WORKS BY JAN CLAIRE
	Have New Yorkers ever seen a cow? 18" x 24"	Oil on canvas Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Steven Wade

One day, shortly after we moved from Indiana to New York City I was staring out the window of our 34th Street apartment and focused on a group of locals at a restaurant known for its steaks - a Spanish restaurant called El Parador. It was one of our "Oh my God!" restaurants that tickled our tongues in all the right ways: Braised and Shredded Flank Steak with toasted plantains the ubiquitous Black Beans, and on the side, their famous Salsa Criolla. Anyway, there was this group standing outside looking at the posted menu and for some reason, I wondered aloud, "I wonder if these people have ever seen a live cow?" It's laughable to think of cows grazing in the New York financial district, or along an upper west side part of Broadway. Even in Central park it would be unthinkable. In fact, I don't think there are any dairies in the extended reaches of New York City - over into north Jersey, southern Long Island or north until well past Yonkers. WELL past. Later, when we were comfortably moved to the Yosemite area of California, my wife and I went for a Sunday afternoon drive around the area, and tucked back behind Deadwood mountain on a curvy road, we passed right through a beautiful draw with the Fresno River randomly picking its way down a painterly tree-shaded, rock filled path and on the bank, as if in a portrait, a beautiful heifer was idly munching on the sweet green grass. What made me think of the El Parador group in association with the cow - and the steak - was that it has occasionally crossed my mind, since I was a youngster following my dad, the town veterinarian, around countless farms near Tracy, California: cows probably think WE are the ones in the pen, and the cows are outside. So I painted this picture, juxtaposing some New Yorkers as if in a roadside place typical of where we now live. The cow? Well where we live now, you don't have to drive too far to take a photo of a cow. And just as humans always want more than what they have, cows frequently poke their substantial heads between the ranks of barbed wire on fences, just to taste the grass on the humans' side. So who knows just who is penned in the painting. Oh: I painted the people in bright colors - to show they are on holiday. The man in red has a camera strap over his shoulder. At home in New York City these folks would all be wearing black or dark colors. The cow, on the other hand, may have been just a flank steak to them.