Butterfly Mornings, Wildflower Afternoons

Old, low-budget Westerns—the once popular fare of Hollywood (and Italian) moviemaking—are the source of David Rathman’s cowboy images. Rathman finds that their sometimes clichéd familiarity gives rise to whimsy, even humor, when combined with a pertinent phrase of dialogue inserted into the scene. Here, two riders on horseback silently part ways. The text above them—Butterfly Mornings, Wildflower Afternoons—is the title of a ballad sung by lovers Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) and Hildy (Stella Stevens) in Sam Peckinpah’s 1970 classic film The Ballad of Cable Hogue.