Manistee artist featured at West Shore art gallery.

January 14, 2015

Publication1VICTORY TWP. –West Shore Community College’s Manierre Dawson Gallery is featuring the works of Manistee County artist Ken Cooper in the first exhibit of the winter semester.

The show, Ken Cooper; Copperworks at West Shore Community College will feature many of his exquisite historical, architectural paintings as well as an array of metal works and mixed media sculptures.

A native of Michigan, Cooper spent a decade working with Britain’s National Trust and museums in England painting the great English country houses in their care including the Trust’s Hardwick Hall & Calke Abbey.

After 2001, he turned his attention stateside, and since then has worked with historic sites in the U.S. including the Workman & Temple Homestead Museum in California; The Limberlost Cabin, home of author Gene Stratton Porter, in Indiana; and, most recently, The W.K. Kellogg Manor House in Michigan.

Cooper lives and works in Norwalk, MI, near the county seat of Manistee, where he taught public high school art for 27 years.

He shares his home, a 1911 cement block store building, with his wife Ruth and their Newfoundland dog, Jack. The Coopers home, which the artist rehabilitated into a studio on the first floor and living quarters, based on the 19th century British arts & crafts movement, on the second, has been featured in “Victorian Homes” and “Country Victorian” magazines and on HGTV.

The exhibit will run through Fri., Feb. 20.

The Gallery is located in the Arts & Science Center adjacent to the Center Stage Theater. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

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