About

My path to the horse:


Life is full of changes. That is what makes it hard and what makes it interesting. In October, 2005 my husband announced, “I am going to get a horse”. Little did I know at that time, what had been a great life was just about to get more complicated, more emotional, messier, more painful, and infinitely richer than it had been in some time. I realized that in life dreams do come true.

As a child I rode on a small brown horse named Friday at Mr. Alexander’s riding stables in Kingsville, Texas. I truly believed I could look deeply into Friday’s eyes and we could share thoughts and feelings. As a young girl every Saturday I watched Roy Rogers, My Friend Flika, and Fury on television. While I liked the stories, I was much more interested in watching Roy ride Trigger at break-neck speed with a relaxed hand. I wanted to have a horse who thought of me as its best friend.

I have had the great fortune to fall in love several times over the course of my life – spouse, children, grandchildren and some really great dogs have each carved a special place in my heart. On January 5, 2006 I fell in love again. This time it was with a gray mare Quarter Horse named Lady Azure Quick. At last at the age of 50-something my childhood dream had come true. I had a horse to call my own. What I didn’t realize was the complicated journey I would be required to take to become this horse’s best friend.

As in any journey one must understand that to experience the journey completely there must be a shared communication. Now that I had my horse I needed to learn how to communicate with her. To hope to have a relationship with these noble animals without knowing how they communicate with one another is to hope for the impossible. In learning to communicate with Lady I came to realize I was learning more about myself than about her.

It is this process of learning how to be with horses that I use to inspire my equine art. When I do my art, I want to tap into that shared communication I mentioned. I believe what makes my paintings and drawings of horses unique is that I am trying to connect with the common ground between human and horse. I am increasingly interested in the way horses relate to each other or have experiences that make me recognize I have had the same experiences or the same feelings. That is one part of this horse-human relationship thing that intrigues me. For example, last summer I watched Lady and her pasture mate Buddy groom each other for about forty-five minutes. It was such a privilege to see the affection these two horses had for each other as they continually went from side to side, and neck to back. I was watching something so personal. Sadly Buddy died a short time later. This is something we humans have gone through, too. This experience inspired me to create a triptych called SAYING GOOD-BYE. You will see this art on my website.