Artist Statement

I am often asked: Why cows? The cow is the symbol for America’s landscape; our resources, history and our cultural beliefs. During the years while out of school I began to work on farms taking care of livestock; I wanted to know firsthand what kind of effort was needed to grow and raise the food I eat. The farmers I met during this exploration are incredibly community minded, trading resources and labor with one another, and taking the utmost care to be good stewards of the land. It is this sense of connection, or rather disconnect from it that has become the focus of my art. In the United States people have favored urban migration over the agrarian lifestyle, in doing so we have forfeited responsibility to care for our resources, handing that “burden” over to factory farming. The disappearing family farm model not only provides an income, but it is a homestead, and the health of that environment is just as important to the rancher or farmer as it is to the livestock living there. Cows have symbolized the prosperity and domestication of our land. Nowadays images of the American pasture have been abstracted, repurposed for product consumption. We are sold a belief that by proxy we still have agency to make a difference in how our food is handled, just by spending a few bucks more you can feel good knowing your beef was grass fed. It has become so easy to be complicit, to claim ignorance over our impact and depletion of resources. Through my art I am looking to reestablish the connection between value and stewardship, so that we can as a country sustain economic and community health.