The Cooley Gallery

I'll admit it: I don't really care about football. Now that we have that out of the way, I suppose I should also admit that until recently, I had no idea who Chris Cooley was. My sister mentioned that he was friends with her neighbor, but I remembered him being a hockey player for the Caps, not a football player for the Redskins.

However, when I heard about The Cooley Gallery opening in downtown Leesburg, I was intrigued. I don't know of many football players who open art galleries, so I did a little research. According to the gallery's website, Cooley was an art major in college, and recently built a large pottery studio in his Leesburg home where he can work on his art while not busy playing football at the national level.

I loved the idea of this gallery, so this week I finally had a chance to stop by. I must say, I wasn't disappointed.

First of all, the gallery is larger than it looks outside. It not only features a fair amount of Cooley's own pottery, but pottery from other local artists as well. But the gallery doesn't even stop with pottery. There's hand-made jewelry, football memorabilia, as well as photographs and paintings adorning the walls. In all, there are about a half dozen artists currently being featured.

As I can't claim to have a space in my monthly budget devoted to art, I was just visiting the gallery strictly to browse. While there were several pieces that were way beyond my price range (a $7,000 painting sticks out in my mind), there were certainly some affordable options, including items under $50.

As for Cooley's actual pottery, I'll admit that I was curious to see if it was any good. While it's all very nice, Cooley's pottery is something you're going to buy if you want people to know it's a Chris Cooley piece: most of his pottery has his signature and number 47 in a highly visible place. But hey: if I were going to buy pottery from an awesome art major cum football player, I'd want people to know it too.