My Mother, Kohar Melkonian (1925-2012)
Customary of women of her age, Kohar Melkonian dedicated her life primarily to family and an active community life following a short period as a teacher of mathematics and language. Her life was guided by the golden rule, and while she strived to live her life within the lines, it was my father’s blurring of the lines that drew her to him. In this way, she was his life’s companion and muse, and often, his prime motivator in continually embracing modernity and a futuristic outlook.
It was in the last decades of her life that Kohar Melkonian finally turned her attention to creating art—oil painting, glass making and sculpting. For me, her sculptures in particular, are the culmination of her immense imagination and her uncanny ability to use her hands as instruments in expressing her rich and mysterious inner life. These works elicit in me a visceral reaction and a strong desire to continue discovering her – and to rediscover her in my own paintings.
