I took this photograph several years ago and it remains one of my favorites. I love about it, that is is cows. If you know me, you know, that I love cows and desire to have them around me every minute. These cows, though, are fashioned after old toys. Antiques. I love the cracked finish and the little platforms with wheels. I like the simplicity of these cows and I am drawn to these sorts of objects and images often. If you know me, you also know that I am drawn to repetition and patterns. I found this in one of my favorite places to go to shop, if I must shop. It is called "The Depot" and there is only one place like it. Part winery, part grocery, part home decor, part just really cool looking stuff. They have seasonal things and a wall of antique clocks. It is a great place to go when the weather is bad, or I'm feeling adrift, or I need to find a unique gift for someone I care about. It happens that I bought one of my favorite pots there. It is a Paula Deen steaming pot and I still love it, even though it isn't cool to like her any more.
The cracked finish on these cows has always reminded me of maps. Maps to where, I do not know. But certainly maps to somewhere. I have always loved maps, as they take you away and also bring you home. Where family fails to give you an anchoring place, maps succeed. One of my favorite books of all time is the United States Atlas. State by state, county by county, this glorious book can take you anywhere if you just start driving.
It's difficult to resolve a need for roots, and cows and dogs and horses and fences and fireplaces against a need to break out the atlas and travel, on a full time basis, forever. Every minute, feelings change. This image, simple as it is, has always spoken to me in a way others have not. As life goes on, so to speak, and things change, priorities change, still, this image speaks to me. The simplicity is important; life certainly is not simple. I grieve the loss of people through death; I grieve loss through misunderstanding and conflict. I feel sad about the loss of mentors in my life who have deemed my work, "contrived" yet taken on other students with great joy and praised very similar work. I've returned to old work (my beginnings) and appreciate it on my own. This photograph is one I found, that I love in a hundred ways.
There is something else, what I love about cows: they are sweet, and honest. Sometimes they are really assholes, they do stupid things. And we have to round them up and herd them and so on. But basically cows are made of love and instinct. Once you understand that, you can communicate. When I was a kid, we had a white cow on the farm. My Grandpa would let me sit on her back during milking, with a piece of binder twine around her neck as my 'bridle". She was my "horse" before I had one. Poor old girl never even had a name, except "the old white cow". I loved her with a depth and innocence only a four year old can muster. I suppose this photo makes me think of her, too.
Cheers.
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