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Donna Howell Sickles - Saint Jo, TX
My fascination with the cowgirl image began in my last year of college. I received an old postcard from a friend in a typical art student trade. He brought over a large box of stuff including some of his own pottery. Near the bottom of the box were several old postcards, one of a cowgirl c. 1935 seated on a horse captioned Greetings from a Real Cowgirl from the Ole Southwest. The image spoke to me and I had no idea why. Although I had grown up on a farming ranching operation in Texas we never really thought of ourselves as Western. I surrendered to the attraction and as I used the Cowgirl in my art and I slowly filled in the blanks about my fascination with the imagery. The first attractive element was her completeness, the second was her drama. Although I had not felt myself to be western I had, as a child along with the rest of Americas children in the 50's, pretended to be that western hero racing across the plains on some inspired mission. Those childhood memories left the Cowgirl image feeling both real and invented and that hint of reality layering appealed to me. My early Cowgirl was a generalized western persona that I never thought of as a specific woman. As I worked with the image I became curious about the origin of the imagery. Were there real women behind the Cowgirl image? To my surprise yes there were. This discovery of Cowgirls with names and stories brought more detail into my work. And with the detail came faces to better portray the joy I saw in the relationships of the Cowgirl to her life and companions. The third big change began when I realized the myths I had always read could be retold through the Cowgirl. This infusion of meaning into the art work is what, after all this time keeps me passionate about telling bits of stories through the Cowgirl. You do not have to know my sub-text to appreciate the work. The symbolism simply adds more layers to the female affirmation in each canvas. |