The story of Angelicow
Posted: February 5, 2009
Filed under: Info
Tagged: Angelicow, CowParade, life-size cow, public art
During a recent assignment designing cows for a Hong Kong ‘Year of the Ox’ event, I had flashbacks to my CowParade days and thought I’d reminisce a little. It was sometime in 2000 when I heard about a public art project involving life-sized cows. I decided to enter and when asked to submit a sketch of my design showing how I would decorate a cow, I decided to sculpt this little model instead which I thought would more accurately display the sculptural elements I intended to apply to cow.
The shapes consisted of elements from my sketchbooks. These are shapes I constantly draw because they are aesthetically pleasing to me. Without being conscious of what I am making, I often draw stars- some with round edges which turn into clover-like shapes, and circles that extend into ovals. The layering of these shapes that move in opposing directions make the surface active. The wings are also made of insulation foam. I glued several layers of it together to achieve the width and carved the wing shape. I repeated the sanding and joint compound process and hollowed out a tunnel inside each wing for a wooden dowel to slide into. The dowel served as an armature that extended down deep into the opposing leg through holes I had drilled on each side of the cow.
I painted the shapes with Acrylic paint and added rhinestones and glitter. I named her “Cold Cut”. I thought it was humorous in its contradiction. Here was this cow elevated to an angelic status, bejeweled and decorated in bright, happy colors but the name drew the focus back to a potentially sad fate. My sponsor found the name “Angelicow” to be more appropriate… and so she was called.
Angelicow spent part of the summer in West Orange and was then transferred to Newark Airport. She stood in the Continental Airlines Terminal beckoning passersby to the charity auction. She was made into miniature figurines, magnets, lamps, jewelry boxes and just about anything else you can think of. She caught the eye of Ringo Starr who bought her at the auction. I was able to meet him so I made a little sculpture of Ringo, bought one of the Angelicow replica figurines to put in the scene and presented Ringo with a print of the 3D illustration. It was such a wonderful experience that has led to so many other incredible opportunities that I am very grateful for! Moo.
| « « Next | | | Previous » » |
Recent News
Comments
4 Responses to “The story of Angelicow”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying about this post...[…] celebrate the Year of the Ox. My cow is called “Cowbella” and she’s a cousin of Angelicow who I made back in 2000. Today was the first day of the open studio in the Flushing Mall in Queens […]
[…] was such a pleasure to meet them and to share in their enthusiasm. I was happy to hear they had an Angelicow figurine. They were excited about Cowbella so perhaps she’ll make her way into their […]
[…] flush on the cow, and I added more gems. I had another visit from Ginger! She was excited to see my Angelicow lamp… I was too actually. That was the first time I had ever seen one in person. There was a […]
[…] broach they had bought for me. Can you guess which cow it was? That’s right, cow fans… Angelicow! And they bought it without realizing that I had made it! That really blew me away. It was another […]