{"id":33964,"date":"2016-06-09T01:46:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T07:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=33964"},"modified":"2020-02-15T09:44:04","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T15:44:04","slug":"kaziah-hancock-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/kaziah-hancock-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaziah Hancock"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"kaziah_hancock\"<\/a>
\nShe\u2019s known for goats and for soldiers. The first she has raised for years on her ranch south of Manti, where she\u2019s been given the nickname The Goat Woman: she bears the moniker proudly, her affection for the animals going back to an almost mythical origin story, her birth on a remote homestead in northern Arizona and the goat milk that kept her alive in that barren desert. The latter she has painted over the past decade, by the hundreds, service men and women who have fallen in foreign wars or succumbed to depression and suicide at home, the paintings given to the grieving families: Project Compassion has garnered Kaziah Hancock praise and attention from across the country, as well as recognition and numerous awards, but as a retrospective of her work now at Spring City reminds us, her artistic interests are varied, from narrative paintings on the struggles of life, to joyous landscapes, inventive portraits and a recent series of paintings celebrating pop icons…<\/p>\n

Kaziah Hancock\u2019s nickname might conjure up the image of a wild-haired hermit surrounded by her animals, a rural version of the urban \u201ccat lady.\u201d And there\u2019s a touch of truth to it. She is<\/em> a character, an unapologetic one. She lives life loud and proud and she shares her comfortable cabin with a dog and six cats and cares for eight more feral felines as well as the goats. But she\u2019s also held audiences with generals, received awards from Utah\u2019s governor and numerous civic and military organizations; and she is comfortable in front of a film camera or at a podium. The stories she tells of her life in polygamy can be as colorful \u2014 and disturbing \u2014 as the language she uses to condemn the \u201cdumbasses and sonsabitches\u201d that crossed her path; but in other moments, while she taps the ashes from her cigarettes into a tin can and peers out her stained-glass window, tears come to her eyes and she describes the subjects of her paintings as the children she always wanted but never had.<\/p>\n

A detailed account of Kaziah Hancock\u2019s life is found in the books and audio productions she has published \u2014 first Prisons of the Mind<\/em>, about her mental and physical escape from the \u201cbonds of polygamy,\u201d and then Kaziah Hancock: Born to Paint<\/em>, a more expansive biography that is available as a 9-CD audio set\u2014 as well as the numerous interviews she has given to various media outlets. Her life began in the mid-20th century, when Mormon polygamists were being prosecuted by the federal and local governments, and her father kept her family on a parched piece of land, 50 miles from the nearest town, without transportation. His death left the family stranded when his wife was about to give birth to Kaziah. Her mother had become so dehydrated, Kaziah says, her lips turned upward and she had no milk for her newborn. A goat on the ranch gave birth the same day, however, and Kaziah\u2019s 9-year-old brother milked what little he could from the nanny to keep his sister alive until a passing sheepherder found the family and brought them help.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, the Hancocks moved to Murray, where they became enmeshed in the polygamous communities of the Salt Lake Valley. Kaziah describes a life of mental and sexual abuse, grinding poverty and financial exploitation. Her Sunday clothes came from discards found at the Murray dump, her sisters were married off one by one at a young age, men disparaged the women with phrases like \u201cyou\u2019re not even worth the salt content in your body,\u201d and the disobedient were threatened with eternal damnation, as well as with more mortal punishments within the confines of the mental ward.<\/p>\n

Kaziah grew up rebellious, uncomfortable in the bounds of the patriarchal community. But when she was nearly raped and murdered at 15, she cried to God for help and promised to repent. Within her upbringing, that meant \u201csubmitting to the brethren.\u201d In 1963, she became the third wife of James Reed Stratton.<\/p>\n