Publicity

“Discoveries … Botanical Explorations”, at the Gallery in the Park, Ward Pound Ridge, NY. Click here for PDF:
LowHud article published 5/23/2010

 

Painting with Precision
The Journal News - 8/21/03
By DOROTHEA SMITH

Twelve intent people sit at long tables in Corinne Lapin-Cohen's family room in Katonah, each staring at a yellow black-eyed Susan, an image they seek to replicate in watercolors. They have been drawing this one flower for six hours, studying it through a magnifying glass and trying to record its every detail and nuance, first in pencil and now with paint on paper.

"Don't be afraid," Lapin-Cohen encourages the group, whose members range in age from their 20s to 70.

"Just put more paint down. Remember the local color is in the mid-tone. That has to be right. It has to be the color you think of when you see the flower. Intuitively, you will do it right."

Over her own drawing table, Lapin-Cohen has pinned these words from the artist Georgia O'Keeffe: "Nobody sees a flower really — it is so small — we haven't time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time."

She takes the time.

Lapin-Cohen goes to each budding artist, exchanges a few words, gives suggestions and encouragement. When she announces at 4 p.m. that the session is over, grownups groan like children. "We want to know where the beds are," says one. "We don't want to leave."

"I can't wait for next week to come," says Marcia Mendel of Scarsdale as she walks down the path to her car from the quaint stone house that was built in 1929 by Jimmy Walker, then mayor of New York. To the left of the path is a walled garden that is flush with roses and a joyous tumble of perennials. These are the subjects of Lapin-Cohen's botanical art.

She's a gardener who loves to paint and an artist who loves to garden. She and her husband, Dr. Alan Cohen, a dental surgeon with an Ossining practice, have been restoring and reclaiming their 10-acre property. An affectionate Bernese mountain dog, Teddy, follows her about as she points out new gardens in the making, one in back surrounding the pool; the other in front, near the pond that is now filled with a sea of forget-me-nots. Her family also includes a 31-year-old son, Brian, who lives in Manhattan, two stepsons, two daughters-in-law and a grandson.

Lapin-Cohen is a botanical artist with an enthusiastic following. A vivacious, energetic woman in her 50s, she is driven by her work. "I love to teach," she says. "If I didn't, I'd be reclusive."

Her mission, if one can call it that, is for people to be inspired, to see things they've seen all their lives but to see them with new eyes.

She teaches "The Fine Art of Botanical Illustration" at Lasdon Park and Arboretum in Somers and "Botanical Watercolor Painting and Drawing" at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx throughout the year. This summer, she is leading seven workshops at her home.

When not teaching, Lapin-Cohen paints realistic watercolors of plants, many of which are in corporate and private collections. After completing a series on native trees for a show at the Royal Horticultural Society, she's now working on a series on herbs, specifically, medicinal plants, in which botanical art is rooted.

As described by Sir Simon Hornby, president of the Royal Horticultural Society, "The art of botanical drawing has a tradition of minute accuracy combined with freshness, portraying the beauty of nature in the color and form of its plants.

"The tradition continues today, as artists of outstanding ability record the introductions of plant breeders as well as species," Hornby said.

Lapin-Cohen defines the art as scientific accuracy combining with the eye and hand of the artist and the passion of a plant lover. "Botanical Art is about precision and clarity — but ultimately it is about life," she says.

"Lapin-Cohen began teaching botanical art only recently. An art history major in college, she received a master's degree in environmental education, wrote natural science programs for children and led walks for the Audubon Society. At age 35, she was also training horses — hunters and jumpers, when she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Too weak to work with horses after chemotherapy, she turned to drawing, first studying with Betty Edwards, author of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." Then came numerous classes at the New York Botanical Garden from which she received a certificate in botanical art and illustration.

"They taught me to see, how to take something that is three-dimensional, put it into two dimensions and then make it look real. I was eaten alive with this," she says. "Then I learned to love painting in watercolors in England in 1996, studying with Anne-Marie Evans at the Old Manor House Studio in England."

When the cancer resurfaced in 1998, the paintings just poured out of her, she says. "It was so cathartic." Although Lapin-Cohen says she was challenged physically, "For art, I had time," and she began teaching at Lasdon. A third bout in 2001 just made her more determined to teach botanical art to express what she feels about nature.

Her works also have soul and exhibit a very strong life force. Her students will attest to that.

"Cori (Lapin-Cohen) encourages us to become 'friends' with a flower before picking up a paintbrush," said art student Linda Segreto of Somers, an architectural lighting designer who has studied with Lapin-Cohen for about 18 months. "This involves a lot of 'seeing.' "