Clare Cooley

Clare's many years of creativity coaching confirmed what she believed to be true—artistic expression comes naturally. Unfortunately, many do not have it nurtured and can lose connection to their creativity over time. Clare credits her classically trained fine artist mother who was a major contributing factor in Clare staying connected to her imagination and always encouraged her to follow her inspiration. Clare is committed to helping others reconnect with, or strengthen their connection to their creativity as her mother did for her. 

Her mother referred to Clare as the "elegant primitive" because of her self-taught refined style. She told her daughter, "The rules do not matter for you. You would just have to forget them if you learned them because you follow your instincts and figure it out. This is most unusual for artists. Many overwork their pieces. You stop when it's done. Keep trusting yourself, dear."

Clare's art portrays the sublimely simple designs of nature and the expanse of the universe. Her art comes from her reverence for natural harmony and her curiosity about the ineffable cosmos. Her art is influenced by the time we are in when living in harmony with nature is crucial. Clare's art inspires us to rise to our luminous potential as guardians of the environment and its creatures. 

Creating with whatever she had to work with was her way to express anytime and be in creative reverie whenever possible. Her first memories were dancing, sculpting, and making assemblages of found objects in nature. She began writing poetic prose before she read a book. She designed and hand-painted clothing then made jewelry and accessories. Sumi-e ink brush became her first graphic art practice, then playing a porcelain flute as a meditation, then doing pen and ink line drawings of nature. She designed or created most of the things in her home—furniture and furnishings, dishes, floral and tabletop arrangements, window and wall treatments, art, framing, and displays. Recently, she added the art form that can combine all others—video with her movie-making son. 

Though best known for her crane paintings, she paints everything from insects to outer space, classic to modern, in her unique dream-like realism style. With over 500 paintings, drawings, and etchings in her house, "The Emerald Lady," a guest said, "It is a living museum with the heart of a home." Clare was too busy creating to count her creations until recently for a video project. When her unique creations reached over 2,000, she understood for the first time why people say she is prolific.

Clare's first public showing was her glass etchings in the Park Point Art Fair, Duluth, Minnesota, in the 1970s. Since then, her art has been exhibited in a wide variety of venues from small cafes to fine restaurants and wineries, galleries, corporate headquarters of a number of Fortune 500 companies, the Natural World Museum of Art, the Karpeles Museum, the cover of the Red Rose catalog, and on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art tours.

Her art, writing, and designs were published by Pomegranate Artbooks in her Book of Cranes after observing all fifteen species of cranes in person.

Her art was featured as the Pheasants Forever catalog pollinator print of the year in 2019. 

Clare's work was added to the International Crane Foundation Gift Shop Gallery in 2020 and the Cornerstone Gallery in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 2021.

Clare was asked to create and direct a performance art piece for the Napa Valley Arts Council, which she involved ninety volunteer artists in and she dedicated to world peace. 

She did skate dance performances in San Francisco at "Give Peace A Dance," Fort Mason, Theatre Artaud, and the North Beach Poetry Festival. 

Clare's cabinet and table were selected and sold at the Architectural Designers Showcase in San Francisco.

She has done a number of public and private readings of her stories and poetry, including on Public Radio. Clare was interviewed on the Women of Vision television show. 

In her twenties, Clare was asked to begin teaching her interdisciplinary curriculum "Dancing into the Arts." She has worked with every grade level in public schools, at universities, psychiatric hospitals, drug rehabilitation centers, crisis shelters, juvenile halls, and with the participants and staff of mental health and drug courts. She has worked with therapists, probation officers, lawyers, judges, nurses, and many other types of groups and individuals.

As a creativity coach, she loves guiding people home to themselves. Her work is based on her experience that the greater access we have to our imaginations, the confidence to express it, and the courage to share it, the more we have to work with to enhance our own lives, hope, heal, and contribute to others and our world.