In the Eden Pool Series, I push the blotch beyond the limits of reason until the 300 lb. paper becomes like a lifeboat itself, allowing the pool to evaporate naturally. This requires tremendous patience and several flat surfaces in my studio. The first layer is diluted interference gold paint, which I pour on the heavy paper and rock back and forth. This motion is like the ocean waves. It is my connection to the sea. The diluted gold resonates beach. Since my grandmother Matilda Skloff Gardos, aka Tillie, first introduces me to the ocean at age 2, it is a part of me. The joy of merging paint and ocean is rooted in those early years.
When the first layer dries, several layers of diluted color are applied, rocked, blotted for variation and dried. This works best with acrylic, as it maintains its integrity once it dries. I introduce blotches of watercolor around the contours. Often I add linear elements with a wax crayon or Sabbath candle to suggest waves
These paper paintings, which seem to be more about the process of paint, somehow are transformed into figurative works. I paint this series in the two years, when my father Harvey A. Cohen, and my mother-in-law Mary O’Brien Jeffreys, are at the end of their lives. The title Edenpool emerges from these figures that dance in the Garden of Eden.
