Cooper.

Framed, this portrait gains as a piece: the frame picks up the blue-grey of the background and lets the flowers on the shirt do all the talking. I created it still and facing forward, with the wide black nose and large ears well centered: it doesn't need anything more. In his story, Cooper rotates through four or five Hawaiian shirts, all secondhand, and his favorite is green with yellow cockatoos. He wears them to do the radio at dawn, in the dark, when nobody's watching.

In his story, Cooper does the breakfast show at his town's community station, six to nine, for free, just because he loves it. He puts on the good shirt even though radio has no camera, and gives the valley its good mornings in a voice that sounds like everything's going to be fine. Hung on the wall, this koala brings home that mix of his — cheer and calm. If you like him, there's more about him in his biography; and if you'd rather have him without a frame, the same portrait is available as a print.