Vermont Bovines Provide Inspiration--and Profits : Painter Raises the Cow to an Art Form

Driving through the Champlain Valley on a warm summer’s day with the windows open, the fresh aroma tells your nose this is the heart of Vermont’s dairy country.

Dairy means cows grazing in pastures. And cows mean art to painter Woody Jackson, whose neighbor’s Holsteins have inspired a serious pop art form that has fast become a lucrative boutique business.

Jackson’s bovines pay homage to the four-hoofed mainstay of the local economy--on T-shirts, bandannas, tote bags, chairs, post cards, aprons, and free-standing wooden cow cutouts sold by his mail-order firm Holy Cow Inc., or through 800 boutiques, galleries, department stores and gift shops.

Jackson, a relaxed and mellow man with a twinkle of whimsy in his eye, first tackled cows as an art subject in 1969 when he was a senior at nearby Middlebury College.

Photos Led to Paintings

Inspired by their black-and-white contrasts and shapes in various positions and groupings, he began by toting his camera to the pastures. The photos led to paintings, which led to his graphic cross between painting and print-making.

“There is something about the richness in the contrast of the black and white, and how those two contrast with the colors of the landscape. And there’s something about the visual beauty of the beast and its locale,” Jackson said.

“The cow is an integral part of this area, in defining the look of the landscape, what is planted. It is the heart of the economy. The cow was what made the county run.

“Driving down the road at today’s speeds, you see the black and the white, the abstract shapes, not the eyes or the mud on their knees.

‘Cows Will Listen to You’

“One of the intriguing things is that cows will listen to you,” Jackson says. “They’re very curious and will come right over and examine you in detail. You can tell them your troubles.”

Holy Cow Inc., sold 75,000 T-shirts last year plus numerous other articles featuring Jackson’s barnyard art. The business keeps his seven employees busy full-time in his loft-like operation on the second-floor of the one-block, two-floor brick business section of Bristol, population 1,793.

His first painting, dubbed “Avery’s Heifers,” is of cows owned by a neighbor who kids Jackson by saying he plans to send him a bill for a modeling fee.

Jackson, a curly haired Chatham, N.J., native, had his first “cows” show in 1974 when he exhibited 12 prints and six oil paintings. Modest success led to a T-shirt business. Then came two years at the Yale University School of Art where he earned a master of fine arts degree and developed the concept of wooden cow cut-outs.

Cow Shirts and Billboards

In 1980, Jackson took his cows to Manhattan. His cut-outs went to Wall Street, and inspired a new series of prints, with skyscrapers in the background, called “Citicows.”

In 1983, he moved back to Vermont, and was hired to design cow shirts and billboards for Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Soon, Jackson’s bovines boomed as pop art, not unlike Andy Warhol’s soup cans.

“Warhol did some cows too,” Jackson says. “In fact, cows have been a major artistic subject since the caveman began sketching bisons on his wall with charcoal.

“Cows are fun. After 15 years, I still enjoy it. It’s still a challenge to make a really good cow painting, to make it work. I didn’t do them with a sense that they’d be hot or trendy. I spent 10 years doing these for the pure love of it.”

New cows under construction include a calendar with a cow for each month and a series of cow collector’s plates.

“I don’t consider it a fashion phenomenon,” Jackson says. “I’m trying to keep it as more of a gift or boutique item. Fashion changes too quickly. My cows have more of an enduring appeal.”