In the glory days of Silicon North`s power, Marlen Cowpland was a metaphor for an Ottawa rising from a gray land of public servants to a booming hi-tech powerhouse.
Ten years after she “left the room” her name was still being searched on my web page every single day.
I knew Mike and Marlen for many years prior to photographing their secret wedding (the first wedding on the cover of Macleans). I first met Mike at his lavish home on the Ottawa River, complete with 18-karat gold bathroom faucets, a $200,000 solarium, a $25,000 disco dance floor and a chopper pad in the mid nineteen eighties.
A boudoir portrait of Marlen a few years later made the papers as the Ottawa Police asked me to take it down from the windows of my Gladstone Studio as it had caused two car accidents from rubbernecking in a single week.
Parties at the Cowpland residences put every last party I have attended to shame. I remember an incident when a certain Prime Minister was admiring my digital creation on her wall that left little to the imagination. I was asked…who was the subject….Marlen simply walked up to the artpiece, turned and gave a devilish grin…The PM nearly choked on an olive.
Even before the clickbaiting of our current era, the media were not kind to Marlen. Upon winning a large settlement from a Toronto magazine that had stolen my shot for a slam piece, I called Marlen and her posse and we proceeded to drink all the Dom Perignon at an upscale Byward Market resto on my nickel. When the bartender sheepishly confessed that he had run out of Marlen`s favorite drink, we looked at each other…and laughed in unison. I simply said….”Then go get some more.”
The media were rabid for “Marlen news”, from photographers camping outside my studio to Frank Magazine`s calls for dirt on the couple. A famous Canadian author even entertained me at Hys to no avail. Multiple media stole my images of the Cowplands which set me on a path of winning a series of lawsuits and settlements.
There are dozens of stories of Marlen`s antics from commissioning a million dollar dress to dying her dog Bunny hot pink and hiring me to shoot a portrait that is still the wildest animal portrait in my archives.
Behind the glam…what most do not know about Marlen is that she is a kind, funny, sharp witted woman. Among other charities she worked to launch the Fur Ball for the Ottawa Humane Society which eventually raised hundreds of thousands. Behind the scenes she and her husband were haunted by charities and causes.
One of the local Cowpland houses caused a flurry of angst in sleepy Ottawa and I still remember telling the tale of the 10M dollar mansion on a friends patio in San Diego…He looked at me and laughed….saying, “That`s what a fixer-upper costs on this street”
My work graced the halls of the Cowpland homes and we created some of the first digital composites using CorelDraw with Marlen in images that were published worldwide. I hung one in my studio and amused myself listening to women`s comments as they judged Marlen. What they did not know was that as they judged her……..I was judging them.
If anyone believes men are the largest hurdle to womens success they need to think again….Women can be every bit as vicious.
Here`s a toast to you Marlen…shine on you crazy diamond.