November 4th 2022 at Western Cider
“For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that thar’s gold in them-thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go.”― Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men
Courtney Blazon and Ladypajama are not artists who work in the discipline of Western art as it is seen in the traditional way, but they are artists living and working in the West, so their work speaks to themes and narratives that are Western. With this collaborative project, the artists aim to tackle the themes of the West more specifically, and in some ways, ironically. Ladypajama, born and raised in the West, and Blazon, a transplant from the East coast who “came West” seventeen years ago, come at their art work from very different perspectives, but the melding of those perspectives has been very successful for them, as they’ve developed a language all their own after working on collaborations for many years.
