&

PORTFOLIOT E N & T W O

FLORIDA

Vaughn Cochran~ Painter

116

SATURDAY’S STORM–Oil On Canvas–32˝ x 46˝ TARPON EXPLOSION–Acrylic On Canvas–32˝ x 35˝

L

Te n A n d Tw o M a g a z i n e . c o m 115

&

LOOKING BACK ON IT ALL NOW, VaughnCochran probably never had a choice. In school, he’d driftaway during class and sketch pictures in the margins of hisnotebooks. He even remembers his first day in art class. St.Augustine, Florida, was a creative center at the time; and, ashe grew up in the city, art simply consumed him piece-by-piece, year-by-year. He excelled at everything he touchedartistically. Painting, ceramics, music and fishing. It didn’tseem to matter. He was a natural. Often, artists describe theircreative processes by saying they become dissociated fromthe experience. In a sense, they are a passenger on a journey.In Cochran’s case, he was not the passenger—he was the ride.

JUMPING ONE–Oil On Canvas–16˝ x 20˝ www.vaughncochranart.com

COCHRANVaughn

H

TURTLE GRASS–Oil On Canvas–36˝ x 48˝

118 A u t u m n 2 0 1 1

&

HE EARNED A DEGREE IN ARTand ceramics at the well-known Art andPrintmaking Department of the Universityof South Florida, and with a dramaticturn of luck in 1972, he arrived in KeyWest just as the creative mushroomcloud was forming over the city.

“Key West is something I look backon now and it kind of gives me goosebumps,” says Vaughn. At the time, he wasa well-known fly-fishing guide and oneof the three original characters who gavebirth to the Coral Reefer Band. Themembers included Vaughn, “Fingers”Taylor and Jimmy Buffet on vocals andguitar. This was the Key West of Buffet,McGuane, Brautigan, Jim Harrison andVaughn Cochran. The incredible creativeconvergence in the city helped driveVaughn’s art forward. “I think aboutthose days and it’s actually a wonder Isurvived the whole thing.”

As his style of painting developed itactually became an absence of style. Hewas influenced by everything. “Mywhole day is looking at shapes, colors,shadows and juxtapositions. It’s anobsession that won’t go away.” As a con-sequence, it’s almost impossible topigeonhole him into any one look orperspective. He credits this to his earlyeducation where he was not taught howto do art, but how to think about art.The doing he did by himself.

“I was a student during the wholeoriginal pop-art movement. Commonobjects were viewed in a different wayand out of that experience I developedwhat I called my Bright Series, which

included all the fish images that wereanatomically correct, but the detailswere filled in with flat color. The seriescaught on and cemented Vaughn’sreputation in the world of fishing relatedart. Currently, he’s working on a series ofportraits of famous fly fishermen paintedin the same pop-art fashion.

Vaughn describes his art as simply aprocess of getting from “A” to “B”, but forlots of people, the distance betweenthose two letters is often an impassableexpanse. From this writer’s perspective,the process appears to be more of anappropriate response as opposed to theconnection of two diverse points. We allhave a given number of life experiencesand moments of clarity or understanding.The true artists appear to be the oneswho can challenge themselves and thentrust in their experiences to show them theway to connect the points. The solutionalready exists. The artists simply need toallow it to live. They need to have thegood sense to get out of the way and letit happen. Vaughn Cochran got out ofhis own way a long time ago and heappears to have “A” figured out. “B” is awork in progress and, fortunately, it willtake until he dies to connect it to “A”.This should be fun to watch.

Vaughn’s awards and shows are toonumerous to mention. You can findthem on his fine art web site atwww.vaughncochranart.com/artgalleryand then there’s the outfitter/store site atwww.blackflyoutfitter.com. A small portionof his large portfolio is included here.Enjoy yourself with Vaughn’s images. &

Story by TEN & TWO STAFF

LEAN GREEN FIGHTING MACHINE–Oil On Canvas–20˝ x 30˝

JUMPING SNOOK–Oil On Canvas–18˝ x 24˝TARPON BRIGHT–Oil On Canvas–30˝ x 40˝

TARPON TIME OUT–Oil On Canvas–20˝ x 30˝

LUCKY BOY–Oil On Canvas–32˝ x 46˝

TARPON DAISY CHAIN–Oil On Canvas–36˝ x 48˝