James Coffman x Ranch Rider

This was written as part of a series for Ranch Rider Spirits, who asked artists to create a piece that captured the essence of “Who is a cowboy?” this writing accompanies an artwork posted on January 14th 2022.

The Artist and the Cowboy

We’re quickly approaching a time when the traditional American cowboy is all but extinct. What seems to remain is a grouping of loose caricatures and romantic interpretations which tend to fall along the lines of big hats, stiff drinks, and a southern drawl. The west was long ago won and there isn’t much wild left in this continent once full of it. So in a world that has no real need for cowboys as they were, they must evolve, because a cowboy is who a person is at their core, not the clothes they wear or way they speak, but how they choose to move through life. 

A modern cowboy simply put is someone who lives on the fringes, making their own way in the world with what’s already in them. The wild ones, the boundary-pushers, the artists. 

What does an artist do but tame abstract lands few others dare venture too. Not of the soil, but of the mind and soul.

Today those who choose to live humbly yet nobly outside the nine to five and create something society doesn’t provide are the ones blazing new trails through that very wilderness.

The painters, the writers, dancers, musicians, poets, and so many others who embrace the uncertainty of a life on the edge with cause and grit, clasp in their hands the spirit of those rough riders who came and went long before them. 

Though they seem distant, the ideals are inseparable. Venture into the unknown and tame it.