[1] While he had never received formal instruction in art making or wood carving, he recalled to New Deal ethnographers that his grandfather had made baskets, chairs, and tables, working in the mediums of carpentry, cane-weaving, and basketry.
[1] His work and practice is known because of its inclusion in Mary Granger's Drums and Shadows (1940), a book of ethnography conducted under the auspices of the New Deal's Federal Writers' Project.
Historian of African American folk art practices, John Michael Vlach, has called carved walking sticks "perhaps the most sophisticate form in the Georgia tradition.
His turtles, lizards, alligators, and snakes appeared on his canes in graphic relief, which he achieved through a combination of deeply carved outlines and staining techniques.
[2] In Drums and Shadows, it was reported that Cooper occasionally employed mixed media techniques, embedding everyday objects or even photographs into the canes' handles.