self portrait of 3 Hand Stephen by Stephen Cohen- cardboard, pencil, copper, bronze, brass, acrylics, guitar string.

Stephen saves his used guitar strings, and uses them, with copper, bronze, brass, wood, recycled materials, and found objects, to create visual art, some of it playable, some of it wearable. Case in point is The String KIng, a musical, playable 5 foot high sculpture, a piece that unites Stephen's musical and artistic interests. 

Above:  Salem Statesman Journal front page article about Stephen's String King sculpture/instrument creation.

above:        This photo of Stephen's sculpture walking on the Iron Mountain Trail footbridge is included                                                          in his book of short stories, poems, lyrics, and visual art, Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories.

Stephen's "Sister 7 Strings" musical sculpture

Stephen's "String Medley"- acrylics, brass, copper, wood, cardboard, and guitar strings. above: framed artwork, right: close up

Stephen's sculpture "Play Me" showing at the Reinvention Exhibit at the Columbia Arts Center in Hood River, Oregon, March 2020

An attendee at the Joshua Tree Music Festival in the California desert plays Stephen's Family of Sculptures. Stephen, one of the featured artists at the festival, installed his musical sculptures there for all to enjoy.

Stephen's artwork "Face in Space with Hands" at the Reinvention Exhibit at the Columbia Arts Center in Hood River, Oregon, March 2020

Above:
Stephen plays his original composition What Now? on his sculpture Sister Seven Strings which he made with wood, copper, guitar strings, found objects, recycled materials and acrylics. 

"Greeter"- Stephen created this sculpture using bamboo, wood, brass, bronze, copper, silver, guitar strings, acrylics, and found objects

Stephen's "Play Me" sculpture

Stephen's sculpture "Greeter" at the Reinvention Exhibit at the Columbia Arts Center in Hood River, Oregon, March 2020

Stephen's homemade "1 String Thing" guitar

                       below: hear Stephen's homemade sculpture talk

Stephen used copper, brass, bronze, nickel and a guitar string to create his 3 handed instrument pin at a jewelry class while attending the University of Oregon in 1981. He knew he was on to something when classmates started purchasing his work before it even left the studio. This led to him exhibiting and selling his jewelry at galleries and art fairs in Oregon and California. Since then he has continued to create visual art in the form of sculpture, jewelry, and original musical instruments.

video above: Stephen composed Garden of Bees in a studio overlooking the bees, performed it in concert in Belgium, then recorded it and created the video back home in Portland. 

Stephen created this 3 stringed beer-can guitar as a deFENIKS Artist in Residence in Antwerp, Belgium, using a can from a local Belgium beer.

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Bluegreen Banjo pin
Gillette razor, bottle cap, guitar strings, acrylics. 4" x 1" x 1/2"

Red Train pin 
poster board, pennies, guitar strings, acrylics, 2" x 1"


These 2 pieces made at home during 2020 "stay at home" times.

Stephen had an idea for a guitar-string bracelet. He commissioned jeweler and metal-smith Kristin Shiga to make it. He liked her sketch and bracelet so much that he put it on the cover of his "by hand" album.

Blue Neck Guitar pin: copper, brass, wood, guitar string (2017)

After Stephen moved to the Lake Oswego hills from SE Portland, he noticed a key on his key chain that fit no lock. So what else could he do, but create the Key Guitar pin, using guitar strings, brass and acrylics?

"Star" pin- poster board, acrylics, guitar string

"Brother Stephen"- wood, copper, bronze, brass, acrylics, guitar strings, found objects and recycled materials

"Branching Out"- branches, copper, brass, glass, blue rock, wood, guitar strings, nails, acrylics, found objects

                                                                                                 Postcard

Stephen uses pen and acrylics to create a poetic postcard

                         above:    Stephen plays his homemade brass and bronze gongs with a trio on Council Crest in Portland, Oregon. 

Stephen collaborated with glass artist John Rose, and metal artist Greg Wilbur to created his original sculptural percussion instrument.

Sculptural Percussion instrument now only exists in photos and videos, but the metal gongs and cymbals still appear in performances.

                                                Above: Stephen performs with his homemade sculptural percussion instruments

"All-Star Guitar" is a small sculpture Stephen created using a converse sneaker, bronze, silver and guitar strings. This photo is on the cover of his album "real life and fiction", which was made in 2000.

2 hand guitar string pin (2017): cut and cast brass and guitar strings.

This is Stephen's "3 String Thing" instrument., which he created in 2014 out of wood, guitar strings and brass, He plays it on "Drops of Rain".

Stephen cast this percussive mallet ring out of brass.

This is a custom made, one of a kind miniature guitar( just over a foot long and a half a foot wide) created especially for Stephen by Jay Dickinson of Portland Guitar.

jay embellished the guitar with Stephen's drawing of hands around the sound hole and Jay's artistic version of Stephen's 3 hand instrument inside the guitar. Jay is calling this guitar his Atto Model. You can see Stephen's world premier of the miniature guitar in the video above.

Stephen carried a sketchpad along with his guitar as he traveled west in 1971. This is his sketch of the view from a tree house in northern Colorado. "I hear a stream run below" and "halfway up a hill, above an old abandoned mine" are lyrics in "We Could Live in Love", a song inspired by that experience.

the "old abandoned mine" in the song below

Stephen's sketch of Drop City, a commune just north of Trinidad, in southern Colorado, where he lived in a geodesic dome. Drop City and Stephen are both long gone from Trinidad.

                             Stephen created this short film/musical piece/work of art from a musical adventure deep underground:

Stephen created a picture book called "The Tree People" while living in New Mexico in 1975. The cover, above, and the last page, below, are all that remain, but the cover drawing became the cover drawing for his first album in 1979 and the name for his first band. The vinyl album was reissued by Guerssen Records of Spain in 2008 and they used the drawing below in the insert.

Stephen continued with the Tree People theme with the cover of the 1984 album "Human Voices" (reissued by Guerssen Records in vinyl and CD editions in 2009), with his drawing of instruments growing on trees.

Stephen and his Tree People band-mates hung their instruments on a tree for the cover of their 2010 album, "It's My Story". Photo by Chris Leck and graphics by Redbat Design.