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••••• Ryan Lavelle's bison is half-metal, half beast.••••• Ryan Lavelle, from Fargo, North Dakota, studied art at Montana State University and St. Martin’s College, England. After graduation, Ryan moved to Seattle and opened a coffee shop (named after his hometown). He then worked with Eric Schaefer and William Massi pursing progressive architecture, and later traveled throughout the United States as a construction manager. Ryan began his artistic pursuits as a young child: assimilating his ideas, stories, and perspectives through visual media. He found these modes and means of expression essential. This artist, still fresh in his artistic career, is unafraid of any medium. In fact, his personal credo relinquishes the necessity of reliance upon familiar methods of artistic communication, to the possibility of the most idealistic manners of putting forth art. Ryan Lavelle is a Conceptual Artist. His work is succinct and lingering. He challenges participants with familiar icons metaphorically juxtaposed. Much like a satirist writing a play, or a political cartoonist plotting her box, Ryan approaches a topic with an artist proposition in mind. In his work, humor and gravity mingle like old friends bound to battle. Ideals are paramount to artists. This artist chooses ideals as his subject matter. Ryan Lavelle and his family permanently reside in Fargo. By: H.R. Brunette The “Herd About the Prairie” art project was presented to me while I was watching Prairie Public Television. Five days remained until applications to participate were due. To decide if this opportunity was suitable for me took little time. “What better way to introduce myself to the art community than through a community art project,” I told myself. I had to act quickly. While gathering my resume, slides, and application to work on a bison, I toiled with possible solutions for a successful piece. To work with a predetermined form requires a selective scope with limited possibilities. One must create a piece which is relevant to the people and their region. While mingling through various ideas, I realized, the evolution of our prairie can be powerfully actualized through the bison form. Keeping the form simple and efficient, yet well crafted, the relationship between our industrial presence and our natural resources (which upon we rely) is visually and metaphorically challenged. Sheeting one-half of the bison with galvanized steel, and giving the other half a natural appearance, a reinforcement of our dichotomy with nature is hinted at. We recognize the steel in the grain silos and outbuildings of our agricultural landscape. We recognized the natural form of the bison as the central means of sustenance for our preceding culture. The base of this sculpture reinforces the footsteps of our transgressions and the past’s suppression. Hopefully, this “Industrial Bison,” will require participants to question why it was created in his manner, and how it relates to them.
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