For week twenty-one, I was the source of the prompt topic for Scribbled Lives. I chose Cow Girls, inspired by the art of Donna Howell-Sickles. I as first introduced to Donna’s work at the Booth Western Museum in Cartersville, GA; it is a Smithsonian Affiliate. The joy and energy Donna includes in her pieces is incredible. For the past seven years I have been participating in Scribbled Lives, and we have never had a prompt like this one. I thought it might be fun to see what people create, and it has been fantastic.
The artist has a great many pieces that include women wearing red bandanas. I was inspired to create a mock bandana with words from a real life Cow Girl, Annie Oakley. She said:
I ain’t not afraid to love a man.
-Annie Oakley 1926
I ain’t afraid to shoot him either.
I am not making a statement about the value of men, more highlighting that Annie Oakley knew that there are multiple sides to life. She knew who she was AND what she was willing to do. It may sound harsh yet in that time, in her place, being a woman in a truly rough and tumbled man’s world, she had to do WHATEVER it took to survive. I have to admire that and the way she built a life around her skills.
Life is complicated. It can be wonderfully fulfilling and wildly overwhelming all at the same time. The thing we love doing can also drive us mad! Being driven to do what ever it is we do, is a gift and a curse – one which we all struggle to balance with the daily items of living life. It means prioritizing and actually doing the things we don’t like to do, because when we put them off they eventually overwhelm and take us down. It means using our time and resources wisely. Sometimes one thing must move down our priority list in order to make room for something else.
So we manage our world, our relationships and our expertise. Annie was a Shape Shooter who traveled the world to share her adventures and exploits. She actually beat Frank Butler in a shoot off on Thanksgiving day, and later went on to marry him. They never had children yet they were devoted to their nieces and nephews. Together they traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and had adventures, while embracing the life they had chosen together.
Let me encourage you to embrace the madness that is doing what you do. Some days your world may be quiet and calm, other days it is frantic and frazzled. Relationships make us who we are going to become AND they also drive us mad. Today give thanks for your expertise, your passions and the people who love you.
Ann Art Gallery Blog 