Koco Greeting card

So I am trying really really hard to get back into painting. It's been so long since I have touched a brush, swept a stroke, sloshed paint onto a palette, tried to scrape dried paint off my cheeks and I think it's time for me to renew myself. I know my father-in-law will come here in a few weeks and inspire me to learn the painting technique he has mastered so effortlessly.

What I wish to paint is abstract. Dogs, horses, flowers, simple messages of love in casual type. I am reminded of Jeanine Koconis, a.k.a., Koco. Have you ever seen koco greeting cards? They are absolutely lovely and travel straight from the heart. They are simple, childlike, elementary in colors and technique. She calls her cards 'word+image' art. I use to work for her and I secretly envied her talent. She owned a beautiful brownstone building filled with canvases where she had just let herself free and made profits too!

I was not able to save any of the cards she presented me with...out of an act of kindness, I gave them all away to someone dear at that time. I am unable to find hires images of her work but am in glee over whatever little I could find.

I want to share them with you.

This is very typical of Koco. She is raw, straight-forward, to the point, and then all of sudden, catching you off-guard are the most thought out words such as this:

"Really, what's happening at its most profound level is that (a) folded piece of paper is allowing for a link or a bridge or a connection between the person sending and the person receiving it," Koconis says.

"So I think that what's possible with a greeting card is really incredibly profound," she says, "because it's going to that core place, that core part of our humanity."
~ Jeanine Koconis
Quote from CNN Style. Correspondent Elsa Klensch contributed to this report from CNN

Since RedStamp is the only site that had decently sized photos of her cards, the least I can do is give them recognition.

She's a Teacher card

Pajama Stripes Feel Better card

Prism of Flowers card

Poetry of Flowers card

Musical Conductor congratulations card

Baby Boy new baby card

Hold on to a Star greeting card

Straight, No Chaser father's day card

Emotional Idea mother's day card

Bride in profile wedding shower card

Art and Science graduation card

Art of Kindness card

Love your Life card

Collage of Ties birthday card

People Smile in the Same Language card

We are for each other love card