Linda Veronica Cooley comes from a colorful and diverse artistic background; her father being a tool-and-die cast engineer and her mother a serious seamstress, before surging machines as well as a masterful cake decorator whose work looked ceramic. Raised in the Los Angeles area, Cooley herself grew up sculpting and painting, but sculpting has always been the emphasis of her work as she always comes back to it.
She spent time working the Hollywood scene until she was 28 and decided it was time for a change, and borrowed her neighbor’s van and took it all the way to San Francisco, where she fell in love with the city, its scene and cosmopolitan lifestyle, despite the hardship of losing the job in cosmetics she originally set out for as soon as she arrived. However, lucky for her, Cooley found a pleasant Art Gallery on the wharf, where she met artists who she could network with and begin to start selling her own work, particularly sculptures and her own brand of soaps that she wholesaled.
Beginning roughly 21 years ago, Cooley branched off and started selling her own work in three dimensional sculptures, working with other companies that hired her to make pieces they had been positioned to make. In some cases that could be a lamp for children, a particular genre of art at which Cooley is adept, and the order could be anything from a fantasy theme to match the child’s room or something as simple as a small child in a fireman’s outfit playing with a Dalmatian. One particular piece – of Jack from “Jack and the Beanstalk” – Cooley has deemed her “good-luck charm” and still keeps it around the house, never willing to part with it as she made some great sales with its presence.
Cooley has lived in Marin County for 20 years, but after a string of hardships in 2005, she met her future husband and business associate in a bar and the two decided to move, neither wanting to move too far south or too far north. They compromised and moved to Buellton, finding a good deal on a house before it even hit the newspapers – and now Cooley is running Veronica Designer of Functional Art here locally in the Valley.
Functional art itself can be defined as taking something ordinary or worn or outdated and reworking it with new life. Veronica does this with everything she finds, including old furniture, lamps, clocks, sometimes even using an old film reel. For example, some of Veronica’s lamps double as free-standing sculptures if the owner of it decided to take the shade and bulb off.
Veronica specializes in this clay sculpturing as well as acrylic on canvas, making in particular all kinds of switch plates, lamps, mirror plates and all kinds of decorative pieces. In particular, having worked many years doing children’s designs, her work for theme rooms and just plain adorable characters are very expressive. Her imagination is heavily influenced by Walt Disney’s animation during her childhood, as well musical motion pictures and her artistic parents.
Cooley doesn’t just do children’s work, however. She creates pieces for all ages, creating masterful three-dimensional clay portraits of beautiful broken pottery or intricate flower arrangements that protrude out from their frames and pop out. Also, she has made a giant bust of an ancient Egyptian obelisk, and still paints, even if it isn’t her focus.
“The artist’s primary objective,” says Cooley, “be it a whimsical sculpture, a painting, or functional art, is to ignite the imagination and evoke emotion from the viewer.”
Also included in her repertoire is that of her Glycerin loofa spa soaps, of which there are many unique shapes and scents. They include Pear Berry, Apple, Sandalwood, Honey Almond, Vanilla, Lavender, Rose Avocado cucumber and Olive Oil White Peach. Veronica currently makes a good deal of her work for sale by order, working from home. People come in by appointment, sometimes if they need a piece to coincide with a theme room they will bring in a swatch of the wallpaper, others if they want a great and unique gift designed for friends or family – or perhaps they just want something for themselves, like the soaps or a sophisticated decorative piece.
Essentially, Cooley is a multitalented, multifaceted local artist who is working on gathering more of a name for herself locally and creates intricate work, whether you need – or merely want – imaginative and diverse functional artwork.
Here’s what else the Valley Journal found out about Linda Veronica Cooley:
Why did you start this business?
Art is my passion and I enjoy creating pieces that function as something else and bring out the child in all of us.
What is your business background?
Sales and marketing.
What is the best piece of business advice you have been given, and who gave it to you?
Know your market, from a business attorney.
What is the biggest challenge your business faces today?
Today’s economy.
What is the simplest thing you’ve never learned to do
Check email.
What sets your business apart from your competitor’s
My unique vision to create functional art to conform to my clients wants and needs.
What books are on your bedside table?
Art, photo and painting reference books.
Why did you choose to set up your business in the valley?
For a less chaotic lifestyle that L.A. or S.F. present, and to be part of a city that values its close ties between community business and families.
Where do you see your business in five years?
To have my own Design Studio / Gallery open to the public.
Finally, what is on your to-do list?
1. Create a new “Functional Art” brochure dedicated to contemporary Interior Design and imagination. 2. Update and redesign our website. 3. Prepare for a public Art Show opening. 4. Build a miniature working carousel.
Business name:
Owner: Linda Veronica Cooley
Business address: P.O. Box 855, Buellton 93427
Business telephone: 805-688-9127
Business hours: 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Monday-Thursday
E-mail address: lveronicajlaf@msn.com
Web site: www.Veronica-DesignerFunctionalArt.com