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Living on the edge
When folks question artist-bullfighter-rodeo clown Ash Cooper about his unusual career path, he offers this ready response: "What I do for a living is not crazy. Crazy is if someone were to break into your home and iron all your clothes!" The personable 30-year-old simply couldn't decide whether he wanted to be an athlete or an artist, so he chose both. "I couldn't take sitting in front of an easel year-round; it wasn't rough enough for me," he states matter-of-factly."This is a good balance. If I go get busted up in the summer, then in the winter I can recuperate in front of an easel. Each day offers something new. It's mostly reaction ... spur of the moment. I love that." Whether he's drawing a cartoon or avoiding being trampled by an angry bull, Cooper sees the humor in every situation."I've always liked to make people laugh. Now I can do it in the arena or on paper."
"I most always use friends or family as my subjects for my paintings and drawings. My friends and neighbors are nervous about ending up as cartoons ... and some already have," he says with a chuckle.
Along with success Cooper has earned a unique nickname. After a memorable episode during a rodeo in Australia his peers christened him "crAsh." "I'm head-first into everything and I never slow down," he explains. The nickname stuck and became the alias of his rodeo clown persona and the signature on his cartoons. Another reason for keeping the handle is to help youngsters who had trouble pronouncing his name. "Sometimes when they were cheering and yelling my name, it didn't sound like Ash," he chuckles. "You can use your imagination..." Cooper has worked hard to establish himself as a professional artist and says his mission is to create works that appeal to both rural and city folk. "Hopefully the cowboys will appreciate my art and urban people will also get to see what the real cowboy is like without ever actually being able to partake in that way of life." Cooper gains inspiration for both his art and rodeo acts in his truck-trailer while driving to events. He records his ideas on tape and then later translates them into cartoons."I like to draw or paint the working cowboy in everyday life ... to show different perspectives of life," he says.
Cooper has no plans to give up clowning or art and will keep both careers. "I love to travel and make people laugh so it's the perfect combo. After all, what can't I get away with being an artist and a clown?" [Click Here] to view Ash's work online. |
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Bullfighting, clowning and cartooning are a winning combination for Cooper. "My artwork and rodeoing complement each other." he says. "I'm able to draw from a never-ending amount of ideas as I'm immersed in the cowboy culture all year round." Whether it's a story from a cowboy wreck or an interesting character he's met in his travels, Cooper likes to portray his own western heritage. Born and raised near Senlac, Saskatchewan, he's proud of his rural upbringing and returns to his family ranch every winter to help his father and work in his studio. This is Cooper's winter home and the place where he started doodling cattle and horses at an early age.
When he was 19 Cooper enrolled in the fine arts program at Red Deer College, and that same spring he attended bullfighting school. A year later he found art school too abstract so he decided to leave and learned the craft on his own, honing his techniques by reading books and developing methods through determination, hard work and practice. " If you work for something on your own you appreciate it more than if it's given to you," he says.
Cooper's witty cartoons are regularly featured in Canadian Cowboy Country and his limited edition graphite prints, pen and ink and watercolor paintings have garnered international acclaim. His career reached a high point when he was recently awarded two gold medals from Cowboy Cartoonists International. "It blew me away. I see these famous cartoonists that I've looked up to, and now they're my peers," he says. In addition to his cartoons, Cooper has earned a reputation for his fine art. His painting The Brockle-faced Bunch (watercolor on paper, 2002), was exhibited and sold at the 2002 Calgary Stampede Art Auction. Being commissioned to do a portrait of retiring Calgary Stampede rodeo manager Winston Bruce was another honor for Cooper.