[Connie Marsh memorial print]

[Martinsville, IN]: Jocelyn Cohen, 1985. 17.5x11.5 inch linoleum print on thin paper, very good. Inscribed by hand under the image: "For Connie Marsh 1953-1974. April 3 disappearance from Pico Canyon. I never saw your cow pictures or the scene on your canvas the day in California you were abducted and later brutally murdered. Sometime we will take back the day and the night and it will be safe for all women. You were young and talented - your death and your life I will always remember. Jocelyn Cohen 8/17/1985." Each print is numbered, from a run of 160. Connie Marsh was a California Institute of the Arts student who drove to a remote spot with her canvas and easel to paint, never to return. Jocelyn Cohen's motivation for making the print is described in "Women Making History: The Revolutionary Feminist Postcard Art of Helaine Victoria Press," pp. 55-56: "Like others [in the Feminist Art Program], Jocelyn was devastated. She and Connie had talked about the beauty and quiet at Pico Canyon; both marveled at the light and color and the cows roaming in the canyons and hillsides. Jocelyn knew Connie went there to paint; neither had any knowledge that there were risks. Jocelyn later learned that the Cal Arts administration had known the area was unsafe, but they failed to tell the students. Connie's death was the kind of violence against women that the feminist performance artists in the program were addressing, but perhaps this time it was too close to home, as there was silence. Ten years later, Jocelyn created a beautifully luminous linoleum block print in memory of Connie. The print represents the scene that Connie was painting at the time of her abduction and murder. The edition of prints, from nine hand-carved linoleum blocks and two engravings, required eleven press runs. … Each time Jocelyn signs one, it is in Connie's memory, and with a demand that the violence must stop."
Cohen co-founded Helaine Victoria Press, which took its name from the middle names of founders Jocelyn Helaine Cohen and Nancy Taylor Victoria Poore. HVP highlighted an unusual mixture of lesbian feminist politics with fine letterpress technique, though it was perhaps most famous for its hundreds of postcards on themes of women's history. (Inventory #: 326699)