Post Author: Faith Fuller
Angela “Mrs. Angie” Cook is a multi-media artist who lives in Morganton, GA. She was born in 1951 and has been doing art since she was very young. She married her high school sweetheart, Johnny, in 1968. They have four children and nine grandchildren, several of which share Angie’s enthusiasm for art. No one can doubt Mrs. Cook’s love for her family as they are the subject of many of her works in one way or another.
Angie began exploring art by drawing and she has since branched into many other areas such as collage and sculpture but she always starts a project with drawing. Now-a-days she cannot resist adding a little bit of everything to each of her works. Book art is one of her favorite areas to work in because it leaves so much room for experimentation.
Her high school art teacher, Mr. Gary Selby, helped expose her to art and though she has taken many classes at the John C. Campbell Folks School (as well as others places) Mrs. Angie is mostly self taught. She has no official degree, however, her talent and experience more than make up for the lack of that “stamp of approval” that “professional” America seems to find so important.
For a long time Angie did not “take [her]self seriously as an artist” until she injured her wrist while playing with her grandchildren. After realizing how easily she could lose her artistic abilities (and with plenty of encouragement from friends, family, and co-workers) she began working towards becoming a more diligent studio artist without abandoning her passion for teaching. While recovering from her injury (and working a full time job), Angie worked on eleven different pieces (three of which she scraped) that helped her grow both as a person and an artist.
“Fragments of Self” is one of the works she created because of her injury and it represents how she felt while she had little use of her right hand. It is an egg shell mosaic that demonstrates the fragility of life and how every piece, good bad or indifferent, has a place that makes up part of who she is.
After her wrist healed Mrs. Angie was commissioned to create a sculpture for Fannin Regional Hospital that she gave a discount on as a gift. “Ode to Motherhood” took a year to complete after lots of trial and error as well as design changes during the process. It reflects “the continuum of motherhood” through the moebious band around the mother holding her child. She sculpted this piece out of Styrofoam, PVC pipe, aluminum foil, wood, and Winterstone. She had a lot of help from several of her family members and her daughter MeMe was the model for the mother.
Angie has worked in schools inspiring students and showing them that they can be good at something since 1986. Beginning in 1998 Angie has been an Art Consultant for Copper Basin High School where she helped found the learning center in 2003. She is an advocate for Arts Across the Curriculum and has encouraged many teachers to help her show students how art relates to their subjects through field trips and other activities. She is also the main coordinator of the many after school clubs (most of which are art related) that take place Monday through Thursday. She has encouraged many students to push themselves through art and shown them that they can be successful in it. She has also helped expose them to the business aspect of it through galleries, field trips to art Advocacy events (2010), and a mural for the community.
She has also encouraged many students to sell their works and even found buyers for them. (Pictured with Angie is a student whose painting was purchased for a gift to the principal of Copper Basin High).
She is currently working on raising money for a building to house the Art Center on campus (it has been held in class rooms in the school and supplies have been stuffed in Angie’s office and in various class rooms). If and when the facility is built students will be able to leave their works in progress out till the next day/week without having to worry about someone messing with it and they will have a place to present without bothering teachers. She is also training Jenifer Danner to take her place in 2014 when she retires.
Though Angie is not a full time artist she does plenty of art on the side (which she works on in her small studio in her dinning room) and has inspired many students to pursue their talents and passions. She is currently working on assembling a collection of patented DoDollies which are small dolls made from scraps of fabric, scrabble pieces, clay faces, etc.
More information about Angie can be found on her website- http://www.angiecook-artist.com/index.html