Bill Cooper: Imagination and Life

In 2014, I went to the TriMain building to interview Bill Cooper for the Living Legacy Project at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. It was late winter, and the snow had been particularly treacherous to drive through to get to the evening interview.  I met Bill in the warmth and the light of his space at Buffalo Arts Studio. Surrounded by his colorful, flowing paintings—some in progress, some completed—we talked for hours about his life as a highly creative and curious person.

Early in our conversations, we talked about Bill’s lifelong trait of creating his own answers to the big (and small) questions in life. As a young boy, Bill came home from the movies one night crying, sure that he had cancer. When his mother prodded him, he said he had seen a sign that listed the signs of cancer, and “difficulty swallowing” was one symptom. After eating a big bucket of salty popcorn at the movies that night, Bill’s throat was dry and scratchy, and the young boy was beside himself, sure he had cancer. Bill described how his mother laughed and laughed. That little boy would go on to live a long, long life. Here we are now, reflecting on Bill Cooper’s impact at the end those 82 years of a full and beautiful life.  I include that anecdote because I think it shows something about Bill’s character, even from a young age: he defined his own world, and actively participated in how he constructed his own meaning. As that little boy grew up, art became one of the main avenues by which he could create his world and the tools with which to question the exterior world around him.

Bill Cooper influenced people all over the world. From Birmingham, Alabama, to Buffalo, New York, to the African continent, Bill brought an incredible energy and analysis that encouraged others to deconstruct their assumptions and challenge what they thought they knew.  His work as a teacher, as an activist, as a proud supporter of his heritage and his community, and as an artist in all that he did—Bill’s impact and creative clarity ripples through Buffalo and beyond. I’m not going to write about the nuances of his life, about the organizations he was a vital part of. There are many others more knowledgeable of his life. Instead, I’d like to share some of his own words, from my interview with him in 2014.

Around 51 minutes in, Bill shared this about his creative process:

“When I get something that comes in my mind, I think about it, and if I like it well enough to create about this thing…see my thing is, I don’t want to just put an object up and paint it. I want to paint how I feel about an object. What does that spring in my heart. That’s what I paint. I don’t just want to paint scenery. I create everything I do, I don’t use models…I can draw or paint anything that I can conceive of in my mind. I don’t need props; I create my props. I create everything. And it’s a situation that I feel good about.”

Soon after, Bill relates a story about teaching students to imagine. “When I was teaching school, I found it difficult to teach creativity…I found it difficult to explain what it means.” He had to actively help young kids deconstruct the world they’d been taught to see in order to free their imaginations. One day in class, Bill told his students to close their eyes and imagine an elephant. He asked them what color the elephant was. “Grey” they all responded. He questioned why the elephant had to be grey, why it could not be any color they choose. Encouraging the children to question why something is and why it cannot be something else (and who says?) is a beautiful lesson in subjectivity and crit9ical analysis to share with 3^rd graders. Then, he asked them if the elephant was near a tree, and if so, what color was the tree? He told his students, “You make up this tree. You create [your] own tree…you invent the elephant. You create your own elephant. It’s not yours if you don’t create it.”

From here on out, we will hold Bill Cooper in our minds and our hearts but not our daily lives. As an archivist, I recognize the importance of primary source documentation to chart the factual impact of an individual’s life, and certainly Bill has left us much in that regard. But I will also let my imagination expand, and imagine him with purple trees and elephants with wings as I think about Bill, and hold close the colors and textures and the different lens that he brought to the world. 

Heather Gring is the Archivist at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and has conducted over 50 interviews with living artists since the Living Legacy Project began in 2012. 

Listen to Bill Cooper's interview with Heather in 2014, and view a clip of him talking about his work in his studio.