Welcome to My World Where I Create: Head Cowgirl Marilyn Lysohir

Meet Head Cowgirl Marilyn Lysohir!  Two of her favorite things in the world are art and chocolate.
 
She is an artist who works primarily in clay and has a celebrated national reputation. You will find her work reproduced in almost every ceramic book published in the last fifteen or twenty years. She exhibited a major installation "The Dark Side of Dazzle" at the WSU Museum of Art in 1991, and another "The Tattooed Ladies and the Dinosaur" at the U of I Prichard Gallery in 2002 and the Belger Art Center in Kansas City.
 
She currently completed a series of sculpted portraits, a project titled “Good Girls”, of the 163 girls with whom she graduated from high school.   A short film documentary was produced following the project. 
 
 “My work is inspired by my family and my friends. When I begin a piece I start with a personal idea — such as the death of my grandmother or my father surviving World War II, and then this idea evolves into a formal composition which usually takes me a long time to work out.
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“For me as an artist, any piece is about self-recognition and communication and memory. It’s about taking responsibility for our actions and surviving with dignity the journey upon which all humans embark...from birth to death.”
 
From 1995 to 2000, in addition to making her art, she and her husband Ross Coates published a yearly magazine called "High Ground" that was about the art and artists in the plateau region of the Pacific Northwest. More than just a magazine, each edition was an artist's book with slides, audio tapes, and sometimes, actual pieces of art.
 
As for her second love, Marilyn mingled some favorite memories with some new ideas to create an American original, Cowgirl Chocolates. What happens when two flavors from opposite ends of the spectrum decide to wed? Sparks fly and the romance becomes a marriage made in Cowgirl Heaven!
 
The Moscow, Idaho company specializes in chocolate confections spiked with hot pepper and other spices.
 
While the ancient Aztecs were the first to combine chilies with chocolate, the sweet and fiery combination is experiencing resurgence in modern culture. Spicy chocolates were featured in the hit movie, "Chocolat”
Marilyn's first job was at a candy factory, where one of her duties was carving an 8-foot-tall chocolate rabbit. (Marilyn's interests in art and chocolate have a long, parallel history.) Marilyn stayed in touch with the owner of the factory, a man named Pete Daffin. In 1995, Pete offered $10,000 to anyone who could invent a new flavor of candy. Marilyn's brother, Bob, heard about the offer and thought that hot nuts and chocolate would make a good combination. Bob's prototype candies were laughed-at, but Marilyn liked the idea. She and a friend experimented with adding spice to chocolates. Eventually, Marilyn formulated a recipe for hot truffles and had some made at Hunter's Candies in Moscow, Idaho. In 1997, Marilyn began selling Cowgirl Chocolates at the Moscow Farmer's Market.
Cowgirl Chocolates immediately began earning accolades and gaining attention. Among the eleven awards that Marilyn keeps in her garage are two Golden Chiles, awarded by Chile Pepper Magazine.
 
Her truffles were also named 'Best New Product of 1998' by the Idaho Specialty Foods Association. Cowgirl received even more exposure last March when The New York Times ran a brief "Temptations" article on its truffles. The critical success of Cowgirl Chocolates inspired Marilyn to adapt and increase the size of her operation.
 
Cowgirl chocolate has also been featured several on CNBC, the Food Network  on “Unwrapped” and “Extreme Cuisine”, in the New York Times and Toronto Star among others.
 
Cowgirl Chocolates
428 west 3rd Street #3
corner of 3rd and Lilly
Moscow, Idaho 83843
 
Visit Marilyn Lysohir’s fine art web site at:
www.marilynlysohir.com | www.goodgirls1968.com
 
Visit another art related project of Marilyn’s, High Ground,
a unique fine art magazine produced in limited editions:
www.cowgirlchocolates.com/HighGround