Popularity with teens lands exhibit for artist, 83

Audrey Sochor, 83, of Medford, discusses where to put the lighting on her Sea Curtains with her husband of 61 years, Arthur Sochor. Her creations, including “Plankton,” seen here, are on exhibit at the Coos Art Museum through Sept. 23. World Photo by Madeline Steege
It was a coincidence in timing.

In early 2005, while the Vision high school art competition occupied the upstairs galleries at the Coos Art Museum, the Bay Area Artists Association Regional Juried show was downstairs. Several high school tour groups came through the musuem during that time, and they tended to congregate around a certain piece in the BAAA show: a “Sea Curtain” by Audrey Sochor.

“Kids love my shows,” said Sochor, a Medford artist, as she worked last week to complete installation of her current exhibit at the museum. “They come and they have a ball. That's how I got this show.”

Museum director MJ Korieva confirmed that the young audience's reception to Sochor's earlier work led to the decision to exhibit “Sea Curtains,” which is in the Uno Richter Atrium through Sept. 23.

Similar things happened when Sochor's work appeared in shows in Medford and elsewhere. The 83-year-old artist found her most enthusiastic audience in teenagers.

“They come back and they bring their cameras and they take pictures of each other through the curtains,” Sochor said. “They just caught onto it immediately.”
Sochor's reception among adults at those shows was more lukewarm, Koreiva said.

But that wasn't the case at the opening Friday.

Though people under 30 were scarce at the reception, Sochor received dozens of compliments.

“This is just beautiful, mezmerizing,” said Diane Verger of North Bend as she toured the exhibit.
Sen. Joanne Verger, D-Coos Bay, suggested Sochor's curtains - double-layers of sheer polyester painted with underwater scenes - would make a nice addition to the state Capitol.

If the art would have a transformative effect on political leaders, Coos Bay artist Shinan Barclay wanted to send it to the Pentagon and the White House.

“A lot of installation artists have a lot to learn from her,” Koreiva said.

Hanging from a contraption rigged with fishing line in the middle room are eight curtains designed as either the open sea or a kelp forest. Along the perimeter are five smaller curtains that serve as a backdrop for Sochor's “Tentacles,” long tails of ruffled fabric designed to look like the parts that hang from a jellyfish. These are interspersed with four simpler pieces called “Moon Jellies” and one “Plankton.”

A fan keeps some of the curtains and tentacles swaying, and dimmers installed in the “Tentacles” pieces allow the viewer to adjust the backlighting - it helps to stand back and have somebody else work the lighting.

The motion and lighting, along with the moired fabrics, which appear to change with angles of perception, combine to make the pieces interactive. Sochor said she wants her art to involve the observer in the present moment.

“That's what the Impressionists were after,” Sochor said. “Often artists have gotten onto an idea before the physicists have figured it out.”

After working as a teacher, cook, fabric designer and for a time running a bed and breakfast with her husband, Arthur, Sochor has installation down to a science.

“She's the most organized artist I've ever seen,” Koreiva said. “She submitted detailed plans for setting up, day by day.”

The Sochors and museum volunteers put in a long week of work installing the exhibit. A picture board showing the process of making the curtains includes a photo of Sochor using a power drill to build a frame. But it doesn't show her scurrying across the room to find the right color ribbon to use between tentacles, or her husband going up and down a ladder to staple tentacles to a curtain rod.

Sochor said she combines her pieces in different ways and tailors her arrangements to the space to make each installation a new show to her. She's not about to let any aspect of her art slip into the past.

“To be under the sea, you have to be aware of the present moment,” Sochor said. “There's sharks out there.”

(Courtesy of The World Newspaper)