Monday, April 21, 2014

Bucking Bronco 2006



I will sometimes watch, on TV, professional bareback bronc riding(as opposed to saddle bronc riding).  The riders are all young, male, and seem to be named "Cody" or "Jarrod".  They flop around on the backs of  horses with names like "Chuckolater" and "Smack Down" who do their best to dislodge these young men.  If the cowboys are lucky and stay on for the required eight seconds, they will be eligible to win large pots of money depending on how well they ride their broncs.  One cowboy, when asked what it was like to ride a bareback bronc said, "It's like putting your hand in a vice, attaching it to a train, and then driving it off a cliff".

My “Bucking Bronco” is about risk and the (often) disastrous results of that risk.  The cowboy’s rock constructed body means that when he does go off, he will be guaranteed a hard and brittle landing(on the rather large boulder immediately behind him).  The  horse, with the back half of his body portraying a missile range, gives us clues as to just how dangerous he really is.  A time lapse view lets us see our cowboy’s head snap back, with the last head, open mouthed, showing us just how frightened he really is as he realizes he is most probably going off.   And of course, the wheelchair symbol making up the front half of the horse clues us in as to where this rider will eventually end up.

1 comment:

  1. I can never decide which is better. The work or the narrative. Or perhaps both!

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