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Grab Your Pardner2007 Oil on linen 49.0" x 84.0" “Grab Your Pardner” is a tip of the hat to the Western mystique that permeated my childhood, even if I didn’t ride horses or wear cowboy boots. I’m a Western Gal, by golly! A native Texan, I grew up playing Cowboys and Indians. This painting is about the Cowboys. In my neighborhood, you either liked Roy Rogers (Not me!) or Gene Autry (Yee Ha!). I grew up in town, and my relatives were cotton, corn and alfalfa farmers. My grandmother and my Uncle Buddy did have a Shetland pony named Chigger, but he was a biter, and I steered clear of him. About as close as I ever got to real cowboys was my cousin, Joy Nell, who rode in the barrel races in rodeos, and the musical “Annie Oakley”. I loved Betty Hutton in that movie. I saw it 8 times! So I knew girls could be “cowboys”, too. And I had dolls, figurines, and paper dolls to prove it. Setting up this still-life, I was thinking of pairs and “pardners”, as in “How ya doin’, pardner?”. I’ve had the ceramic cowboy and cowgirl, and the “storybook doll” pair, since I was a kid. There’s a pair of cowboys on horses, two cowboys with lassos, a pair of cap pistols (remember that smell?), a pair of storybook dolls, and a pair of paper dolls. There are even pairs of horses. And those two cowboys on horseback in the background? Wait! They’re both guys. In fact, there are several male pairs! Well, why not? |