voices & views: Pops’ Corner
Friendship and Fine Art Pops shares how photographer and gallerist Cassandra Sohn built a life and a business in the Berkshires—and mentored him along the way. By Pops Peterson Folks move to the Berkshires for disparate— sometimes desperate—reasons, and that’s kind of how I felt my first few years behind the desk of my salon. I was cut off from my New York friends, lifelong memories, and Broadway, and, most painful of all, I had forsaken all my hopes of making my way as an artist for the security of owning a business. Then one day Cassandra Sohn and her then husband stepped up to my reception desk with Hollywood smiles that lit up the lounge. After paying, they kept making conversation that had me laughing along with their city slicker sarcasm. I was a bit taken aback when they invited me and my husband over to their house for a party. Didn’t they know I was maybe twice their age and a has-been at that? Were they just gunning for preferential hair appointments?
POPS & CASSANDRA: POPS PETERSON
The gallery in Lenox
Whatever, there was no way I was not going to that party! As they left the salon, the last thing I would ever guess was that Cassandra was meant to become one of the most important people in my life. Their home by Lake Mansfield was modest by Berkshire standards but big to my city eyes. They had a humongous Bernese mountain dog, Koo Rak, and an even bigger backyard with an actual fire pit where they introduced me to s’mores. What kind of baffled me, though, was this gargantuan printer in Cassandra’s office. She was starting a photo printing business out of the house, and said that business was already good. I didn’t know what to make of this venture, but this blonde goddess had stars in her gorgeous blue eyes. Originally from Santa Fe, Cassandra landed in the Berkshires via NYC, after
leaving behind a modeling and acting career under her birth name of Cassandra Johnson, and venturing into photography. We went to her solo exhibition in some swanky New York gallery and couldn’t resist buying one of her haunting seascapes. And she surprised me again in 2011 when she declared she was opening her own gallery—just about a half block from my salon! How great that she and Koo Rak would be so close by every day, I thought, but for how long? The space she found on Elm Street was smaller than some closets I’ve seen up here, and Elm Street was a world away from New York’s Meatpacking District. I worried for her, but her smile kept beaming. Her little shop of pictures, Sohn Fine Art, was a success in Stockbridge not only
Cassandra and Pops
Fall 2023 • THE B
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