Horses have always been my favorite subject. My paintings are about freedom: a running horse represents my memories of a carefree childhood and how horses and dreaming of horses can change your life and cause you to pursue your dreams. Art evolves, and though I have drawn or painted horses my whole life, my style and medium of choice has changed many times over the years. In my youth and clear into the 1990s, I tried to exactly replicate what a horse looked like. I did drawings and paintings based on photographs. Since about 2000, I started painting horses in more imaginary colors and worrying less about drawing the perfect horse. I painted a lot of grazing horses, because grazing horses are so peaceful and meditative.
But often I looked at my horse paintings back then and they looked static, frozen in time instead of moving. It's hard to create the illusion of movement in a painting and I began to look for ways to bust loose. I started giving myself permission to paint freehand, permission to not know what the horse was going to look like until I put the paint on the paper. I no longer relied on my photographs of horses to dictate what I was going to do. I let what was before me on the paper be my guide. I would put down splashes of paint and then find a horse shape in it and go for it.
So where do the birds come in, the ones found most recently in my paintings? The last 10 years I have really grown to appreciate birds, and though I am not a bird painter I wanted to paint them because of how they make me feel. In real life, I enjoy the call of the meadowlark in summer and the cuteness of the chickadee who brings life to a cold winter landscape. Red winged blackbirds make me laugh, the way they chortle off-key and so predictably hang out in the cattails. And watching a hawk soar high above really gives me the feeling of freedom and wide open spaces. Has your heart ever stopped when you spot a bluebird in mid-March and know that winter is about over?
Once I started painting freehand, the birds showed up naturally alongside the horses. I think birds provide additional movement and a feeling of freedom in each painting. I also like the bit of chaos that birds present, when they are shooting off in different directions. I never get tired of painting, because each painting is a new adventure that takes me on a journey to a new place and leads me to the next idea.
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