Chi-COW-go, Chi-COW-go, that CUDlin’ town

"Diamonds Are a Cow's Best Friend"

(photos ©1999, C.J. Peiffer)

Until the summer of 1999, when I ruminated on Chicago I thought of wind, frigid temperatures, and Lake Michigan. Now, I think of cows.

I knew Chicago had acquired a few COWnnections throughout its history. A cow allegedly caused the 1871 Chicago fire. The Chicago Bulls had scored big in the city. Stockyards were once a ‘mooving’ force in the area’s economy. But that summer, there was a new perspective on beef in Chicago.

I was in moo heaven when I visited the Windy City. There was a cow on nearly every street corner, grazing in each park, guarding each museum entrance. These were no ordinary cows. Over 300 simple cow sculptures had been transformed into works of art. They were bedecked, bejeweled, and somewhat bewildering to those who hadn’t ‘herd’ about Cows on Parade™.

The concept began in Zurich in 1998 where 800 fiberglass cows were credited with increasing tourism by nearly a million visitors. After seeing the Swiss cows, Peter Hanig of Chicago’s Hanig Footwear approached Chicago’s cultural commissioner with the idea of creating a similar display.

With the help of the Swiss government, the city imported over 300 sculptures. Ironically, many of the unpainted cows arrived in Chicago on April 1. Although their arrival had nothing to do with April Fools Day, it seemed a curious COWincidence.

Cows were purchased by companies or individuals who contracted artists to complete the works. The city purchased a number to be painted by artists who had submitted design proposals. Some were set aside for student artists.

I’m not sure why we find cows so COWmical, but they seem to instigate a COWllective silliness. The exhibit opened in mid-June 1999 with a celebration that included an a cappella group of lawyers in cow suits. (That must have been 'a line of bull.')

The promotion was expected to infuse $300,000 into the creative community and milk the talents of local artists. The city hoped the event would attract a stampede of visitors and between 100 and 200 million tourist dollars.

I admit I was skeptical. How many, I wondered, would make a trip to Chicago to see these whimsical bovines?

On Saturday afternoon, as I strolled the mile of Michigan Avenue from the Water Tower to the Art Institute, the streets were crowded with a herd of bovine admirers. I had difficulty taking photographs without cow lovers appearing in my view finder. These were not shoppers who happened to stop to appreciate the art work. They were there ---cameras in hand ---to see the cows.

Cows were greeted enthusiastically. Visitors talked to them and posed with them. They couldn’t help but smile at these humorous art works. Children climbed, petted and hugged them.

Heidi Kooi of the Chicago Office of Tourism told me very few of the sculptures had been vandalized. Most damage came from fans loving them too much. Several ‘substitute’ cows filled in for those that had to be removed for repairs.

And the sculptures were udderly fantastic. The exhibit shows that art doesn’t have to be serious. It can be fun as well as creative. Some cows displayed bright abstract designs. Many wore painted flowers, animals, or clouds. Some had been COWmouflaged in astroturf, mirrors, mosaic tiles, or gumdrops.

You may have guessed that my personal favorites were the ones that resulted from a mass outbreak of cow puns. They were titled “Herd Instinct,” “Moovies,” “The Milky Way,” “Moollennium,” “Cowch Potato,” “On the Moooove,” “Cow Sweet It Is!” and “Dairy-Go-Round.”

“Udder Romance” was a red and white cow dressed in heart-printed shorts and bunny slippers. “Stampede” had been covered in postage stamps. “Chi-COW-go” featured the city’s skyline on its flanks. “Moooonwalk” wore a space suit. Among my favorites was “InCOWgnito,” a cow wearing a mask and disguised in zebra stripes. The “Out of Cowtowner” sported sunglasses, Hawaiian shirt, camera, and backpack.

“Black and White and Read All Over” had been sponsored by the Chicago Tribune. “Holy Cow”, a tribute to the late Harry Caray, sat in front of the WGN radio station. Grazing near the Wrigley Building, “Double Moo” had been assembled from the front ends of two cows and painted in shades of Doublemint green. The Illinois Lottery sponsored “Lucky,” a cow covered in numbers.

Homages to famous artists were plentiful. “Moonet” had been decorated with waterlilies. “Guernsica” had been cut apart and reassembled into a cubist work. “Jazz Chicago! Merci Henri” displayed Matisse-inspired motifs. “Odalisque (Reclining Nude)” had been mounted up-side-down. “DaVinci Cow” floated in the O’Hare terminal on wings designed for Leonardo’s flying machine.

Even though recent theories discount the culpability of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, “Don’t Blame Daisy” and “Summer Heat” obviously referred to Chicago’s hottest event. “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” included a leaver that could be pushed downward for a ‘hot time’ triggering a hind leg to tip a stool and lantern.

In my opinion, the cream of the crop was “Diamonds Are a Cow’s Best Friend.” That flirtatious bovine wore a pink strapless evening gown, high heels, long gloves, ‘diamond’ jewelry and a seductive blonde curl on her forehead. Marilyn would have been charmed by her look-alike.

An unexpected consequence of the exhibit was that the horses from the city’s horse-and-carriage companies were not merely cowed by the colorful sculptures, they were downright terrified. Out of concern for public safety, horses were placed in a ring with a cow sculpture until they were comfortable with it. Chicago thus conducted the world’s first known sessions of cow therapy.

Cows on Parade™ ran through October 31, 1999 when the life-size painted and sculpted bovines were corralled for a cattle auction to benefit charities.

You can view more cow sculptures on another of my posts or via the Internet (see links below). Once you see the photos of the cows, you’ll be ruminating on Chicago’s bovine roots and thinking in cow puns, too.

(©1999, C.J. Peiffer)

Find more of my Cow Parade™ photos on a later post by clicking HERE.

Cows on Parade™, Chicago
More photos of the cows can be found at: http://www.chicagotraveler.com/cows_on_parade.htm

COW POETRY

"meMOOries"

mixed media (acrylic painting with photographs on stretched canvas)

(©2001 C.J.Peiffer)

LIFE BEGINS

(©1995 C.J. Peiffer)

                            The new-born calf,
                                 his damp black and white hairs plastered to his hide,
                                 huge brown eyes bewildered in his new-found world,
                                 rests, legs bent under him in the moist straw.
                            He raises his tiny head, is half up on one thin wobbly leg.
                            Unsteady, he falls, slumping to his straw bed, exhausted.
                            Another try and he is up, all trembling legs, scared eyes,
                                 and quivering ears.
                            The cow licks him with her large, rough tongue
                                 and nuzzles him under her belly toward her warm milk
                                 to fill his uncertain emptiness.

THE BOVINE COMEDY

"Jersey" (colored pencil drawing)

          Many people ask how a city dweller ever became interested in cows. I was never quite sure why my life took that turn, but I had a few clues.

          In the 1950’s my family spent a week on a dairy farm. Within thirty minutes of our arrival, I tramped into a fresh cow pie, ruining new sneakers, but after we helped with the milking for an entire week, I had gained respect for the dairy-farming family and the cows they nurtured.
          Before the end of the week, two newborn calves were named after my sister and me. For years, I thought that was the birth of my interest in bovines, although my curiosity was augmented by a two year stint as a teacher in a cattle region in northeastern Brazil. Years later, I read that cows were popular among city folk because we experience a collective guilt for the loss of our agrarian pasts.
          My overt passion for cows came after I purchased a cow item for my home. When friends asked why, I mentioned that I thought cows were rather enigmatic. They were large animals, yet not aggressive predators, they seemed to be thinking about something important while in a state of semiconsciousness. As an artist, I liked the graphic quality of Holsteins, but admitted to a particular fondness for doe-eyed Jerseys.
          With the help of friends and family, soon I was overwhelmed with over 1000 cow items grazing in my home. After moving from the city to a semi-rural area, I passed herds of cattle in every direction within a mile of my home. I was in cow heaven.

"MOOlah" (mixed media, ink, colored pencils, with digital enhancement)

          Soon I was creating cow art ---what I call visual puns. One of my first cow drawings was “MOOlah” a cow created by hand drawing dollar bills, using a magnifying glass to see the details on a real dollar.

"Stampede" (collage made entirely
from postage stamps with
 cow or dairy-related images)

          I created "Jersey," "Stampede," “A Line of Bull,” “COWllage,” “Beautiful Creamer,” “It’s Only a Paper MOO,” “emBOSSIE,” and “Blue MOO"---a total of fifty pieces for a solo exhibit entitled “The Bovine Comedy.” My cow work has been been purchased by Quanta Press in MN, as well as by individual collectors, and has been featured at a national cow-art show in NY State as well as local and regional exhibits.

          I kept asking myself why, if there were magazines like Cat Fancy, no one had published something for cow lovers. Finally I decided to do it myself. In the Fall of 1989, with only six subscribers, I published the first issue of the MOOsletter, the cow lovers’ quarterly ---featuring ‘all the MOOs that’s fit to print!’

          Up to that point, I knew little about cows. On a local dairy tour, a local farmer told me that I stuck out like a ‘rookie.’ “Why?” I asked. It was because I was taking photographs of the cows’ faces, while the real farmers were inspecting the ‘business end’ of the cows.
          I filled the MOOsletter with a mix of serious and humorous articles, making use of every imaginable cow pun. After a year of publication, I was rather knowledgeable about cows ---I could identify dozens of breeds, had learned terms like freshen, fodder, AI, and BGH, and could name the first cow to ever fly in an airplane.
          Over the years, the MOOsletter explored rotation grazing, alternative bedding materials, cow flatulence, miniature Herefords, dairy recipes, “sacred” cows in India, hoof trimmers, free-stall barns, farm museums, bovine diseases, and cattle auctions. We discussed cow postcards, cream separators, milk bottle collecting, cow creamers, cheese labels, and cow cookie jars and published several editions of a Cow-Buying Guide for collectors. We featured COWntests, bovine poetry, and cow fiction. Humorist Dave Barry granted permission to reprint two of his articles and we reproduced an excerpt from Mark Twain’s story in which Eve (of Biblical fame) discovers how milk gets into a cow.
          Best of all, I met ---either in person or through the mail ---hundreds of cow lovers like myself. At one time we had amassed over 500 subscribers in fifty states and a dozen foreign countries. Among subscribers were the Johnsons, long-time NY dairy farmers and Michele and Ed, also from NY, who argued good-naturedly over shelf space to display their cow-creamer and milk-bottle collections. Ruth in MN grew up winning ribbons with her 4-H calves and later claimed to have the world’s largest collection of cow paraphernalia, although Mrs. Moo from AZ, followed close behind. Mrs. Moo’s entire home was decorated in white with black spots and she wore cow clothing everywhere ---even to church. Nancy in MD wrote us often about her pet steer named Baby and a CA woman photographed her cow Pumpkin in wigs, hats, and costumes. An elderly PA woman contributed cow poetry. An IL man kept us up-to-date on Elsie collectibles. Fred from HI admitted the only cow item he had ever owned was a bottle of Elmer’s Glue, yet he sent us hundreds of news items about cows. Our ‘celebrity’ subscribers were Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s and Woody Jackson who designed Ben and Jerry’s cow labels. Eventually we started an organization called C.O.W. ---Cow Observers Worldwide and held a COWnference.
          Throughout the ten years I published the MOOsletter, I was interviewed by reporters from the Pittsburgh Press, the Dallas Morning News, CBS radio in NY City, National Public Radio, radio stations in Japan and Australia. Articles turned up in Stars and Stripes, newspapers from all over the U.S., as well as publications in Japan, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the Gulf News in the United Arab Emirates.
          In 1999, after 40 issues, it was time to MOOve on to other things. The MOOsletter had been a labor of love, but was a great deal of work for someone teaching full-time and running a small art-related business and needing to spend more time with an elderly parent. A Boston subscriber offered to take over publication, but after one issue, he gave up the job as well.
          About eight years ago, my interest in digital art had led me down a different artistic path, as well. And when my elderly mother began going downhill, I had to give up on cows for a while.

          On a Thanksgiving weekend several years after I started collecting cow paraphernalia, my mother pulled out old 8 mm home movies. Between the silent images of family reunions, picnics, and vacations, I saw my two-year-old self flickering on the screen. I was being held on the back of a docile cow by my mother and a farmer. Finally I had discovered the real root of my bovimania. The incident must have left a warm, repressed memory that set me on the path that led to my fifteen minutes of notoriety as a cow artist and the founder and editor of the MOOsletter.

(art and text ©C.J.Peiffer)

"AmeriCOW Graffiti" acrylic on stretched canvas

"Cow Pie" watercolor, colored pencils and photographs

"meMOOries" acrylic and photographs on stretched canvas