There is big stuff to finish, the new large scale work I have made is close but the final details always take longer than you think.. Redoing hands to get the gestures right and re-positioning  the bodies and the horses eyes until the expression pulls on the heart ….

these big guys have wonderful details that are rusty metal and found bits from the cobblestone streets and highway where I walk to the studio to paint …

 

perhaps a bit about that …

I joined a painting group this winter in San Miguel to push my work and learn more about painting …  I worked with a gorgeous young multi talented artist who was willing to help me with my experiments and insecurities. Week two I carried my large canvas horse to the studio … everyone who saw me laughed or waved perhaps because how many gringas bring a large scale canvas stuffed horse on a bus? and the neighbors who honestly wonder about me anyways … see me come out the door and walk down the street with my horse tucked under my arms … everyone was smiling on that fine morning.

 

 

 

The horses are meant to represent me.     My life.    a tired horse     my long hour work ethic     my worn out parts that have been over utilized for this journey  …  and as me, they carry the muse, the figures that guide my work.

 

 

Each morning, as I walked to the studio, I made it my mission to find the bits and pieces for their manes and tails. So it was another comedy of sorts on a certain morning when I walked the highway scanning the ditches and shoulders for treasure. This morning, the perfect thing laid out in middle of the road. I waited for a break in traffic to fetch my morning’s prize. Why were there so may cars on that road ?   finally, patience lost, I ran out and grabbed the piece of rope.  The approaching cars slowed  as I made my triumphant exit.

There will be a story of the strange little woman that runs out to the middle of the highway to collect …  dirty bits of rope.   W E L L   that rope was worth the dash through the traffic and who knows what legend I have inspired.

I must confess however, I am not the only stranger who collects weird bits of debris on the roadside…

 

Onward to the studio. I had this torn pagefrom an old art magazine  in my files to show how I imagined the skin of the horses. Carmen (my teacher) stared at the picture for a few minutes and then gave me a sequence of layers and  colours to begin. Not at all how I would have approached it so I was engaged and curious.

It was as if she could see below the surface of the image.I stood beside her and also stared hard at that crumpled paper but could not see what she saw. I would eventually, however.

Days determined by the drying time for the paint brought enough understanding of layering oil paint to go home and begin the other horses.

 

T I M E …………   I thought it impossible to complete my vision of seven horses. As usual in my life, while working on the first layers I had over prepared and sewn seven canvas bodies. Once ready to start I took a moment to be realistic and decided I could only complete three…

The weekend was intense and the horses were very dark, smelly (turpentine and oil) and dirty looking in their first stages. Rick named our house  THE STABLE  and Claude exclaimed that they were beautiful and I should  s t o p … ha ! they had no idea what I was planning ….. !

 

Needless to say the layers continued and every day Claude would say the same thing …  s t o p !!!    until I listened and did.

 

 

so …  the details I am now attaching are broken hoses  … twisted wires that fell from construction trucks and driven into the cobblestones … and famous highway rope tails I will be the legendary for ….

 

 

Three horses seemed not enough. I might be a tired horse but still have some giddy up left in me so three became five and then in a final push there were  s e v e n . . .

 

r i g h t … better get to it …