Check Out A. R. Cooper’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to A. R. Cooper.

Hi A. R. , we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Art in the Paint was founded in 2020 after I returned from doing coaches clinics and coaching in Europe, South America and Africa. I felt the indignity of art being weaponized against people at sights like Stone Mountain and decided to use art and culture to be instruments of positive change in my neighborhood. So we painted a basketball court…. Then we realized that our community had way more problems and we had to figure out which ones we could solve for. We landed on transforming the PEOPLE,PLACES & POLICIES in neighborhoods that have safety and financial challenges. We felt like our programs could improve the quality of life for some citizens and hopefully make Atlanta a better place.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest obstacles we’ve faced have been due to mirroring who we serve. Being black and brown and not having status or powerful board members or mentors made us vulnerable. We have had very little foundational support in our efforts and within our neighborhoods we’ve even faced safety issues like being threatened, robbed and shot at. This made us really focus on safety and economic development more.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We’re most known for transforming public spaces into beautiful culturally rich safe spaces. I’m most proud of the ways we have created a new sense of pride in the communities we’ve left our mark on. Currently we’re coming out with a fin/ed tech product that will promote nonviolence, educate on financial literacy and gamify good in an effort to give young people better opportunities in life.

How do you define success?
We define success several ways but the biggest way would probably be by how many people we can inspire to live a healthy, peaceful and prosperous life.