About Us - Joe Cooper

JOE COOPER has been welding since 1968, when he first fell under the spell of the torch. He grew up in Mississippi, graduated in engineering from Georgia Tech, and refined his lifelong interest in culture and its artifacts by doing graduate work in Anthropology at Tulane University.

During the early 1970's he worked an archeology dig in France and studied collections of primitive art. He spent several years doing pipe welding on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and began to make welded art in New Orleans.

In 1983 he apprenticed with Lee Robertson at his studio in Missouri. Since then he has been developing these unique methods of copper work. In 1986 he began three years working for Arthur Silverman in his New Orleans studio, assisting the noted sculptor with many large architectural scale sculptures. Usually these works were done in stainless steel or aluminum and finished in the refined and elegant style for which Silverman is known.   

In 1993 he set up his studio in Sarasota and began to focus on more innovative lighting fixtures and other forms of functional art. He began a continuing collaboration with a number of architects and designers who commission him to produce works for custom projects. In 1997 he moved the studio to North Carolina.

His work is influenced by the architects Gaudi, Wright and Mackintosh and by several other sculptors, including Brancusi, Smith and Noguchi. When welding in his studio, he is able to blend this rich background and create something new, working to bring art into everyday life.

He is a member of the American Craft Council, the Southern Highlands Craft Guild and Handmade in America.

OTHER KEY PEOPLE

• Bill Ratterree,  welding, jigs, stainless steel, wiring
• Patti Peake, welding, textured bronze, patinas
• Nick Lowe, welding,  patinas
• George Andrews, consulting engineer
• Melissa Thompson, web site and graphics