A midwestern fairy tale
Over a hundred painted, bejeweled, life-size porcelain cow statues -- commissioned by the local chamber of commerce (or something) to recognize the importance of the dairy industry (or something) -- have been deployed all over the streets of Madison. Each has been designed, deconstructed, reconstructed, decorated, and reimagined by a local artist and then given a whimsical name. One, painted yellow with orange circles to resemble Swiss cheese, is called "Holy Cow" (ho ho ho!). Another, near the entrance to our new arts center, is painted in the delicate geometric designs characteristic of Taliesin and called "Frank Loin Wright" (ho ho ho!). And there's more! Town and Cowntry. Pink Flamingcows. Georgia Cow'Keefe. My favorite is Babushka Marushka the Polka Cow, who guards the entrance to my local Walgreen's drugstore in a state of preternatural cow-like readiness.
The cows are everywhere.
They line both sides of State Street along the entire length of my ambulatory commute to work each morning.
They ring the Capitol square in a multicolor shellac bovine parade.
There is even one far out along the bike path skirting Lake Monona, shaped like a kneeling cow topped with ice cream and a gargantual melon-sized cherry on top.
I kind of love them. They're awful, and they're hideously tacky, but I love them.
----
It took me weeks to realize that some of the statues move around. The cows at the bottom of State Street, in the little concrete park where the skinny little emo boys skateboard and smoke menthols, change configurations every few days. A few weeks ago they were standing in a circle, nose to nose with their hindquarters pointing out. This morning, they were milling randomly about the park like any other grazing herd of cattle.
My favorite cow, the first one I noticed moved, is a simple black-and-white Jersey who meanders up and down West Washington, gracing the front lawn of first one dumpy grad student apartment complex and then another. I have never seen the workers who must come at night to pick up and move the statues from place to place. I have never even talked with anyone else who has noticed that the cows are motile.
It all reminds me a little of the old fairy tale about the twelve enchanted girls who are statues by day, but who transform back into princesses when the moon strikes them just right. They dance together every evening, only to be turned back to stone when the sun breaks over the horizon in the morning.
Late into the evenings, when the lamplights shimmer off the darkly glazed eyes of the statues, and I am too tired to think entirely straight, I can't help but imagine that these statues are just moments from springing to enchanted life. Maybe they're all secret cow princesses, and in a moment, when I've rounded the corner and the square is comfortably empty again, they will wake up and dance the wee morning hours away.
It seems like a very midwestern sort of fairy tale.
The cows are everywhere.
They line both sides of State Street along the entire length of my ambulatory commute to work each morning.
They ring the Capitol square in a multicolor shellac bovine parade.
There is even one far out along the bike path skirting Lake Monona, shaped like a kneeling cow topped with ice cream and a gargantual melon-sized cherry on top.
I kind of love them. They're awful, and they're hideously tacky, but I love them.
----
It took me weeks to realize that some of the statues move around. The cows at the bottom of State Street, in the little concrete park where the skinny little emo boys skateboard and smoke menthols, change configurations every few days. A few weeks ago they were standing in a circle, nose to nose with their hindquarters pointing out. This morning, they were milling randomly about the park like any other grazing herd of cattle.
My favorite cow, the first one I noticed moved, is a simple black-and-white Jersey who meanders up and down West Washington, gracing the front lawn of first one dumpy grad student apartment complex and then another. I have never seen the workers who must come at night to pick up and move the statues from place to place. I have never even talked with anyone else who has noticed that the cows are motile.
It all reminds me a little of the old fairy tale about the twelve enchanted girls who are statues by day, but who transform back into princesses when the moon strikes them just right. They dance together every evening, only to be turned back to stone when the sun breaks over the horizon in the morning.
Late into the evenings, when the lamplights shimmer off the darkly glazed eyes of the statues, and I am too tired to think entirely straight, I can't help but imagine that these statues are just moments from springing to enchanted life. Maybe they're all secret cow princesses, and in a moment, when I've rounded the corner and the square is comfortably empty again, they will wake up and dance the wee morning hours away.
It seems like a very midwestern sort of fairy tale.
posted by Peter at 10:22 AM
2 Comments:
My friend Amy always wanted to do a piece of public art called "the suburban diaspora" in which a thousand plastic pink flamingos were planted on the campus quad. Every night she was going to come out and move them a tiny bit further apart, until none of them could talk to each other.
They're doing the same thing in Boston. "Cape Cowd", Patriots and Celtics cows at the Pru, a Magritte cow in Copley Square, etc. At the end of the summer all of the cow sculptures will be auctioned off to benefit the Jimmy Fund.
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