Paint. Horse.

Paint Horse. Painting horse. Paint a horse. A painting horse. Oh my.


It sort of started one May 1st, my horse TigerLily's birthday. A couple of years ago I baked a special horsey cake for her - the recipe was from the author of 'Misty of Chincoteague' and I figured any cake good enough for Misty was good enough for TigerLily. The ingredients were supposedly a horse's dream come true: oats, carrots, molasses and apples. 


My son still guffaws at the memory of TigerLily daintily plucking the diminutive cake from my loving hand, and then bobbing her head several times like an iguana doing the primal territorial display before spitting it out directly at me in disgust. The barn dog, Fergie, did a remarkably well-timed fly-by and made off with it. (She came back and asked for more, bless her little omnivorous heart. You can always count on a dog to eat nearly anything). 


Anyway, since baking birthday cakes wasn't going to happen again, I resorted to other methods of celebrating. Being an artist, decorating my horse seemed like a good idea - it was the pink and orange livestock marking paint that wasn't. The dear forgiving man who owns the ranch down the road where TigerLily boards almost had a heart attack when he saw her, thinking that she was grievously wounded. I promised to only use non-gorey colors after that. 


TigerLily is a black and white Tobiano marked horse. What most people call a "paint", so painting designs on a paint horse has some extra linguistic appeal. I have also painted pictures of her.

(Funny thing - whenever I paint her, TigerLily is some shade of blue). 


And then there are paintings by horses. Often this is a rather gimmicky ordeal, with a handler coaxing a painting-like performance from a dutiful but baffled horse. And just as often the results are a predictable blend of mechanical smears and smudges of unfortunate colors using mediocre raw materials... 

Then there is Cheryl Ward and her painting horses. Holy smokes. 


I came across her website (http://paintinghorse.com) and I am completely smitten with her "collaborative interspecies" approach to painting in partnership with horses, and I am dazzled by their results, which truly are art. 

I am so inspired: Paint. Horse. And Human. 

(Stay tuned...)

Beast of Burden, Part 2

Donkeys are the archetypal beast of burden. All around the world they are seen as pack animals put on the earth to carry stuff around for humans... and, in spite of their collective reputation for stubbornness they have carried burdens since long before Mary rode one to Bethlehem, and they continue to do so in countless towns and villages, in the rustic countryside and the mountains. 

The little donkey pictured here, that I hand sewed of wool felt, yarn and embroidery thread, is a different kind of donkey made to carry a different kind of burden.

A dear friend, the one I have mentioned previously, has been traveling the hard road of breast cancer for a couple of years now, and the path has become increasingly difficult as the cancer finds ways to disguise itself, invading various parts of my friend's body and eluding eradication. Her burdens increase by the day. And her burdens will, her doctors say, become unbearably heavy unbearably soon... 

This little donkey was created as a humble gift to symbolize the help that a friend can provide: the act of sharing a burden, through words and actions, and through a willingness to accompany a friend along a too-short, too-hard road. 

   

Beast of Burden

A view of my horse from across  the back of her friend, a sweet mule... 


This picture I took, on my horse's birthday (and shortly after a long weekend at the Minnesota Horse Expo), made me stop and think about all the ways we humans interact with the equines in our lives, how many things we ask them to be and do, and how grateful I am to have a horse in my life. 


I don't really like to admit how much I depend on my horse to be my muse, my confidante and even my shrink. When I am feeling burdened by indecision, anger or sorrow, or when I am grieving or searching for the "why" of something, it is often my horse's company I seek. 


Sounds crazy, yet I know horse people understand. Do horses have a special understanding of the complexities of human suffering? I don't know. Sometimes they seem to be good mirrors, reflecting back to us the powerful emotions we are projecting, and sometimes they seem patient, non-judgmental listeners to our unspoken hopes and fears...


To my horse:


"Here I am again, at your gate (damaged creature that I am) seeking a holy communion older than written history. Here I am, calling your name, your honest eyes see right through me. Yet still you come, willingly, from your temple of hay to greet me as though I was the only thing in the world you wanted. You breathe me in, and in return my senses are flooded with the fragrances of last summer's green grass and sun-warmed fur. Words escape me, and you lower your head and take my lead in the ancient horse-human dance that stops time, if just for a while.


You carry me on your wide, goddess-shaped back, and you carry my secret sorrows, too. For a little while I am rocked into a wordless bliss in the leather cradle of our old western saddle. But that vulture, Time, circles back around, casting a sorrow-shaped shadow, and the spell is broken: human and horse must part at the gate. The escaped words return and I ineptly express my gratitude, human-style. I leave, carrying my burdens with me as I go. Yet somehow I feel lighter, strengthened by our time together... 
who, indeed, is the "beast of burden"?