I had carried my sketchbook along in hopes of a great drawing opportunity. Unfortunately, since the bulk of the exhibits had been moved indoors, each demonstration area was quite crowded.  At the Arts Center there was barely any elbow room, much less “sketching room”…and so I did not have the opportunity to create the drawings I had planned.

I did learn a few things…

There were no lead pencils in 1835. Children used a type of stone stylus to write their letters.

Broom corn was first imported to this country by Benjamin Franklin. The United States soon became the largest grower of broom corn and manufacturer of brooms in the world.

I learned that straw was also used to test a cake for “doneness”.

All in all, a very interesting day. The next event in this 175th Anniversary Series will take place on January 23 at the Aiken County Historical Museum.

Cloud, a wild horse made famous by a television documentary on wild horses, is in jeopardy.  Please sign a petition (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/4/stop-the-massive-removal-of-cloud39s-wild-horse-herd) asking the Bureau of Land Management to preserve America’s wild horses….

See article below:

Bureau of Land Management on Rampage to Destroy Famous Wild Horse Herd

Cloud and the wild horses of Montana’s Pryor Mountains are world famous but fame it appears is not going to protect the herd from a drastic government round up planned to begin September 1st in their spectacular wilderness home.
There are currently only 190 wild horses (one year and older) living in the Pryor Mountains. The BLM plans to remove 70 of them, plus foals. According to the foremost equine geneticist, Dr. Gus Cothran, 150-200 adult horses are needed in the herd to ensure their genetic diversity, which is vital to their long term survival.

These 70 horses would be placed in jeopardy. Any horses over 10 years of age can be bought directly by killer buyers and transported over the Northern border to Canadian slaughterhouses or south into Mexico. Younger horses not adopted would be put into government holding with 33,000 others that the BLM has removed from the wild and has proposed killing because they can no longer afford to feed them.
BLM cites poor range condition as the reason to remove the horses but abundant snow and rain for the past two and a half years has produced wonderful range conditions according to all who have visited Cloud and his herd.  The Agency is not listening to anyone. They want this herd gutted. Nearly all the mares returned to the range would be given an experimental two-year infertility drug, PZP-22.
This helicopter round up is just one among many that the BLM is trying to complete, before the Obama Administration can catch up with what is going on.

The Pryor Mountain wild horses are descendents of the Lewis and Clark horses who were stolen by the Crow Indians in the early 1800′s.  They can be traced further back to the horses brought over with the Spanish Conquistadors in 1500 making them the most Spanish of all wild horse herds in North America.

Please contact The Cloud Foundation for more information.
www.thecloudfoundation.org, info@thecloudfoundation.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , 719-633-3842

“Broken”  Acrylic on Canvas  8 x 10

It is interesting to me that in my last post….I spoke about wanting to get back to creating artwork that was more emotionally-inspired.  And this new work is indeed very emotional–in fact moreso than I even intended or anitcipated.

I painted it intermittedly throughout the summer. Usually summer is my favorite time of year–but not this time. It turned out to be a season of crises to be managed–one after another after another. I became so exhausted with fatigue and worried…I felt broken and battle-weary.

As I painted, the painting became darker and darker and darker…the fire grew larger and cast smoke and embers into the sky…..and my poor winged horse who was originally meant to be simply falling began to look beaten and burned….

And now my painting is completed–and the summer is over.  Healing can start and new hope will rise from the ashes…

And so I have struggled to find a way to appease the demands from the buying public to paint “real horses”, and my desire to create more emotionally-based imagery.

Many of my horse and carriage images are an attempt at compromise.  They are real horses placed in settings that exist only in memory.

Unfortunately, I often feel that the horse and carriage scenes, while pretty, are not lively enough.

And too many of the little drawings in my sketchbook are never fully realized because they are not necessarily happy “real horse” scenes.

It’s been hard to try and please two masters and frustrating in this current economy to try to create art to please buyers that are holding on to their purse strings ever more tightly.

Something’s gotta give….

As a cure for “Artist’s Block”, I have heard that one is supposed to write down everything that is bothering them.

Now that may work for some folks, but for me–writing is a terrible chore.  I really worry about what I am going to say and how I am going to say it. (And notice the lack of typos in my blog….that’s right, I worry about spelling, grammar and punctuation, too!) So I have not found writing to be a good tool for getting past a block.

What works for me is scribbling. 

I grab a few pages from my sketchbook and I scribble….and scribble…..and scribble…..and scribble….

Until the squiggly lines start to look like shapes and forms and IDEAS.

And then all of a sudden amidst the scribbles a little smiley face will pop up….

And from there one drawing will lead to another

And I will have moved past my block.

Time to get scribbling!

That is always a nice feeling! A small break to re-organize and re-charge. 

Today, it feels as though a storm front is moving through.  The air is alternating between the summer heat and a cool breeze.  The sky is hazy. I can hear the distant thunder.

Then it will be time to start the next big proejct….

I don’t know whether it will be something personal that I’ve been wanting to create for myself, or whether it will be a job for a client or collector.

I guess I will see what opportunities blow in along with the rain….

I have found myself in the strange position lately, of creating custom works for individuals who would prefer to keep the whole matter private.  As I am a very private person myself, I completely understand their desire to avoid being “blogged” about….

But on the other hand, it certainly makes it seem as if I don’t create a lot of art…

What a conundrum!