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Book: Cowgirl by Nancy Davidson published by Daylight

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During a trip to Fort Worth, Texas in 2005 to do some research at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, American artist Nancy Davidson (born 1943) attended her first Women’s Professional Rodeo event taking place in a ring next to the museum. She witnessed and captured on video the last bucking bronco ride of female American rodeo champion Jan Youren who was 63-years-old at the time. Davidson couldn’t believe a woman Youren’s age could still participate in one of the most hair-raising and death-defying sports in the world. This experience ignited the artist’s life-long fascination with the iconic American cowgirl who she describes as “the wild child of early feminism” and the “embodiment of a free-spirited woman.” Over the next seven years, her work would incorporate Western themes with a focus on the cowgirl and her celebrated place in American culture.

Cowgirl (Daylight Books, Spring 2015) is a hybrid publication that interweaves historical photographs and artifacts of cowgirls with photographs of Davidson’s larger-than-life inflatable sculptures inspired by her cowgirl research. These bold, colorful works rendered in cowgirl pink, yellow and blue, offer a humorous, absurdist, and playful exploration of the myth and reality of the American cowgirl. A character unique to the American frontier, the cowgirl has captivated the public’s imagination since she burst on the rodeo scene in the 1890s and astonished us with her no-holds-barred spirit of independence, her self-reliance, and her superb ranch and rodeo riding skills that until then were considered the exclusive domain of men.

Cowgirl includes photographs of “Dustup,” Davidson’s monumental work that is a 21-foot-tall inflatable installation inspired by the classic comic dustball images. “Dustup” depicts an epic battle between three cowgirls who are lashed together and tossed up in the air with legs and bulbous forms everywhere, boots kicking and leather trailing. The word “dustup” is a phrase that originated in the American West and was first used in 1879.

BOOK
Cowgirl
Photographs by Nancy Davidson
Publisher: Daylight
Hardcover; 7.25 X 10 IN.     
116 Pgs, Illustrated throughout                                                             
ISBN: 9780989798198                     
$50.00 US

www.daylightbooks.org

http://www.nancydavidson.com

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