The Beginning of Belle

Imagine the excitement! There we were in June 2012 in the warm sunshine at the Royal Agricultural Show in Belfast amid all the activity around prizewinning animals – watching coats being brushed, manes plaited, hooves oiled and bulls being hosed (yes!) as chickens clucked, horses whinnied, pigs grunted, and sheep and goats bleated all around us – or slept on the straw oblivious to it all. However, we were in search of even quieter beasts.

And, suddenly, there they were in their silent beauty, peacefully, standing, lying or grazing the grass of the Cow Lawn – a herd of fiberglass cows and Belfast City Council’s bid to join the largest public art event in the world, the Cow Parade. It had taken months for them to be herded across Europe, for reasons that were undisclosed.

 Following our successful application as a community group, we were keen to get the first glimpse, and photo opportunity, of our latest and most distinctive member of Belfast Friendship Club. Some cows were already decorated and, as we wandered around inspecting them all, we began to think about (a) how best to capture the talent and creativity of the membership in order to decorate our cow and (b) where all this might happen, given that we had no premises of our own.

A year on, we could not have imagined the way in which the personality of our cow would come to life and the journey that she would undertake. Back then, with the help of Belfast Friendship Club artist, Jennifer Hanley, it was a question of thinking about possible materials, weatherproofing (the cows were due to be displayed outside) and how to involve as many Belfast Friendship Club members as possible – although this didn’t turn out to be a problem at all.

Most of all, we were keen to get started – but when, and where? It was all very exciting. We had lots of enthusiasm and ideas, many questions and no answers…