A British poet has just done this with sheep, funded by Northern Arts.
Would you believe that the results are called Haik-ewe!
Roger
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Blankenship" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 9:49 PM
Subject: Mooving poetry - not a poem
Poets found in pastureJim Fitzgerald
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published 12/3/2002
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PURCHASE - Any artist can paint a cow, but Nathan Banks uses
bovines as his canvas.
Mr. Banks, 22, a student at Purchase College, painted single words
(from "a" to "existential") on the flanks of about 60 cows near his upstate
New York home, then let them wander around to see if they could
compose poetry.
Holsteins and Jerseys with names like Elsie and Maggie came up with
phrases including "eccentric art," "performance as cow environment" and
Mr. Banks' favorite, "organic conceptual art as poetry."
One animal seemed especially inspired. With "away" written on her
side, she broke loose from the herd for a while.
The "Cow Project," with videotape and photos of the bovine bards, goes
on display at the college Thursday.
"The idea is that the artist sets up the situation and then it carries
through on its own," Mr. Banks said in an interview last week.
The entire three-day episode in mid-September was documented by
Mr. Banks and a couple of dozen other students.
"It was peculiar," said Gerry Ruestow, who let Mr. Banks use so-called
tail paint, a harmless substance that eventually flakes off, on his dairy
herd in Sidney Center. "Those art people tend to do things that are a little
bit outside the box."
Mr. Banks said the project cost him about $1,000 and he had to
overcome a few obstacles. A half-dozen dairy farmers rejected the idea
before Mr. Ruestow and his wife, Susan, agreed to let him use their Farm.
"There was a big concern that the cows would be stressed and give
less milk," Mr. Banks said. Mr. Ruestow said milk production instead
increased slightly, "probably because the cows were a bit more active.
The cows were as interested in the observers as the observers were in
the cows."
Copyright © 2002 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Nov Sharon Svendsen at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html Writer's
Hood at http://www.writershood.com/ Poets for Peace. ˇPoemas sí, balas no!
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