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Folk artist Don Cochran's Art Gallery
Paintings, sculptured high relief murals, backdrops, folkart, fineart, landscapes, waterfalls, wall murals on canvas and other paintings by Georgia's Folk and Master Scenic Artist DonCochran for church, business and home.
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My name is Donald E. Cochran. They call me Don. I was born in 1946 in Douglas County, Georgia. I was the 8th of 11 children; eight brothers and two sisters. My father's name was Dock Joseph Cochran. My mother's name was Ida Cobb. My brothers and sisters names are Herman, Horace, Betty, Ardner, Joyce, William, Jerry, my twin brother Ronald, Tommy, and Stevie.
Daddy
Going Fishing
During my early childhood we lived down on the banks of the Chattahoochee River. I received very little formal education. When I should have been in school, I was down on the river fishing or trying to twist some squirrel out of its hole with a forked hickory stick, or running a rabbit down in a fresh plowed field, gathering black berries or shaking muscadines down from their vine.
Muscadine, Muscadine,
High upon a vine,
I'll shake you down
On the ground,
Pick you up
And eat your pulp,
And throw your rind
In papa's wine.
. We would lineup on the river bank about 50 ft. apart , and run the rabbit out of the cane break out into the open field. One of us would start chasing it and the other ones would lineup next to the field. We knew that rabbit would not cross the field, but would turn and come back toward the cane break where we were waiting , and we would make that rabbit turn and go back toward the other side with another one of us right behind it . It would turn and come back toward us and another one of us would pick up the chase until that rabbit couldn't run anymore , and he would just stop. And then we would have fried rabbit for supper.
Muscadines Vine.
Fried chicken at the Old Leaky House

The bottom line is I had a lot of skills but reading and writing was not one of them. I do not claim to be a writer although I did play a reporter on television onetime. But I'm learning I hope you don't mind me going to school on you.
Hoggyboo house
We lived in a lots of different places. We lived in the old leaky house, down close to the Chattahoochee River Ferry; the Hoggyboo house, down in the Hoggyboo swamps of South Carolina; the crazy man's house, down next to the chaingang; and there was the grave yard house, which had a grave yard in our front yard and it was there that I started really believing in Santa Claus.
. In 1952 my first year of school I was six years old it was Christmas Eve. And I was so hungry I don't even know how to explain it. I had been hungry a lot of times, but this time it was really bad. Ardner and William, a few days earlier, had went over to Mr. Dorsey's old cornfield or somebody's and brought home some dried ears of corn that they had left in the field when they harvest it. We cleaned the corn off of the cob and put it in on old black pot, carried it down to the well so mother would have a plenty of water where she could make hominy. But now that was gone. Ardner had a possum under a washtub outback with a rock on it, but he said it would be a couple of days before we could eat it. Mother was sitting in a chair beside the old wood stove. Ronald and I were on the floor in front of her looking up at her. I could see that sad look in her eyes. I didn't know where Daddy was and I didn't think she did. She had found some old coffee grounds and had made her a little coffee and she gave me a swallow. I'll never forget how that coffee felt when it went to my stomach. It went all through my body and seemed to give me strength. It was like yesterday. I can taste that coffee now (if you'll excuse me, I think I'll have a cup right now. Will you join me?)
Grave Yard House
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