I combined two individual sculptures into this single piece, Cowboy Melvin and Fastrunner on the old Chisholm Trail.
Melvin is a working cowboy traveling with his horse, Fastrunner, along the Chisholm Trail, a post-Civil War cattle route that carried herds north through the Plain to railheads in Kansas. The figures are presented mid-journey, not in a moment of drama or arrival, but in the long, repetitive stretch where progress depends on steadiness, trust and endurance rather than heroics.
Melvin’s body is formed from an old hand-cranked meat grinder found at a Kansas yard sale, binding the figure to the show physical labor that defined trail work. Spoons shape his limbs, a lemon juicer shades his face from the relentless sun, while clock parts form his facial features, quietly marking time rather than action. His face is assembled from a salvaged lid, its original purpose left visible.
Fastrunner’s body is build from a wooden meat tenderizer from the 1940s that once belonged to the artist’s mother, embedding inheritance and memory into the animal itself. Industrial screws form the legs, corks shape the heck and head, and thumb tacks become eyes. A worn guitar strap rests across his back as a blanket, scraps of vinyl form the mane, and a salvaged metal wheat stalk trails behind as a trail.
Together, Melvin and Fastrunner embody how the Heartland’s great movements were carried forward through sustained labor and companionship, where survival depended less on individual independence than on shared effort over time.
SueBee Arts 