meditative show I've done.'' explains Cochran. ''Most all the places in the paintings really exist. I go out and do my drawings or take photographs, then make the paintings in my studio.''
Cochran says his newest period is also a challenge because it requires being a good landscape painter. At the same time, he seeks to push beyond a merely representational view.
When asked about this new period, Cochran says ''People respond to them very well. I think because they like the warmth. There is a peaceful quality to them - a Zen-like quality. My paintings look like a place where you could go and sit and think. That is one thing I am trying to do - create an escape from televisions and cars, I suppose.''
How appropriate then, that Cochran would search the countryside for subject matter from the seat of a bicycle. Also a cross-country cyclist, the artist uses his hobby to solidify his connection with nature and find the feeling of meditative solitude that permeates his work.
''I try to convey a sense of mystery and slow organic growth,'' he says in his artist statement. ''The forms in my paintings unfold themselves and represent imperceptibly slow motion, which lets the viewer know they will be around for a long time to come, creating a meditative atmosphere and a sense of stability.''
INTERVIEW WITH JEFF COCHRAN:
(selected questions reprinted with permission from Leslie Barton):
Q: Where did you grow up? A: I grew up in a small town in Indiana and I won a scholarship to go to college for art and I earned a bachelors degree in Fine Art, Commercial Art, and Art History.
Q: What was your first professional art experience? A: When I was in college I got a job as an illustrator for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette and that was alright but it was a little too structured for me. Then, I got a chance to give a guy a tattoo and I figured out rather
quickly that it was not my ''thing''. I'm just not that ''tough''.
But the money was great and I did tatoos for a little while but then I started selling paintings and I liked that a lot. Painting is the best. I love it.
I feel very lucky that I found something that I love to do at such an early age.
Q: How old were you when you sold your first painting? A: I would guess 20 or 21 or so.
Q: When did you start making a living off of your art work? A: Well, I always had jobs that were art-related. But my last job ''punching a time-clock'' was teaching art at a community college and it was really weird because two-thirds of the students were older than me and I was about 26.
Q: Where do you live and what is your studio like? A: I am very lucky. The art business has been good to me. I am fortunate enough to have a beautiful house and studio in Taos, New Mexico that I spend the summer at and then I have a funky little tin-roof cabin in Costa Rica that is fairly close to the ocean and I spend the winter there.
Q: What is your studio like? A: My main studio is in Taos and it is a cool little cabin-like structure that I built myself and it is built entirely out of old, recycled wood that I salvaged from old homes that were being torn down. So it looks like it is
a hundred years old but it is quite new. The roof is fogged glass so it has a real soft natural light. I love it. I think they call it ''rustic charm''.
Q: People in the art world mostly connect you with your large paintings of chimpanzees. Why Chimpanzees? A: I started painting them in college and right away I could see that people liked them and connected with them and I enjoyed painting them and it is a self-portrait of some sort. It's a fun mental game too because it's like the chimps are human without being human and I think that makes it easier for the viewer to put him or herself in the painting when it is a chimp than if it were a portrait of just some non-descript human.
Q: Because of the chimps you got to have dinner with Jane Goodall too. A: Yeah! That was awesome. I was told that the Jane Goodall Institute has a fund raiser every year where they auction off all sorts of stuff so I sent them a big four foot chimp painting - uninvited! The next thing I know I get a phone call from Jane's personal assistant and she said that Jane loved the painting and wanted to know if I would mind if they did not sell it because Jane Goodall wanted to hang it in her office! I told her that was fine with me and I sent them a second painting to auction and then a month or so later I got invited to have dinner with Jane at her 70th birthday party. It was great! The best vegetarian food ever!
Q: You are also doing rather well with landscape paintings. A: Yes, in fact I just got news from my Scottsdale gallery (Wilde Meyer) that they sold a landscape painting that broke the $10,000 mark. I like getting news like that!
I have always painted landscapes and I paint horses too. I've painted a little bit of everything. I just like to paint. It's the most fun thing for me to do.
Q: I understand that you also enjoy farming. A: Yeah, I've graduated from gardener to farmer this past year. I am a nature-lover, tree-hugger, organic . . . whatever you want to call it.
I have an acre of land with my house in Taos and I have always had gardens and last year I got a camper trailer and a yurt, which is kinda like a big tent, and I let young people who wanted to learn vegetable gardening live in them in trade for work on ''the farm''. And then we sold vegetables at the farmer's market and it was a great time. People told me I was crazy to
invite strangers to live in my yard, but it worked out really well and it was a lot of fun. Some of the neighbors thought I was starting a cult with all the young hippies, but I assured them we were just growing lettuce and carrots and tomatoes and all sorts of good stuff. We learned a lot last year and I am looking forward to doing it again next year.
Q: What did you learn? A: Well, I learned that farming is an art and that what I was really doing is a giant land sculpture. The different colors of plants and soil and mulch contrasted with furrows and beds is like three dimensional painting!
I'm a real perfectionist too so all my rows are very straight and clean and I have a great view of Toas Mountain too - so all of it combined is a
gorgeous picture. I also learned that it is a lot easier to eat a vegetarian diet when you have 800 pounds of tomatoes and 600 pounds of garlic and a hundred pounds of spinach and on and on and on.
Q: My final question is not related to art. What is your favorite thing to have for breakfast? A: Well I have 30-some chickens, so I would have to say . . . eggs!
