Bridgewater Resident Displays Her Home-Grown Talent to the Masses

French Drive resident Helene Cohen was essentially born an artist.

But after taking a 30-year hiatus from drawing and painting while she pursued her career as a full-time secretary for an insurance company, Cohen, 70, revisited her natural talent post-retirement with a new medium and a new perspective.

Now, for the second year in a row, Cohen's artwork has been selected among many for the county's Senior Artists Exhibition, a show featuring the artwork of adults over the age of 60 who live or work in Somerset County.

This year, two of Cohen's pastel pieces—one of a thoroughbred horse and the other of a Labrador Retriever—were chosen, and are currently part of the exhibition, which is on display at the Somerset County Cultural & Heritage Gallery at the County Administration Building on Grove Street.

The display will be open from now through Aug. 27.

The county's Senior Artists Exhibition displays 32 pieces, including watercolors, oils, acrylics, photography, pastels, drawings, mixed media and printmaking, said Erin Toomey, health promotion coordinator at the Somerset County Office on Aging and Disability Services.

The exhibition, which is sponsored by the Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission and the Office on Aging and Disability Services, is held from July through August. Toomey said the committee usually starts accepting submissions around mid-June.  

The art show allows the community to view the creative work of residents from Somerset County who are over the age of 60, said Toomey, and some of the pieces are for sale.  

"The Office on Aging aims to promote a lifelong learning philosophy," she said. "And this event supports that objective by giving older adults an opportunity to display their artistic talents and be acknowledged for them."  

Cohen said she appreciates the opportunity to display her work.  

"I enjoy exhibiting at the Somerset County Senior Artists Exhibition because I get to meet all the other artists at the reception and we can compare our works," Cohen said.

Cohen is a self-taught artist with no technical art training, and she attributes her artistic talent to her gene pool—both her father and uncle were artists. Art has always been a part of her life, she said.

"I was always drawing with crayons when I was a little girl, and I really enjoyed that," she said. "I never went to art school. This was just a natural talent."

When Cohen married, her husband, Daniel, bought her an easel she said, and that's when she began making oil paintings, which she said she chose as her main medium because she liked the way they looked aesthetically.

"I [also like] the way you can rub out mistakes," she said.

When she was younger, Cohen said, she focused almost entirely on oil paintings, without much experimentation with other mediums.  

Although she made very few paintings while working for the insurance company because she did not think she had enough time, Cohen picked up her art again when she retired about 13 years ago.

At that point, Cohen said, she switched to pastels because the fumes of the oils bothered her in her older age. Fortunately, she said, the pastels were also more convenient to work with, since blending colors was easier and there was no need to clean paintbrushes.

And she has decided not to go back, she said, as she continues to only use pastels with no plans to try out other types of materials.  

In 2006, Cohen said she was diagnosed with a central retinal vein occlusion, leaving her visually impaired in her right eye.

But that has not stopped her art.

For the past four years, Cohen has instead worked only with her left eye, using a magnifying glass to fine-tune details as she works. Interestingly enough, she said, the impairment hasn't affected her painting too much, and she believes her brain has just adjusted to the change naturally.

"My pastels have improved as I have gotten older," she said. "They seem to have gotten better with age."

Cohen said she believes she has carved her own personal art style over the years, which she describes as being "pretty traditional and realistic."  

"I'm not into abstracts," she said.

Her favorite subjects to draw are animals and people, Cohen said, but that doesn't mean her artwork is confined to just those categories.

"I like to diversify," she said. "[My artwork] contains different subject matters, like people, food, animals and flowers."  

For the most part, Cohen said, she likes to work from photographs, but does not outwardly seek photos for inspiration. Instead, she said, she can simply flip through magazines or postcards and know exactly what would make a great subject for her artwork.

"For still lifes and landscapes, you need to rush because colors are changing or the food [in the still lifes] is rotting," she said. "This is not an issue when you're using photos."

For Cohen, art is a hobby, not a profession. She said that her artwork is done for fun and fulfillment, not as a money-making venture.

"I enjoy it, it's fun," she said. "Now that I'm retired, I have more time to socialize and do artwork."