DECORATE A COW!
If it's a real cow, don't paint it. Use a fake cow instead!
This year Hall for Cornwall is producing Jack’s Cows – an exciting public art project that will see herds of individually decorated, life-size cow sculptures appearing on the streets of Truro, Falmouth, at the Eden Project and at various other locations around Cornwall.
Each cow will be sponsored – either by a local business, community group or individual – and they are looking for Cornwall-based artists who are up for a challenge to get involved and work with their sponsors to decorate their cows!
As the artist it would be down to you to come up with an interesting, attractive, creative design. Your sponsor may have some of their own ideas, so you’ll need to work with them to decide exactly how your sculpture will be decorated and give it a name. The sculptures can be painted, mosaics can be applied, you can even change the basic shape of the cow if you’re experienced at working with fibreglass, there’s really no limit to what you can do!
The cows will begin appearing in public in June 2009 and will remain in situ until the end of August, when they will be collected in and displayed at Hall for Cornwall in a two day ‘Goodbye to the Cows’ event. In September, all the sculptures will be auctioned off to raise money for Hall for Cornwall’s ongoing ‘Loved to Bits’ campaign.
There’s no upfront payment for decorating the cows and you would need to cover the costs of materials etc yourself (or ask your sponsor to help out!) however, at the end of the project when the cows are auctioned off you will receive 20% of the auction price of your cow. Similar projects in other areas of the UK have seen sculptures fetching an average price of £3,000, earning artists around £600 each. Of course they can’t guarantee how much Jack’s Cows will fetch at auction, but you are guaranteed a minimum payment of £250 regardless of whether your sculpture is sold.
In addition, your name will appear on the base of your sculpture and you will receive publicity on the Jack’s Cows website and on any maps, posters and books produced in connection with the project. If you have a website, they can place a hyperlink to it on the project website along with your details.
If you’d like to be involved in Jack’s Cows or just find out more about the project, please email Hannah Beech at: hannahb@hallforcornwall.org.uk
Artists will need to submit an image of their work (no bigger than 5mb) and a short biography (no more than 250 words) to Hannah, along with their contact details.
