MICHAEL COOPER has been fooling around with wood and metal-working since he was a kid and hasn’t grown up much since then. After finally graduating from San Jose State College and U.C. Berkeley with some sort of degree in the 1960’s, he was shown the door. For 34 years, he faked his way as a college art teacher, teaching sculpture, 3D design, furniture design and drawing, before being purged from the system. He has somehow won numerous awards and has been encouraged to leave the United States (quite officially) many times to make projects elsewhere. He bends wood well and often joins wood with odd bits and pieces of other materials and has shown his work around the world. Michael is one of the featured craftspeople featured in The Difference Makers published by The Lost Art Press. In 2023, Workmanship of Risk was published by Designstudios Press and is a retrospective of his entire career.