Cooper the cat’s next 15 minutes of fame

He’s been featured on Animal Planet, BBC Radio and in numerous publications around Seattle and the country. Now Cooper, the Greenwood cat who has a little camera that automatically takes pictures every two minutes strapped to his collar, is exhibiting at his first gallery show.
The media hordes (including us) showed up Wednesday morning for the exhibit preview at Urban Light Studios in The Underground at the Greenwood Collective at 8537 Greenwood Ave. N.

Before gallery owner Kevin Law (that’s him on the far right in the photo above) opened the gallery doors, a group of three women started joking about being Cooper’s groupies and laughingly threatened to “rush the cat.” Law introduced Cooper by saying, “We never thought our newest undiscovered artist would be an American Shorthair cat.” Here’s one of Cooper’s nature shots:

Limited edition giclee prints of Cooper’s photos are available for $275. And they’re all named. My favorites are “Small Friends,” which shows two of those funny little garden gnomes, and “Risque,” which shows Cooper’s owner, Michael Cross, just out of the shower and wearing only a towel.

Cooper’s exhibit opens Friday during the monthly Greenwood-Phinney art walk, and runs through March 10. Cooper won’t actually be at Friday’s art walk, because his owners say there will be too many people. He did really well at today’s media preview though, even though he was stalked by cameras:

Cooper will be featured on KING 5’s Evening Magazine Thursday night at 7 p.m. And Cross says Jay Leno’s producers called and wanted Cooper on the show, but then changed their minds. “Cooper’s photos are a little too artistic, actually. They were looking for something a little more typical, like a cat chasing a squirrel,” he says.
A portion of the proceeds from the print sales will go to PAWS. And the rest? “It’s going straight into his college fund,” Cross says.
Check out his blog for all the latest news on what he’s doing now that he’s world famous, and his Flickr page.