Cooday's Wannabe Nation series is inspired by Charlie Hill's Club Red on the internet,  Romance Cologne by Ralph Lauren, the Raven trickster, and Larry McNeil's art piece Edward Curtis' Last Photograph.

As member of the Eagle/Wolf/Shark Clan of the Tlingit nation, Cooday was adopted by his grandmother Annie Johnson Cooday.  Jesse inherited his Tlingit Name Shoowee kaí from his Uncle Seth Williams at a potlatch in Kake, Alaska when he was ten.                                         

Cooday's art has appeared at the Gallery of the American Indian Community House (New York City), Denver Art Museum , New York Arts Magazine Online Exhibit and The Street Level Gallery (Glasgow Scotland).

His art has been published in Strong Hearts: Native American Visions and Voices, (Aperture Publishing); Mixed Blessings, by Lucy Lippard (Pantheon Books); The Photograph and the American Indian , ( Princeton University Press)