Name: Per:
The viewer is introduced to the cowgirl at the beginning of her quest as indicated by her moveable leg showing her in movement, searching. Her Asian facial features are portrayed using a repurposed yellow plastic file folder, as they are throughout all the stages. Yellow represents the skin of a Chinese Asian. Her tunic includes food wrappers from a brand of ramen noodles brought back from field research on Wayang Kulit in my homeland, Malaysia during the summer of 2011. This figure is part of a progressive narrative sculptural self-portrait. The flavor of these noodles, "Asli," means "original" in the Malay language and the noodles are made in Malaysia indicating that her origins are from Malaysia. While this figure represents her background, it also represents the origins of her quest to capture and tame the wild horse as indicated by the harness she is carrying on her shoulder and her cowgirl hat. Her facial expression and gesture, placing her fingertips on her mouth, reflects a perplexed mind with unanswered questions. Where is my stallion? Where is my mind? Her quest is not only to harness the wild horse, but to harness her own wild mind. "Harness" is engraved on her jeans made from repurposed plastic blue file folders.
• What materials does she mention?
• Why does she choose these materials?
• What can you tell about the artwork from her statement?
Name: Per:
The cowgirl sees hoof prints of the stallion in the grass and runs frantically towards them arms spread out holding the rope to capture the unseen horse. She has seen signs of the stallion but not the stallion itself, reflecting the theme of this stage, "Sign." Any sign that the object of her quest is in that direction triggers a frantic chase without waiting for the answer to her question, "Is that you?" Her smiling mouth is slightly opened and a red hue painted on her face shows joy; after a long period of time searching, she has finally spotted a sign that the object of her search is at hand. Her two moving legs show her running excitedly towards the sign. Her clothing shows that at early adolescence she has assimilated Western culture. She wears suspenders and cowboy boots with a cactus imprinted on one of her boots, and her clothing is now made entirely from chicken flavored ramen instant noodle wrappers manufactured in the U.S. She has also assimilated the mind states of Westerners on a spiritual quest. Any sign that a method or teacher might give Western seekers the answers to their life questions triggers an automatic grasping and clinging towards that teacher or method. When the method or teacher do not give answers as instantly as ramen instant noodles, the Western seeker abandons the teacher and method and goes back to searching and searching for another sign. The sign is not the stallion or the mind to be trained. It is just a sign.
• What materials does she mention?
• Why does she choose these materials?
• What can you tell about the artwork from her statement?
Name: Per:
This is the first time that the stallion appears, hiding behind a saguaro cactus so that only his rear end is visible, composed of assembled ramen noodle packages. Most of them are from a brand that was recalled in Malaysia because it was suspected of containing cancer producing plastics. The other packages also contained what could be considered poisons. Shrimp has been known to contain toxins, and pork is forbidden as unclean in Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Islam, and some sects of Christianity - and its production has been associated with the outbreak of swine flu. So the horse contains poisons, and this is reflected in his totally black tail and hoofs. The untrained wild mind is likewise is attached to poisons and defilements. The cowgirl spots him. Her face, showing signs of maturation into a young woman, looks at it shyly with the lariat in hand knowing that the possibility of capture is at hand, after tightly watching, waiting, and preparing for long time always ready to capture the wild stallion and the wild mind, if she remains silent and illuminates. She continues to wear the wrappers from American chicken flavored ramen noodles. The silence of this environment allows another sentient being, a green mouse peering silently out from its nest hole in the cactus and eating a seed. The external environment is silent, but the cowgirl's internal environment intensely illuminates her watching the external wild stallion, her internal wild mind. The flowering saguaro cactus, an icon from the American West, has roots spread out wide in the soil. It can only blossom after it has been rooted in this spot for 35 years. The habits of an untrained mind likewise have been strongly rooted for many years, many centuries, and, in religions that believe in reincarnation, for many lifetimes. "Encounter" is engraved on her jeans, the cowgirl's first actual encounter after many years with the wild stallion, her own wild mind.
• What materials does she mention?
• Why does she choose these materials?
• What can you tell about the artwork from her statement?
Name: Per:
Now the process of taming has begun through loving kindness and a melding together of the cowgirl and stallion now made from the same repurposed yellow plastic file folders as the cowgirl, no longer clinging to its aggression and only retaining some of its wild nature in its black mane and half of its hoof. With its saddle and harness in place, the horse is ready for riding. The stallion leans towards the cowgirl as she gently strokes its face. The food wrappers are international. The cowgirl, wearing farm overalls, still retains the beef flavored American ramen wrappers for her hat, but the wrappers for her jacket are from Indonesian vegetarian ramen as are some of wrappers for the horse's collar. The other packages on the horse are from a Vietnamese rice noodle with a logo containing a Bodhi tree leaf in front of the architectural image of a Buddhist temple. Bodhi is the Sanskrit word for wisdom and it is under the bodhi tree that the historical Buddha reached enlightenment. International food wrappers show that wisdom can occur with mind training in any nation, any culture, any race or ethnicity, any species, any situation, any space, at any age, and at any time when it ripens. Taming occurs mostly through the physical contact between the cowgirl and the stallion, represented in "Touch" engraved on the cowgirl's jeans so that the word appears in shadow. Touch is the spirit of taming where both minds connect, where cowgirl's internal mind and body connect.
• What materials does she mention?
• Why does she choose these materials?
• What can you tell about the artwork from her statement?