Glendia Cooper is a prolific, imaginative, and inspired potter whose work reflects her inner spirituality and her love of travel and wonder. Her amazing and captivating earthenware clay pieces are all created as part of a sojourn to capture visual ideas which are mysterious, beautiful, and memorable.
Perhaps her affinity for creating from the earth comes from her having spent her childhood and adolescence in the state of Mississippi which has soil that is replete with various clays and the requisite elemental agents that allow artistic creators to produce marvelous pieces.
The piece is unique because of its seminal impetus being manifested in her influences from travel and wonder and far-away places of the world, mind, and spirit. But there is another reason: She painstakingly and meticulously molds her pieces by hands using what is called the “coil method” and the “slab method” then the intricate workings of the potter’s hands and fingers for shaping, molding, decorating, and glazing.
She received her Bachelor of Arts from Mississippi Valley State University and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Jacksonville University. A potter, Ms. Cooper feels that her work “reflects her inner spirituality and her love of travel and wonder”. Inspiration to work with clay came in her childhood and adolescence, spent in the state of Mississippi, with its rich soils replete with various clays. Her pieces are created using the “coil method” and the “slab method”, then the intricate workings of the potter’s hands and fingers for shaping, molding, decorating and glazing. Her tour of Egypt, Benio, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Brazil provided the inspiration for a series of intriguing and enchanting pieces of work that includes boxes, reliquaries, and vessels.