Painting and art have been an essential part of my entire life. Some of my earliest memories include standing at the corner of my father’s easel, under the glare of the clamp light, and watching him paint images of cowboys and wildlife.
From childhood through graduate school I have studied painting, art history, and art education. I began teaching art thinking of myself as an artist who teaches. Fortunately, I learned enough from my students to understand that teaching art is an art form in itself. I love sharing art with my students each day and I find it enriches my own identity as a painter. Although I dabble as a plein air painter, I primarily work in my studio where I channel my life-long connection with horses into painting their form and distinctive gesture. I am often questioned about my singular focus on horses and I have sincerely experimented with other subjects, but the horse as a figurative subject is my inherent and true muse. Perhaps it all goes back to my first horse “Syrup,” a stocky little bay mare with a pretty-shaped head: I loved to just look at her as much as I loved to ride her. (Which is a good thing considering our rodeo days running barrels can be summed up with her name.)
Statement
While pursuing a master’s degree in art, I painted plein air agricultural landscapes and I wrote a thesis about the environmental importance of safeguarding these homesteads. I loved the conceptual process, but it wasn’t the subject I most wanted to be painting. Since then I have unapologetically focused on painting the subject of the horse. I have painted thousands of horses over the years and I am still quite obsessed with capturing their form, gesture, and social nature in various painting approaches.I have been fortunate that esteemed art shows such as the Mountain Oyster Club Art Show, the Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show, the Goodnight Barn Art Show, and the American Quarter Horse Museum Art Show have supported my work towards this end.