Harry Clarke ‘Sets the Bar’Įxcitement over the commission lasted for months, Cooper said. “I was floored and just said, ‘Of course,’” Cooper recalled.
He reviewed Cooper’s work on the platform and decided to reach out via direct message. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Gaiman was in the process of remodeling a house in the United Kingdom when he came across the image of his visage in stained glass.
Recounting his admiration for Gaiman, he shared a memory of getting laid off as a teenager for reading too much of Gaiman’s “The Sandman” while on the job. The artist also posted a photo of the portrait on Instagram. Photo courtesy Rob CooperĬompleting Gaiman’s portrait in 2020, Cooper mailed it to Caston. Rob Cooper created a glass portrait of “The Sandman” author Neil Gaiman that caught the writer’s attention shortly after the Jacksonian posted a photo of his artwork on Instagram. The author had already been on Cooper’s list of around 100 writers, but Caston’s suggestion “lit a fire” under Cooper and served as a catalyst, leading him to move Gaiman to the top and next in line for a portrait.
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“(The series was) a way for me to just make something that I wanted to make-in a way that I didn’t have anybody telling me how to do it,” Cooper said.īefore long, the artist’s friend Laurel Wing Caston, an art collector, said, “Hey, what about Neil Gaiman?” The pursuit threaded together his passion for books and literature with his artistic prowess. The artist splits his time between studio work and his own commissions and interests.ĭo you think our journalism is essential? Give today and support our work.Īs a personal project, Cooper assembled a list of his favorite authors and began creating portraits of them, starting with Eudora Welty for “local fame” as well as Daphne du Maurier and Franz Kafka. Can you make a window for me in the U.K.?” ‘What About Neil Gaiman?’Ĭooper joined Pearl River Glass Studio in Jackson’s Midtown neighborhood as an intern in 1994, growing in his talent and eventually achieving his current position as head glass painter. Pausing, Cooper read the message: “Rob, I love your work. As a father, Cooper read Gaiman’s books to his own children before bed. Rob Cooper’s legs were rotating his bike’s pedals during a night ride through his neighborhood in the Jackson metro a few years ago when a direct message pinged from his phone, pulling the stained-glass artist’s gaze and, for a moment, blowing his mind as he saw the name of who sent it: Neil Gaiman.Īs a teenager, Cooper fell in love with the best-selling British author’s works, including “ The Sandman,” a comic-book series from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint that will soon be a Netflix show, and the Nebula, Hugo and Bram Stoker Award-winning “American Gods” novel.