POULTRY PICASSO
George the rooster and his barnyard mates make footprint art,
He’s not the first abstract artist to go by one name and when it comes to accepting a challenge, “George’’ is no chicken.
In fact, he’s a handsome Dark Brahma rooster and one of a number of farm animals who “painted” a huge canvas, spread out on the grounds of a King City farm, on Thursday.
The idea was to create a “unique piece of artwork painted solely by animals’’ which will be photographed and turned into the official poster for the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.
“Ninety years is a major milestone,’’ said Sandra Banks, CEO of the fair, which started in 1922 and is now the largest annual indoor agricultural and international equestrian competition in the world. “It’s all because of the animals, and we wanted the animals to be the artists this year.’’
Normally, the organizers of the fair, which runs Nov. 2 to 11 at Exhibition Place, would commission an artist to create the annual promotional poster.
But this year, they decided to use the artistic talents of George, two horses, two cows, a ram, a hen, a duck and a goose to create a unique piece of abstract artwork made up of animal tracks.
Using multiple colours of non-toxic, watersoluble acrylic paints, the animal handlers gently dabbed feet and hooves with paint and sent the animals one at a time to plod, trot or waddle over the 8-by-3.6-metre canvas. A few thin foam pads covered with more wet paint were placed strategically on the canvas, adding a little paint to the feet of any creature that happened to step on them while passing over.
The cow, hen, duck and goose each made tracks quickly and left for greener pastures.
Two polo ponies — a brown chestnut mare named Evita and a grey gelding named Chicharon, both from Bancroft Farm in Kettleby, and Frodo, a Polled Dorset ram from the host of the event, Kingfield Farms, all made a number of leisurely passes around the canvas, little fazed by the attention.
But the true “artiste’’ was George the rooster, who was truly cock of the walk, calmly strutting around the canvas, red jowls jiggling, eyeing the observers and leaving bright blue tracks in his wake.
“He hasn’t had this much attention in a long time,’’ Kingfield farmer and owner Charles Burns said with a smile. Apparently, George was dumped on the road outside the farm about a year ago and Burns took him in. “I’m going to try to get a couple of hens for him.’’
What did he think when the Royal’s organizers approached him about hosting an art show with animal artists, most of them from his farm?
“I thought it was insane,’’ said Burns. But he’s a big supporter of the Royal — his family has been showing animals there since 1947 — and he agreed to do it.
In the end, he says he’s glad he did. And he’s relieved that, luckily, there were no, er, major accidents (of a non-paint variety) on the canvas.