Clifton Cow Billboard

March 12, 2021 post on Facebooks's Clifton, Cincinnati--ALL good news! by Kathy Jo Parsanko

I absolutely love this—by Cliftonite artist Tom Lohre. Anyone take a guess on the background story?

Brandon Hering
Cow jumped over the moon

Christine Carey Steele
Mmmm - harking back to the cow that escape from the truck headed to the slaughterhouse and was running rogue there for weeks?

Christine Carey Steele Yep! I’ll let Tom fill it in...I love this art and love the story. Especially the part where the brave cow ended up in a sanctuary. May share some details after Tom does ??

Tom Lohre
Looking to have this 8" x 10" oil on canvas of the Clifton Cow Jumping Over the Moon in Mount Storm Park outputted on vinyl and applied to one of two possible walls flanking the Plaza between Upstart Coffee and Clifton Barbers on Ludlow Avenue.
Above are images of what it should look like, click on them while on the web site to see a larger image. The sign will be about 20’ x 25’, a field measurement will be needed. The cost will include putting up and taking down in a year or when it breaks. The way of fastening should be grommets placed into a reinforced seam. If the grommets meets a mortar joint a screw will be used to attach the sign to the brick wall. The sign price should be the lowest without laminating or varnishing.

Marti Taylor Kitsinis
Yet our Howard Lyman never met a cow he didn't want to eat.

Priscilla Gorman
I thought he went to the home of Peter Max. An abstract Artist'.

Gary Landers
The cow’s name is Cincinnati Freedom. She was moved to an animal sanctuary owned by artist Peter Max in upstate NY., after being caught. I think she roamed free in Clifton for 11 days.

Kathy Jo Parsanko
Here’s a synopsis I wrote for the Esquire a few years back (a movie was supposed to be made? But I haven’t seen anything about that since.) Cincinnati's Runaway Cow became an international star back in 2002. Just before being butchered @ a Camp Washington slaughterhouse, it darted & ran for its life. It hid in Clifton's Mt. Storm Park for 11 days, evading helipcopters, police and all. After being captured, our cow happily lived out its days on artist Peter Maxwell's sanctuary farm in New York.
?? The Cincy cow, on Maxwell's farm, appeared mean & obstinate...until another runaway cow arrived. Our cow greeted it, and they became instant best friends. There's so much more to animals than anyone realizes.
???? Bravo to Tom Lohre for this artwork. I’d love to see it in mural form somewhere!

Spring 2010: Proposal to have the Clifton Cow Jumping over the Moon in Mount Storm placed on a wall, billboard size on Ludlow Avenue

339 Ludlow Ave., Rosson Apartments, Ray Richie, Unique Campus Rentals, owner, office on McMillian near Starbucks

Looking to have this 8" x 10" oil on canvas of the Clifton Cow Jumping Over the Moon in Mount Storm Park outputted on vinyl and applied to one of two possible walls flanking the Plaza between Aquariius Star and Dan's Clifton Barbers on Ludlow Avenue.

Above are images of what it should look like, click on them while on the web site to see a larger image. The sign will be about 20’ x 25’, a field measurement will be needed. The cost will include putting up and taking down in a year or when it breaks. The way of fastening should be grommets placed into a reinforced seam. If the grommets meets a mortar joint a screw will be used to attach the sign to the brick wall. The sign price should be the lowest without laminating or varnishing.

Freedom Passes Away December 29, 2008

Cincinnati Freedom (born c.1995–December 29, 2008), also known as Charlene Mooken, was a 1,050-pound Charolais cow living in the Watkins Glen Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, New York, who is particularly popular with animal rights activists and animal lovers.

Cinci's rise to stardom began on February 15, 2002, when she leapt over a six-foot fence at Ken Meyers Meats, an Ohio slaughterhouse, and escaped. After eluding the traps and tranquilizer darts of SPCA officials and police officers for 11 days, she was finally captured just after midnight on February 26 in Clifton, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Finding a permanent home for her was a source of much debate, as most considered her no longer eligible for slaughter. The Cincinnati Zoo declined to house her, citing health concerns and the possibility that she could not be safely contained. Jan Malley, a Northern Kentucky woman with a 12-acre (49,000 m2) farm, was also considered as a possibility. In late March, however, artist Peter Max offered $180,000 worth of paintings to the SPCA for use at their next auction. In return, he took custody of the cow, whom he named to commemorate not only her dramatic pursuit of liberty, but the city into which she escaped.

Cinci Freedom received the key to Cincinnati, but didn't wear it during the Cincinnati Reds Findlay Market Opening Day Parade on April 1, 2002, as planned, because she was judged too jumpy and nervous to participate.

She was reported to be doing well in the sanctuary and had apparently made a number of friends, including Queenie, who escaped from a slaughterhouse in Queens, New York.

Sadly, Cinci developed spinal cancer in 2008. This is an incurable and untreatable ailment in cows. She was put down on December 29, 2008 surrounded by her herd and friends at Farm Sanctuary.[1]

The Paintings

Jumping Clifton Cow

Oil on canvas, 8" x 10", February 4, 2003

Tom lives in Clifton, a neighborhood of Cincinnati. The cow got loose from a nearby meatpacking plant and roamed the woods for two weeks around his home. He never saw the cow but they did capture it on the street one block North.

Tom has painted the Clifton Cow three times. The color versions will be fought over by his wife and the neighbor. Tom's neighbor gave him an old pushcart that he made for his daughter to sell books on Ludlow Avenue. They made several hundred dollars. The pushcart's name was after an old bookstore in Boston. If you lived in the Village in the sixties you might remember his daughter pushing the cart on Ludlow Avenue. The guts of the cart perfectly suited Tom as well as the splendid awing. Tom discovered the pushcart's existence while showing his neighbor the artwork, the image below, for the invitation of the Fourth of July Block Party his neighbor sponsors every year. Tom said that he would trade the painting for the pushcart but his wife wanted it, so Tom painted another one, above. Maybe his wife will want both of them and he will have to paint another. You can always commission another oil.

Jumping Clifton Cow

Watercolor on paper, 8" x 10", January 2003

Tom lives in Clifton, a neighborhood of Cincinnati. The cow got loose from a nearby meatpacking plant and roamed the woods for 11 days then captured on the street one block North from his home.
Cincinnati Freedom (born c.1995–December 29, 2008), also known as Charlene Mooken, was a 1,050-pound Charolais cow. She finished off her days in the Watkins Glen Farm Sanctuary after being saved. Cinci's rise to stardom began on February 15, 2002, when she leapt over a six-foot fence at Ken Meyers Meats, an Ohio slaughterhouse, and escaped. After eluding the traps and tranquilizer darts of SPCA officials and police officers for 11 days, she was finally captured just after midnight on February 26 in Clifton, Cincinnati, Ohio. This sepia watercolor was painted for a resident on the McAlpin where the cow was captured.
Tom started painting watercolors just before he moved out of New York City. He was studying Thomas Rowlandson’s watercolor manner. Since studying a new manner takes years to master as well as painting a lot of studies, he needed a way to provide a finished piece that was simple. He settled on painting on bottle labels after painting it with gesso and cutting off the top of the bottle. His manner eventually developed into a paint box lined on four sides with 50 small film containers each with a particular color inside. Each color was represented with five values of tint. Inside the paint box was paper with each value painted in front of the container. The colors were applied with steel pens and sable brushes.
His initial inspiration was an example of sailor’s art showing a rather provocative nude woman in a pornographic pose. His initial series of labels were all pornographic. Later he started painting celebrities of Greenwich Village for a Village Guide Book. Tom went on to produce many portraits on Perrier & Wiedemann beer bottles with the tops cut off.
Thomas Rowlandson (13 July 1757 – 21 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson also produced highly explicit erotica for a private clientele. A patron gave Tom a printed collection of Rowlandson’s pornographic work. Rowlandson's designs were usually done in outline with the reed-pen, and delicately washed with color.

Clifton Cow with Gaslight

Oil on canvas, 8" x 10", July 2002

Screen Savers

Original Work

To commission an original 8" x 10" sepia watercolor, like above, is $500. An original 8" x 10" oil of the jumping cow would be $1000.

8" x 10" Photographic Prints $15

Track of the Clifton Cow

The Clifton Hills Terrace Home painting is the third in the series of paintings of the Charolais cow "Cincy Freedom." She escaped from a meat packing plant on February 14th, 2001 and roamed for two weeks in the woods around the plant. She was captured and now lives on the Farm Sanctuary. The director of the sanctuary reported that even after almost two years she is still skittish around humans.

The cow walked through the grounds of the home in the painting on her way to the major city park where she lived for two weeks. It is hard to believe that she climbed up to the top of this hill only to have to go down again, cross a busy street and find her way into the border woods of Mount Storm Park.

Can you imagine her resting a bit or even spending the night on top of Clifton Hills contemplating her next move?

The painting is taking on a story line as if it was a one frame movie. Just imagine what is going on. All the elements are mixed together. Just deciding how they all fit together would take quite a thought. Even the fence in the lower right foreground needs to be explained. Is it like the fence "Freedom" jumped to escape? And the children, are they vestiges of a summer day?

Deep in to painting children after finishing the left hand side background. A little know device called a Claire-Vue was used in laying out the small background buildings and children. Looking through a split mirror you can flesh out a image that is pasted above the canvas.

The article about the Clifton Endowment Fund in the Chronicle looks like a road towards making the old Clifton school a historical society building . Contributions would make a great Christmas gift.

Clifton Cow in the News

The news is full of war plans with Iraq and nuclear weapon saber-rattling in North Korea. Annual budget battles are ongoing in Washington, the Tristate, my pocketbook.

But, just in time, a small distraction breaks through the winter blahs. An important anniversary approaches.

It's been a year since Cinci Freedom, that bovine bent on survival, bolted over a meatpacker's fence in Camp Washington and eluded helicopters, heat-seeking scanners, horses, hunters and Good Morning America's cameras for 12 days, finally winning freedom after recapture Feb. 27.

CINCINNATI -- The cow that roamed a Cincinnati neighborhood for the better part of two weeks will arrive at its new home Thursday.

The cow, which was recently named "Cinci Freedom," is scheduled to arrive at the Farm Sanctuary shelter

in Watkins Glen, N.Y., sometime Thursday afternoon, a Cincinnati television station reported.

Cinci Freedom will share a barn with 50 other cows, and she will have 175 acres to roam.

Cinci Freedom escaped from a meatpacking plant in March by jumping a 6-foot-tall fence. She hid in a wooded area in a park until animal control officers were able to subdue her with tranquilizers.

After she was captured, animal rights activists called for its life to be spared. The cow was given to artist Peter Max, and he donated $180,000 worth of artwork to the Hamilton County Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Monday, March 04, 2002

That roaming cow prompts ruminations

Doing the cow-cow boogie in Clifton

By Ron Blair
Special to The Cincinnati Enquirer

I woke up to the noise of my house shaking. Our dog, Hunter, was barking. With bed-head and pajamas, I peered outside at a wind tornado, swirling debris everywhere. A helicopter — labeled Hamilton County Sheriff — was just over the roof of my house.

Not knowing the mission, I made sure the doors were locked and called my wife. “Kathy, I think that they must be after someone dangerous, maybe a murderer or an escapee!”

IN MY LIFE

Ron Blair, 45, president of Eagle Pak, flyfisherman and a freelance fiction writer, lives with his wife, Kathleen, son Paul Blair II, 16, and daughter, Virginia, 15, in Clifton.

It turned out the commotion was over the cow that escaped from a Cincinnati slaughterhouse. Police tried to corral the cow down Central Parkway but the bovine escaped to the green belt of Clifton's Mount Storm Park.

You've probably heard the story by now, since it's been in the papers and on TV. Even Good Morning America reported it. People and reporters from all over the Tristate descended on the park with cameras and rope, hoping for a picture or chance to be the Clifton cowboy.

Names for the bovine heroine surfaced. Charlene Moo-ken (named after Mayor Charlie Luken). Heidi. Bovine Bin Heidi. Stormy. I call it the Ghost Cow of Clifton.

It seems ironic that Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge visited Cincinnati and declared it a “model city of security against terrorism,” but it took nine days to catch the cow.

I did my civic part. Our house abuts the park where the cow roamed, so I decided to look for it. I put on my hunting clothing and boots as well as my florescent hunting cap. I influenced my 16-year-old son, Paul, and his friend Alexander to join the urban safari. Hunter, our Rhodesian ridgeback, scanned the Earth with his minesweeper snout and it was not long before Hunter was wagging his tail and barking. Hunter was on the scent of the Ghost Cow of Clifton.

Paul avowed excitement:

“Dad, I can't believe that you're making me search for a stupid cow.”

Alexander too was enthusiastic:

“Mr. Blair, I'm bleeding, because of thorns and branches. Can we go home?”

First blood had been drawn.

Soon, I found myself hunting alone with my best friend. Hunter and I covered all 56 acres and finally found a strong scent near the Cincinnati Women's Club.

Hunter's ears perked up as we heard a faint sound in the heavy brush. It sounded like hooves pounding the ground. Hunter started a growl. The growl turned into a whine. An eerie feeling rushed over me as we could hear something but not see it.

“This is spooky, Hunter. I think that we'd better call off the search.”

Back at home, I was pulling the burrs from my clothing when I heard a radio announcement. “A helicopter has just located the cow near the Cincinnati Women's Club. SPCA hunters are now approaching the area with loaded tranquilizer guns.” I chuckled to myself, “This makes sense, why didn't I think of this? A 7-year-old cow is about 70 in human comparison.

While I'm searching the 56 acres, the cow is relaxed, sipping on tea and munching crumpets while playing bridge with other women. She's probably enjoying the gossip and food, catching up on the Clifton news. She's probably in a great moo-d.

I turned on the TV as the story broke into an afternoon soap. Once again, the Ghost Cow of Clifton has eluded authorities.

When nine days since the great escape had passed, the clock radio woke me with chatter and jokes about the cow. “Where's the beef?” “Watch where you step if your headed toward Clifton.”

As got up, Hunter began barking and growling. I opened a bedroom blind to witness Hunter thrashing about like I've never seen him do. “What the heck is going on?” I muttered.

Then, I saw it. White as a ghost. A cow. The cow. The Ghost Cow of Clifton was strolling in our back yard. I screamed:

“The cow, the cow, everybody, the cow.”

Still pulling on my pants, I dashed outside almost falling down the stairs. My wife followed me out on the deck holding her hand to her heart. “What is it? Are you OK? I thought that someone was hurt.” Paul and our daughter Virginia joined us.

We smelled a smell that we had never before smelled in Clifton. I went for the phone.

“Give me District 5 police, hurry, we have spotted the Clifton cow.”

“Police, District 5.”

“We don't have much time! We have the Ghost Cow of Clifton in our back yard. I'm looking right at her now, and she's looking at me.

“Now slow down. Are you sure that it is a cow?”

“I know what a cow looks like. It's the famous cow and it's starting to walk away. It's now moving toward Lafayette Avenue. You better move fast and head it off at the pass.”

“Give me your address.”

“Now! Now! I see two guys following it in the woods. You better get a squad car on Lafayette fast!”

Minutes later, two police cars pulled down our drive. Two very nice officers informed us that they missed the cow, it was moving too fast. “Sure would've liked to have seen Heidi,” one said.

Then, a TV reporter showed up on our doorstep. Our 15-year-old daughter, Virginia, was on camera. “We saw it right over there behind that tree. No, I've never before seen a cow in Clifton.”

Then, the hubbub was over. We went about our day and I wondered whether I would see this local hero again.

A sunset rested on top of the hill as my wife and I pulled down our driveway. The theme song from Rawhide entered my mind while I got out of the car. “Honey, there is something white in the woods again.”

Hunter started barking. My wife calmly says, "She's baaaack.”

This time, no one was chasing her. Our family gathered once more on the deck feeling this was the last time we would see her. She was so peaceful. So serene.

The sun was dropping lower as darkness prevailed. A silhouette of greatness stood on the ridge with the western orange sun as a backdrop. She stopped, looked at us, paused and then turned away, slowly walking toward the sunset. It grew dark as the gaslights came on.

I stretched my arms around my family, thinking about what many Americans have gone through in the past few months, I thought about our heroes, about the things to come, our children's future. I thought about love and thankfulness.

Turning us all toward the kitchen with my arms still around them, I said:

“Funny cow. What a funny cow.”

Epilogue: The next morning we learned on a national broadcast that authorities using thermal imaging equipment and armed with tranquilizer guns had captured the Ghost Cow of Clifton.

In a week filled with major news - the execution of a Cincinnatian for the first time in nearly a half century, black entertainers' boycott of the city and the countless feel-good stories of the Olympics - tri-staters are preoccupied, of all things, with a missing cow.

Since escaping from a local slaughterhouse by jumping a 6-foot fence at Ken Meyer Meats in Camp Washington Feb. 15, the 1,200-pound cow has become daily fodder for radio talk shows, TV newscasts and office chatter.

Dubbed Moosama Bin Laden by one DJ, the cow has evaded police and officials from the ociety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals while crossing Central Parkway and entering Mount Storm Park in Clifton, where it was last spotted by one TV station's helicopter ''Cow Cam.''

''The problem is, this is a free-range cow that isn't going to come to any human,'' said SPCA general manager Harold Dates. ''And when you weigh 1,200 pounds, you can pretty much go anywhere you want to go.''

At City Hall and from coast to coast, where CNN and other news outlets have chronicled the four-hooved fugitive's run for freedom, the cow's fame grows daily.

If and when the runaway 7-year-old cow is captured, Mayor Charlie Luken plans to give it the key to the city. In the meantime, WLW-AM talk-show host Bill Cunningham, never shy about doing anything to beef up ratings, will continue referring to it as Charlene Mooken, while his counterparts have settled on nicknames ranging from Heidi to Bessie.

Everyone from Marge Schott to Fifth Third Bank has offered to do whatever it takes to prevent the cow from ending up on a hamburger bun, the latter by offering the cow a starring role in its next ''Holy Cow'' home-equity loan ad campaign.

Similarly, Chick-Fil-A, a fast-food restaurant that features a cow in ads urging people to steer clear of red meat, is offering 100 free chicken sandwiches to whoever catches the cow.

Frustrated in their repeated attempts to lure the light-colored Charolais out of Mount Storm Park's thick underbrush, officials Thursday devised a new strategy: using three other cows as bovine bait to draw the cow into a corraled area.

Today, officials - professing no fear that the scheme could backfire and leave four cows on the loose - plan to truck in the new cows and place them in an area contained within about 30 10-foot temporary fence sections. Water and food also will be set out to make it look like there's a big cow party going on inside.

If the cow falls for the trap, officials will swing the gate on a happy ending to the saga. If not, they'll move on to Plan B: trying to bring her down with a tranquilizer dart, a far less attractive option that requires carefully hauling a 1,200-pound animal out of a hilly, brush-covered site.

Until the cow is captured, police plan to close Mount Storm Park to the public. In recent days, the cow has been spooked not only by the joggers and dog-walkers who routinely use the park, but by dozens of gawkers who have come to watch the man - er, cowhunt.

The major concern of Cincinnati police, said Lt. Kurt Byrd, is preventing the cow from wandering onto nearby Interstate 75. ''If a 2,000-pound car runs into a (1,200)-pound cow, it might be pretty ugly,'' Byrd said.

Assuming the cow is safely recovered, it will have earned a permanent reprieve from the grim fate that awaited it last week at Meyer Meats.

''There's no doubt this cow will be living the rest of its life in the most comfortable situation that can be provided,'' said the SPCA's Dates.

Whether that is on Mrs. Schott's estate or some other farm remains to be determined. Regardless, it's an udderly satisfying way to wrap up the story.

As Byrd pointed out, contrasted with the decidedly unpleasant local, national and international stories that have dominated the past year, the missing cow tale comes off as a welcome respite for Greater Cincinnatians weary of bad news. ''If this is our major news story,'' he said, ''it speaks pretty well for Cincinnati.''