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| Born in 1936, and raised in Southern Ohio, Mary Alta Cochran studied art at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, and Mexico City College, Mexico City, Mexico, and in 1957 obtained a degree in Fine Arts from Ohio State University. She completed Post-graduate work in art at San Jose State University, San Jose, California and at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, where she earned her teaching credential. She taught painting and gave piano lessons for several years in Irvine, California before moving to her husband's Tennessee Civil War vintage home, where she continued her painting, and in 1986, after an antiques dealer friend commissioned her to make and "old-timey doll" for her store, she began also making primitive antiqued cloth dolls, Santas, bunnies, ornaments and bears. Her award-winning paintings have been shown in art galleries and shows in Columbus, Ohio, Lake Oswego, Oregon, Salt Lake City, Utah, Torrance, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Palm Springs, Laguna Beach, California and Kinoxville and Athens, Tennesse. Some clients have commissioned the artist to do special paintings, both in the American primitive and the impressionist styles. Her paintings reflect the images of her memories of her childhood on her grandfather's farm and orchard in Southern Ohio and the many visits over the years to her husband's family home in East Tennessee have provided many sketching subjects of her rural scenes. Her paintings and dolls essay the essence and soul of a rural reality now almost lost from the American scene. Since 1986 her dolls and paintings have been sold thru the national gift shows, and shipped throughout the United States and many foreign countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, Ireland, Mexico, and Japan. She resides with her husband on their farm in Englewood, Tennessee. |
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