(formerly Dime Novel 1907)
12 x 16 O/C
Debbie.lee Miszaniec
Last week I talked about my reasons for revisiting a painting, so I won’t go into that much here. What I will talk about, are the changes I made to this one, and why.
Amoung the many funny things I could be entertained by in this antique image of the west, one of the things that kept happening as I looked at it, was my increasing identification with the contested object of the narrative. The bull is trussed up and appears to be at risk of being re-branded by cattle rustlers. Our hero and heroine have happened upon this scene and have rushed in to defend the bull from the cattle rustlers. But they are not defending the bull, they are defending property.
It appears that when the image was made the bull clearly resided in the realm of objects which are owned, and can be stolen. Stella (who in marriage would have been classified as chattel herself) stands on the bull like a piece of furniture. Today, the bull is both an object to be owned and a being which needs to be humanely cared for. Though the bull is the centre of attention, no one bothers to ask whom he prefers to go home with. So I decided to give him a voice.