Telegraph Article

The Nashua Telegraph ran an article on Opticow on Tuesday, May 2! Here's the text and one of the photos (Photo by Bob Hammerstrom):


Merrimack native creates for a cause

By ELLEN GRIMM, Telegraph Correspondent

In early April, Lisa Andreasen drove to Boston to collect a fiberglass cow covered in bubble wrap.

“People probably were looking at the back of the truck and wondering, ‘What was that?’ ” she said, referring to the life-sized cow sculpture, which she delivered to her mother’s home in Merrimack – where many in town may still know Andreasen as Lisa Taylor, since she married only last summer.

Ever since, Andreasen has been painstakingly covering every inch of that cow with swirling shapes, using black acrylic markers to make ripples upon ripples.

In June, her cow, which she calls “Opticow Illusion,” will join more than 100 others that will be displayed throughout Boston – on its streets and in its parks – through Sept. 5 as part of a public art event called

CowParade, which was established in 1999 and has since traveled throughout the United States, as well as overseas to cities such as Tokyo, Moscow and Bucharest, Romania.

It is the largest public art event in the world, according to Ron Fox, vice president of CowParade Holdings Corp., which is based in West Hartford, Conn.

The cities raise money through the event by auctioning off the cows and then donate a substantial amount of the money to a charity of the city’s choosing. In Boston, the money raised by a live auction of 50 cows in October, as well as an online auction of the remaining cows, will go to the Jimmy Fund, which supports the work of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The cows are sponsored by businesses and organizations, which choose from among the cow-art plans submitted by the winning artists. For the Boston event, about 1,000 artists entered the contest, with about 100 making the cut.

Andreasen, 25, submitted several ideas, including one that would have involved building moose antlers onto the cow and sawing the legs in order to add extensions to create a kind of moose-cow. Another would have involved gluing coffee beans all over the cow to create a “calfe” au lait.

It was her “Opticow” that won sponsorship. With its ripples of black lines, it’s kind of a wild take on the black-and-white Holstein cow.

As for why cows are the chosen animal for the event, the broad sides and bone structure provide a “versatile” art canvas, according to the organization’s Web site. They are also among the most non-threatening creatures out there, with their lumbering, grass-chomping ways. And they surely must amount to exotic sights on city streets.

Andreasen has never had a particular interest in cows. “But the CowParade itself I’ve known about for a few years, and I’ve always wanted to be a part of it,” she said. “When I heard it was coming to Boston, I was really excited.

“They emphasize it’s public art and pop art versus high art, which is fun because you have to take yourself a little more lightly,” she said.

The cow’s shape has actually been very challenging, she said.

“Figuring out how to get all the angles and in all the crevices is a big challenge,” said Andreasen, who has had to lie on her back to draw on the cow’s belly.

“I called her Michelangelo, when she was lying underneath,” said Andreasen’s mother, Linda Taylor, who often visits with her daughter while she is working.

Andreasen, who lives in Manchester with her husband, set up her cow in her parents’ converted basement and works every weekend in the Merrimack home she grew up in. She has documented her cow’s progress with time-lapsed photographs that she has posted on her blog: lisaandreasen.blogspot.com.

“The shapes are more prominent left in black and white; it has that illusion of fading in and out and being three-dimensional,” she said.

As Linda Taylor describes it, Andreasen was a precocious artist as a child, with a penchant for industrial-type projects that required power tools and chainsaws, even when she was in elementary school. Those projects required special approval from her teachers, as well as help from Andreasen’s father, who fixes antique cars for a hobby.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Andreasen, who works as a graphic designer for Rumbletree, an advertising agency in Portsmouth, patiently drew line after line on her cow, while Taylor sat in one of several recliner chairs that had been relegated to one side of the room and offered her impressions of the design.

“It looks like some fungus grew on the cow, and it’s working its way down the legs and horns,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom,” Andreasen said, causing her mother to laugh.

Taylor tried again. “It looks like misshapen collapsible cups,” she said.

“Dad calls them paisleys,” Andreasen said. “I love to hear people’s interpretations.”

As Andreasen sees it, “They’re organic and geometric at the same time.” She has been making the shapes – she calls it doodling – since a high school project that involved using lines to form three-dimensional shapes. “I like how fluid it is,” she said. “Drawing it is almost therapeutic.”

Does she get dizzy? “I’ll be looking at it, and my contacts start watering, and I think I have to take a break,” she said.

“It’s been a nice little retreat to work on it,” Andreasen said.

Her mother helped a bit in painting the hooves black. Taylor leaves the intricate shapes to her daughter, who draws them unerringly for hours.

“There’s no way anybody can help her with that,” she said.