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Colorado bronze artist visits Cogswell Gallery in Vail

Special to the DailyBronze artist Melissa Cooper works on one of her large sculptures.
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Colorado bronze artist Melissa Cooper will be at Cogswell Gallery in Vail Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m. for a sculpture exhibit.

Cooper was destined to be an artist. Her mother is a painter and her father is a sculptor. At the age of 17, Cooper began to apprentice for her father and gained experience working in a foundry. This allowed her to learn the entire bronze process, from start to finish.

It was after 10 years of assisting her father that Cooper decided to begin creating her own art and her style quickly evolved into what it is today.



“I love the way she incorporates lifelike birds with useable pieces like vases, bowls and candlesticks,” said Dana Patterson of Cogswell Gallery. “Her work has a soft, feminine quality that is really hard to achieve using bronze.”

From monumental sized cougars to delicate tabletop birds, Cooper has a way of instilling each bronze with its own personality. The face is the most important part of the sculpture for the artist and it is where she uses the most detail. The rest of the body is smooth and simple. Cooper works closely with Patrick Kipper, a nationally renowned patina artist, to create unique stone-style patinas for each piece.


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