Art and life go hand in hand for me. I find my inspiration daily from working on my farm. I believe creating a wonderfully connected partnerships with my horses, is an art in itself, and every day I learn how to communicate better by working with horses. Recently, I find riding to music the most rewarding, and that is why I have focused on musical freestyles. My horses enjoy dancing to music as much as I do.
I believe creating art and great horsemanship have a lot in common. Timing is everything. You can make great progress when you are feeling connected and the journey may go easily, but when things don’t come together you have to be discerning and self-reflective. When there is a bump in the road you have to choose a new creative approach to communicate in a better way. Knowing when to stop, and not overwork things can make all the difference in the world on whether things are going to succeed or fail.
Horses and artists have a lot in common. They both work from the right side of the brain using creativity and relying on intuition.
I believe animals are messengers and in my art I hope to portray their sentiment. As an equestrian, artist and author, horses have been my inspiration and spoken to me since I was a little girl. It is my hope that my visual language is an extension of how my life with horses has given me a grand appreciation for them, and to portray how transitions in this world can evolve gracefully into the spiritual. I have always looked to communicate in an ethereal way through the media I use in my artwork. My hope is that the viewer resonates intuitively to my art.
My work is bold, direct and often large scale. I attribute this to working with horses. Each horse has a unique personality, they are bigger than you, tactile, and these qualities are how I approach my artwork. My drawings hold expressive emotion from a moment in time. The series, “Watching them Grow; Jr. Rodeo”, is inspired from photographs I have taken for years raising my daughter through Jr. Rodeo as an all-around cowgirl. In a quickly humbling sport, for me it is about the behind the scenes, the journey, that created the most memories and learning.
“Transitions Finding Joy” and “Something in the Negative Can Be So Positive”, are two series that I have explored since the passing of both of my parents. I have found that mixed media helps to illustrate my thoughts and has given me a new avenue to working in printmaking, India ink and digital mixed media. I think both of these series lend themselves to a more intuitive perspective as animals as ethereal messengers.
I hope to continue to grow and evolve and for me there is a media for every new artistic idea. For each new horse I work with, there is an ever evolving approach to communicate successfully. In short, life never is boring when there is always something new to discover and share with others.
