I am currently working on a new Series of Three Gypsy Vanner horses.  I’m pretty excited about it.  My last Series, “Gentle Giants”, consisted of three stallion sculptures.  This new series will consist of three sculptures showing a mare with her foal. The story of the piece will show a thematic representation of the special bond between a foal and its mother.  The first sculpture of this series is called “Precious Moment”.

I think the second sculpture should be about a lesson that a mare would teach her foal.  I remember seeing a new Arabian colt in a Scottsdale pasture being escorted by “mom” around the ring for the first time.  She was teaching her boy how to trot.  It was so much fun seeing this little guy trying to keep up.  It would be the first of many lessons to be learned.  Maybe I should call it
“The Lesson” OR “ In Sync”.  If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them

Art is so important, especially in today’s “high tech” world with computers and electronic information coming to us in such immeasurable speeds.  I don’t’ know about you, but I think the world would be a better place if we all found time to take breather and escape from the hectic day to day world.  I fully believe that the phrase “Stop and smell the roses” should become everyone’s daily mantra.  Maybe to make this work in today’s society we need to re-phrase it to read: “Stop and smell the coffee” … which could help millions rejuvenate and replenish their souls and bodies.  Even in the coffee houses with Wi-Fi connections, we can’t seem to relax for that coffee break.  Whatever happened to our break time?

Now that I think about it, I should have paid more attention to the benefits of “recess” in grade school!

Another breed that I am passionate about is the Friesian horse.  I can literally go “over the river and through the woods” from Lake Tahoe to the quaint town of Gardnerville, Nevada – to Maddi’s Friesian Ranch.  Here on the east side of the High Sierra was heaven on earth for the life of a Friesian horse.  With over 40 acres wrapped with some of Mother Nature’s most spectacular sites, it was paradise found – not only for the colts who are annually bred in this environment – yet for me as a sculptor and aficionado of the equine breed with their large muscular body and flowing mane, tail and feathered hooves.

These horses are all black and in the sunlight their muscles seem to explode when they prance in pasture practicing their Dressage skills; it is pure magic to see the how the Friesian breed seem to transform incredible movements that require immense physical strength into what seems to be a “ballet” of their natural beauty.

Since my first sighting, I have learned that Dressage is indeed a sport of beauty and only possible when the horse and rider have formed a true partnership.   If time would ever allow, I could spend days trying to understand the unexplainable magic that happens within the “human and horse relationship” that only those who are truly in tune to this breed can appreciate and understand. Until then, I’ll continue to seek out new opportunities to reach out and stretch my hands over their sunlit structures while the sun sets over the Sierra.