Jessie Allen Cooper, Proprieter

1-2004

What is a Cooper?

Cooper maker of barrels, minstrel, carpenter, handyman of the town or village. As you all know Cooper is a widely used word and has been recently used as first name, a car, a tire or a hockey helmet. Cooper means Barrel Maker!...

It took me over thirty years to understand and embrace the Cooper name and at one point I did make a oval-shaped frame for Leonardo Di Caprio, found on my art web site at cooperartscom.

In the fifth grade my teacher was creative and inspiring. He taught us how to write in a Egyptian hieroglyphic lettering font. I don't know if this affected anyone else in the class but for me it was one of the first creative experiences that I had.

Working with my hands seemed to come natural to me. Music and art interested me as a child, and to this day drive my creativity. However I had a woodshop teacher that would have a tremendous impact on my life. His name was Mr. Hublow and God bless this steadfast, maybe a little warped but kind hearted man, who is no longer with us. Mr. Hublow was the man that showed me the craft of woodworking, thus creating my first experience of being a Cooper.

Mr. Hublow was an eighth and ninth grade woodshop teacher, carpenter, ball busting, and insightful man, that at times threatened and sometimes used a large paddle with holes drilled in it to get across his point. ("That is that a", one of his preludes to a thought) I have to say that the man was respected. His manner of teaching was kind of like being in a military boot camp, but it did work, and to his favor I still have all my fingers and hands. Mr. Hublow's shop was fully equipped with power tools, including a full sized table saw, lathes, planers and all the finest shop tools of the day.

Being around wood had a tremendous impact on me. The smell of different woods, the smell of varnish, oils and other finishing supplies that at times I still use, became ingrained into my consciousness. I made several pieces of furniture and turned bowls on the lathe in Mr. Hublows class. To this day I still use his words of wisdom while working with my framing companions.

   I wrote a poem called Since I first touched Wood:
Click to read the poem

The home in which I grew up, located in Everett, Washington was medium sized with a good large upstairs. My brother and I turned it into our own psychedelic black light art gallery by painting on the walls and putting black light posters everywhere.

Music and art were always important to me and influenced me as much as woodworking, however that's another story.

In high school I took a class called carpentry taught by Mr. Reeber, this class was designed to turn young men into carpenters. During those two years we built a house, a garage, and some cabinets. I took carpentry in my junior and senior years of high school and at the end of those two years the fifteen or so guys that took the class had acquired two years toward becoming a union carpenter.

After high school I worked in a cabinet shop for several months and at Nord Doors for two years, which at the time was the largest door making company in the world.

The next seven or eight years my life were totally dedicated to music studies learning to write, record, and perform. Spending six years going to first community college and completing my studies at Western Washington University. After attending college I went on the road for several years performing throughout the Northwestern United States and Canada.

   Being into performance and music composition I came to LA with a folder of art and all the possessions we had loaded into my van. Like all the rest of us that came here from somewhere else looking for fame and fortune. I had just gotten married and moved here with my new wife Linda Cooper. Linda is a nurse and was really supportive of me getting a job that would go with my music.

So with my carpentry and art background I wondered what type of job would go with my music carrier. Mind you, this was almost twenty four years ago. I had the idea of getting a job as a picture framer. After scouring around the Santa Monica -Venice, California area, I was hired by Salvatore Orlando, the owner of a local frame shop called Artists and Others. I worked running Artists and Others for a couple of years. An accolade must be given to Sal for being incredibly supportive of me not only as framer but as a musician.