The Patriotic Cow

I'm going to make this brief tonight, partly because I just wrote a long essay about archetypes and plagiarism on my LiveJournal - twice, and partly because I don't really have much to say about these pictures. Here's the assignment:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Grab Bag! Show off any picture you want, and long as it's really cool. That's right, you make the call -- all I want is to look at it and say "Whoa! What a neat picture."

Well, you know me. When it comes to photos, "cool" and "weird" are pretty much equivalent in my book. The following four photos are both, I think. I've been saving them for the right moment.

I took them on April 30th at Safeway. How many of us, visiting our neighborhood supermarket for the zillionth time, expect to be suddenly confronted by a painted, patriotic cow?


I have to say that I'm not at all sure who the founding father on the fiberglass cow is meant to be. John Adams? Jefferson? Madison? Who was associated with the White House, the U.S. Constitution, and milk?



Usually the large, paintable livestock I see in public places is a pony, particularly in Tucson. I even saw a painted pony at one of the New Mexico hotels where I stayed recently, decorated by a widow in memorial to her husband. But this one is a cow. It's made of fiberglass.

This was a contest semifinalist cow. I suppose that explains a lot. It's one of 30 decorated cows with historical themes, their designs closen from thousands of entries by kids aged 12-18. The regional winner who painted this one, titled "American Dairy Cow," is a high school student, Victor M. Navarro-Sandoval.

The explanation, of course, for the sculpture's essential cow-ness is that it was a Lucerne contest, The Art of Dairy Cows and History Art Contest. I'm still completely perplexed about the theme of the work, though. Is it patriotic to drink milk? Do we have a constitutional right to drink milk? Is the White House the color of milk? Well, yes. But what does it all mean?

All in all, I'd rather see the "Beatle 'Moo' nia" cow. Yes, there really is one.

Karen

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