THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9607300138
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Thumbs Up !
SOURCE: BY KATHRYN DARLING, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 78 lines
WHEN MINETTE Cooper visited the art museums of Europe the summer after her freshman year of college, she saw some of the world's greatest art.
``It was like somebody unlocked a treasure,'' she said.
The tour guide, a college student herself, taught the group of six students who toured Europe in 1957 the ``ability to see with open eyes, to see line, art, beauty,'' she said.
She ``would bring us up to the picture and ask, `What do you see?' and then lead our eyes to see what we hadn't valued properly.''
It was a new way to see - it put everything in a totally different focus, Cooper said.
Cooper, who had studied music from the time she was 5, always had processed the world first through hearing. The trip to Europe changed her perspective, and Cooper said she began perceiving the world more with her eyes.
In 1963, Cooper moved to Norfolk with her husband, Charles, a Norfolk native. Since then, she has worked as an arts advocate, administrator, volunteer and philanthropist for the arts in Hampton Roads, and this spring, two arts organizations recognized her for her efforts.
The Governor's School for the Arts named Cooper the recipient of the 1996 Award for Artistic Excellence.
The award recognizes area individuals who have made a significant contribution to the arts, fostering its growth and continuity.
Clay Barr, who served with Cooper on the Virginia Symphony Board, said Cooper has ``boundless enthusiasm. She gets excited over things that are worthwhile in the arts. A good concert, a good lecture, whatever it is. A lot of people have one cause that they work hard for, but there are many that she has worked for.''
Cooper, who lives in Norfolk's North Shore Point area, has been active in so many arts groups in the community that she says it would be impossible to name them all.
She is president of the Virginia Symphony Foundation and serves on its board of directors. For 10 years, she served as a chairperson on the Norfolk Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She was the initiator of the Greater Hampton Roads Cultural Action Plan and served on its teams. She has been vice president of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads since 1983.
She has been president of the Virginia Symphony and since 1974 has served on its Board of Directors. She has worked with the Virginia Symphony League as chairman and as nominating committee chairman.
Cooper is also a performer - she sings in the Virginia Symphony Chorus.
The other arts organization to recognize Cooper this year was Young Audiences of Virginia, which provides children with interactive live performances in music, dance, theater, and storytelling. Cooper, who has been a volunteer with Young Audiences since 1963, was named the 1996 Volunteer of the Year at its spring conference in Dallas.
Young Audiences not only introduces children to the arts, but it also encourages them to participate in the art experience by playing an instrument or a part in a play, said Eilene Rosenblum, executive director of Young Audiences of Virginia.
Cooper served as program director for 18 years, as president twice for a total of six years and is still on the board of directors. She says children need to be educated in the arts to teach them skills that will help them survive in the marketplace.
``TV undoes a child's ability to concentrate, but the arts teaches them coordination, cooperation, repetitive practice, concentration, visualization, imagination and problem solving - all skills needed in today's work force,'' she said. ``Training in the arts makes for success in business.''
As program director of Young Audiences, Cooper used to attend the organization's family festivals in Norfolk's public housing.
Rosenblum said Cooper would sit in the audience with the children, gather them around, encourage them, show them what to see and ask them, ``Are you watching how he's playing the drum? Why don't you go try that?''
She's like the Pied Piper, Rosenblum said. MEMO: If you know someone whom you feel is deserving of a Thumbs Up!
feature, call Kathryn Darling at 446-2286. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON
The Governor's School for the Arts named Minette Cooper the
recipient of the 1996 Award for Artistic Excellence. by CNB