Here Lies Doom Cow
For all intensive purposes Doom Cow was a practice piece. I knew I wanted to work with mixed media I just didn't know how it was all going to fit together. I recently gave up eating red meat for reasons of growth hormones and food additives discussed so I thought it was fitting to start with a cow. There are also familial connections to cattle and sustenance on my father's side of the family. We have some weird backwoods connection, think cousins marrying cousins, to the Monfort family which started one of the largest meat packing plants in Colorado. My paternal grandfather also raised a family of 11 working at a local diary. My grandma fondly remembers ice chests full of ice cream and milk. My father remembers dinners of spam and canned pineapple but I think that is a different story.
I chose to work on cardboard for it's texture. After applying the gesso to the cardboard I poured blue paint onto the wet gesso to achieve the background you see. I used an ink transfer of a calf lying down using wintergreen oil and then drew some clouds in charcoal above it. I also ended up stitching twine throughout the bottom half of the piece. At first the twine was meant to represent the landscape but I felt that it ended up being too predictable and stitched in some more twine towards the bottom. My intent with this piece was to show the warped or skewed view of our food. I wanted to incorporate an approachable looking calf to symbolize how far removed from our food we are. When I think of steak I don't make the connection to a cute little cow.
Of the two pieces I think this one is the most successful. My husband took one look at it and asked me if that poor calf knew what was coming for him. He interpreted it as impeding doom for this poor cow and thus the name Doom Cow was born.
I chose to work on cardboard for it's texture. After applying the gesso to the cardboard I poured blue paint onto the wet gesso to achieve the background you see. I used an ink transfer of a calf lying down using wintergreen oil and then drew some clouds in charcoal above it. I also ended up stitching twine throughout the bottom half of the piece. At first the twine was meant to represent the landscape but I felt that it ended up being too predictable and stitched in some more twine towards the bottom. My intent with this piece was to show the warped or skewed view of our food. I wanted to incorporate an approachable looking calf to symbolize how far removed from our food we are. When I think of steak I don't make the connection to a cute little cow.
Of the two pieces I think this one is the most successful. My husband took one look at it and asked me if that poor calf knew what was coming for him. He interpreted it as impeding doom for this poor cow and thus the name Doom Cow was born.