Artist Kirsten Coco, who brings her paintings to Temple Israel, finds
the biblical matriarchs to be worthy of emulation.
Ruth and Naomi, "Love Comes Full Circle," oil on
Masonite board.
master degrees in architecture from
Rice University.
As her marriage to a non-Jew was
ending in divorce, she found meaning
in religious studies. Wanting to stay
home with her children, she trans-
formed her hobby of painting into a
profession in 1984.
"When I did my other series on
women, I explored different aspects of
being a woman," Coco explains. "I
was looking at what was special and
beautiful and particular about each
one. I started doing portraits of
women I knew and that mushroomed
into well-known people.
"I surrounded them with the things
that were important to them, a blan-
ket a grandmother made, a special
necklace and all sorts of things that
made the context of each painting as
important as the figure itself.
"After a few years, I started to feel
that the subject matter wasn't deep
enough. I wanted to do something
that was more universal, more arche-
typical, and I thought about mytholo-
gy, fairy tales and all sorts of other
vehicles to look at women.
"Because I was getting exited about
women I was reading about in the
Bible, I began researching more and
more about them."
Coco, who applies layers of oils to
create depth and translucency, scouted
people to serve as models for the matri-
archs. She approached people she knew
or happened to see after deciding they
could convey certain physical and emo-
tional qualities. One model, for exam-
ple, was noticed while Coco was buy-
ing cosmetics in a department store.
Vashti, "Anguished," oil on Masonite board.
Before doing a painting, Coco took
photographs and then painted from
them.
"I wanted to make the women from
the Bible as real as possible, so I used
real people as models," the artist
explains. "I wanted palpable, tangible
people so that [each woman viewing
the subjects] could identify them as
people 'that could be me.'"
While the Reform observant Coco
wants today's Jewish women to identify
with the plight and coping mechanisms
used by women in the Bible, she also
hopes to send a message to rabbis.
"I think it is ingrained in rabbis to
speak about the patriarchs and the men
in the Bible," the artist says. "Little girls
are not hearing these stories [about
women] and so are not feeling they're
part of our history. If girls heard more
about the possibility and importance of
women, we would gain so much from
the input of all people." El
Kirsten Coco's paintings will
be on view through Nov. 7 at
Temple Israel in West
Bloomfield. She will discuss
them in a talk, titled "A
Spiritual Journey Through the
Creation of Art," at a luncheon
sponsored by the sisterhood at
noon Monday, Sept. 18. Free
for members/ $10 guests. Call
(248) 851-2505. A wine-and-
cheese reception with the artist
begins at 7 p.m. that evening;
$10. Call (248) 661-5700.
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