Cattle can have distinct character traits. Most are curious, others are shy and a few are just plain crazy.
Producers sometimes share tales of their cattle’s personalities and related strange behaviour over coffee, and the stories typically get more detailed and interesting over a few beer.
Margaret Chastko has taken a different approach to recording the personalities of the cattle on her family’s farm near Shoal Lake, Man., by creating seven paintings for her bachelor thesis in visual and aboriginal art at Brandon University.
“This one, they remind me of a group of friends,” said Chastko, pointing toward her painting of three cattle, titled Three Stooges, which was on display at the university’s gallery last week.
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“One is just getting into the photograph, one is joking around, sticking his tongue out and the other is nicely posing.”
Chastko said she chose portraits of cattle for her thesis because she participated in the 4-H beef club as a teen, has always loved animals and saw her thesis as an opportunity to paint the character of life on the farm.
“(It) offers the viewer a chance to experience small pieces of farm life, without all the smell,” said Chastko, who began her art career with pencil sketches while growing up on her family’s dairy and beef farm.
“She always seemed to have that artistic interest … but she inherited nothing of that (talent) from me,” said Chastko’s mother, Donna, who noted the artistic bent probably comes from her husband’s side of the family.
Chastko moved from sketches as a teen to oil painting at university, where she learned it’s not easy to paint cattle.
“It takes a lot of time to get the hair just right,” she said, adding Three Stooges took her about three weeks to complete.
Now that’s she’s finished her thesis and will complete her art degree next month, Chastko plans to return home to Shoal Lake ,where she will work at the local museum this summer.
She has done paintings on commission for other farmers, and her mother said demand is growing for her work.
“By word of mouth, she’s actually had quite a bit of commission work,” Donna said.
“One of the area vet clinics has asked her to do a logo …. And she’s been asked to do the cover of the fair book, for our ag society.”
Like most 21-year-olds, she doesn’t have her entire career planned out, but work as an artist-entrepreneur looks good for now.
“Hopefully, not a starving artist-entrepreneur,” her mother said with a laugh.
