Cowboy (2022)
Performance, 15 minutes

“The more times I perform Cowboy the more mundane it becomes. Maybe by the time I perform it 100 times the act of shaving will finally have become an entirely mundane action, mirror or no mirror. Right now it is a choreographed ritual, a tool that leads to meditation. A deep breath in. Skin contact. A long breath out. Listen to the sound to find the right angle. Stay entirely present. Forget yourself before you nick yourself.”

Cowboy is an ongoing performance project started in January 2022. The performance consists of a straight razor shave on stage, without the use of a mirror. It is often (although not necessarily) mic’d up. The components of the shaving kit could easily be mistaken for ready-mades, however they are actually carefully hand constructed using high grade materials and traditional techniques. The exception is the blade itself which is a restored Sheffield-made carbon steel knife dated to the late 1800’s. Due to the blade gradually dulling from performance use an additional performance was added In the summer of 2023 as part of the Like a Western project conducted in Tokyo. This new performance, titled Rattlesnake Charmer, is the public honing of the razor used in Cowboy; using methods from Jim Rion’s 2011 translation of Honing Razors and Nihonkamisori by Kousuke Iwasaki (1963), natural whetstones, and a strop made from Shinki shell cordovan and solid brass hardware.