Since Scott Cohen moved to the Mid-Shore a few years ago, the Spy has taken a special interest in this artist, playwright, storyteller, and permanent dreamer. From the New York stage to public art projects at Burning Man and Las Vegas, Scott has demonstrated time and time again his unique, and sometimes very esoteric, creativity in all forms of work. But when Scott told us the other day that his latest adventure had nothing to do with art or the written word, it wasn’t hard to be integrated. And even more so when he said that he had just finished cooking warm meals in war-torn Ukraine earlier this fall.
In fact, Scott’s story this time around is really about human spirituality. Moved by the tragic images of millions of refugees, Russian-bombed cities, and gutted villages with families without utilities, Cohen had planned to spend time in neighboring Poland to help the cause. But through a twist of fate that seems to happen to him often, he found himself on a train heading into a war zone within days of arriving in Warsaw.
We asked Spy storyteller Henley Moore to pull together some of Scott’s reflections of cooking in a small Ukrainian hamlet and the powerful force of humanity in the midst of the country’s violent storms of war.
This video is approximately four minutes in length. Scott Cohen will be telling his story at the Talbot County Free Library in St. Michaels November 15 at 11 am.
Hugh Panero says
What a nice story about Scott Cohen, a truly unique and generous soul, who felt an urgent need to fly into a war zone to feed people. Scott’s words along with the photographs really gives you a feel for what it was like and humanized the experience. We need more Scott Cohen types in the world.
susan e delean-botkin says
Thank you, Scott for showing us what love is!