RUMINANT
(The Grand Masticator)

A Word from the Artist:

I am a great fan of wordplay — and the fun here begins with the title: Ruminant (The Grand Masticator). Just as food goes through several chewings and other processes as it is picked and broken down by cattle, so does the harvest as it is gathered and processed by a combine, or art as it is pondered and enjoyed by its viewer. We are ruminants of visual language in the same manner as a cow is of its feed or as a combine is of a crop.

In creating Ruminant, the combine’s distinct physical sections — representing separate yet related functions — became a means by which to divide yet connect areas of reference whilst focusing on different methods by which we "process". The panels on the corn head — as the "teeth" of the combine — showcase the means by which rural America came to be: a series of pioneer hand-tools used to carve out the wilderness. The cab becomes the anthropomorphic center, using disjointed visuals relating to the act of "chewing" to focus on concepts of our oral fixations. The central hopper chassis section, as the "digestive" arena, portrays historic American propaganda central to cultural ideas of the harvest using combined comic book and WPA imagery. The rear — where chaff is expelled — serves as the billboard for “raw” food humor in simplified form: a set of one-liner cartoons in the mode of puns and wordplay.

This piece is very personal to me: My own sweat-stained childhood on a 220-acre dairy farm serves to inspire my reverence for those whose hard work keeps our society fed. With a tip of the hat — and a referential wink or two of the eye — I offer up: Ruminant.

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(Visitors to Ruminant may wish to print out this
PDF self-guided tour of the panels.)

Foreground photo: Aaron Dysart
Background photo: Pilot Mound Design