Cow Poetry

Any artist can paint cows. Ron paints ON cows.

Ron, the founder of the Ronatarian Party and its perpetual presidential candidate, painted single words (from "a" to "existential") on the flanks of about 60 cows near his Northern New Jersey home, then let them wander around to see if they could compose poetry.

So Holsteins, Jerseys, and Guernseys named Elsie, Lukey, and Maggie came up with phrases like "eccentric art," "performance as cow environment," "organic conceptual art as poetry," and Ron's own favorite "I throw swill on positive feedback systems."

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 in Newark (NJ) on Thursday.

"The idea is that the artist sets up the situation and then it carries through on its own," Ron said in an interview last week at his tiny student's studio -- aka his garage.

The entire three-day episode was documented by Ron's running mate Brad and a couple of dozen other Ronatarian Party members, who were bused to the region from places unknown.

"It was peculiar," said Gary Ruestow, who let Ron use so-called "tail paint" -- a harmless substance that eventually flakes off -- on his dairy herd in the Seeler Center. "Those Ronatarians tend to do things that are a little bit outside the box. We did get some people who wandered by to see what the crazies up the road were doing."

Ron said the project cost him about $1,000 and he had to overcome a few obstacles. Half a dozen dairy farmers turned him down before Ruestow and his wife Susan, Ron's old music teacher, agreed to let him use their farm.

"There was a big concern that the cows would be stressed and give less milk," Ron said. Gary Ruestow said milk production actually went up a bit, "probably because the cows were a bit more active. The cows were as interested in the observers as the observers were in the cows."

Working around the milking schedule, Ron painted the words in foot-tall blue and orange letters while the cows were in their stalls. He wanted to put a word on each side of every cow, but some of the animals were skittish about it and ended up with just one word.

"They're used to being milked from the same side all the time and they didn't like being approached on the other side," Ron said.

Then there were the necessary touchups. Some cows messed up their words when they lay down, or swished their tail, or got a little cow pie on them.

"I'd repaint, right over the manure," Ron said.

He said he got the idea for the cow project when he read about Dada artists dropping cut-up newspapers on the floor to see what poetry was formed.

He picked most of the words with his eyes closed, taking whatever word was closest when he put a finger down on a page of an engineering textbook. He added a few, like the name of the farm, Brad, and cheese.

Now Brad is editing the videotape and arranging the photographs for the exhibit. The Ronatarian volunteers' notations of the cow poetry are collected in four binders, to be present at the exhibit.

Visitors to the exhibit will be encouraged to make their own cow poetry by taking a tiny cardboard cow, writing a word on it and setting it down on the vibrating board from an old electric football game so it can wander and interact with other cows.

On opening night, there will also be refreshments, in the form of cow-shaped cookies. And milk.

Posted by Ron at December 2, 2002 12:37 AM

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