This issue's opinion If you want a real appreciation of cowboy art and rodeo, sometimes you have to read about them as well as see them. There are a quite a few good books on both subjects radily availale through libraries and your favorite bookstores. One I would recommend is Michael Allen's "The Rodeo Cowboy in the North American Imagination", published by University of Nevada Press. "This book...might be termed a history of the rodeo-cowboy hero in popular culture. Popular culture, as used here, is an umbrella term under which we can find everything from folksy, independently published rodeo memoirs to "high art" such as Copeland and deMille's (ballet)Rodeo. In between fall rodeo movies, paintings, novels, cowboy poems, and country-western songs that individually run the range from"high" to "low" art." (from the Introduction, pp.10). And in Chapter 4, Allen goes on to say that "In the work of rodeo artists as in that of rodeo writers, poets, and singers, the folk connection is apparent, although in different ways. Early rodeo artists were less influenced by folk traditions than were their poet, singer, and novelist counterparts, who could trace their origins back to oral folkways, tall-tale sessions, and campfire balladry." (Getting it Right, pp.128). Allen also has some interesting information on the role of art in cowboy clothing - it was from here that I remembered that the MWZ on Wrangler jeans means "Mens with Zippers", a design change by Rodeo Ben, a Philadelphia (PA) tailor, who was the great influence on cowboy clothing back in the early 1900s. Zippers replace buttons so that the steer's horns wouldn't get caught in jeans. The text also has an excellent bibliography of works that you should find interesting. By the way - if you have a CAPA link on your web page, but you find that you are not listed at the bottom of this page, please let me know.

A Rodeo Ben shirt from the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum Collection Joe Chernicoff, CAPA Exec. Director