Randy Cooper’s “Shadow Sculptures” amaze collectors and their guests world­wide. His work is prominently displayed in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Shadow Sculptures have been sweeping the United States­and the world-for the past few years, highlighting many private collections throughout the world, and Randy Cooper has become a major force among the world’s contemporary artists. Randy has had many jobs and careers, ranging from lumberjack in the woods of the Pacific Northwest to serving as a special education teacher and a leader in the Total Quality Management program at two Westinghouse facilities.
He had no experience with art, although his mother was a master carver of birds and gunstocks, and one of his sisters is an accomplished painter, sculp­tor, and author. It wasn’t until Randy was nearly 50 that he discovered his own gift for art. He took a six-week sculpture course and fell in love with this art form. He attended a week-long course at the Scottsdale Artists School, but he is mostly self-taught. After working successfully in clays, artificial stone, and bronzes, Randy discov­ered wire mesh. He had been looking for an art form he could make his own, and this was it. Since then, he has created intriguing and magical sculptures in wire mesh and has personally developed all the techniques that he uses in making his Shadow Sculptures, named for the beautiful image created on the wall when a light is shined on one of his sculptures. Indeed, sometimes the shadows show more detail than the original sculpture and instill magic to the creation. He is a full-time sculptor and lives in New Mexico with Susan, his wife of 55 years, a former environmental engineer who is now a published writer and an artist who has worked primarily in pastels, oils, and acrylics.