Cool Wateroil on birch panel, 8x6
When I was a little girl I was, like many little girls, horse crazy. I started riding when I was about six and within a year had convinced my parents I had to have my own horse. During the school year, I rode in the afternoon and on weekends and in the summer I spent a good deal of my time on horseback exploring the fields, pastures and woods in north Florida where I grew up. There was a large pond (or at least it seemed large to me) on the edge of a pasture at the barn where I boarded my horse. After a ride on hot summer afternoons, I would strip off my horse's tack (and my own shoes and socks) and ride bareback with just a halter and rope into the pond. As we moved out to the center of the pond where the water was deepest, I would float like a leaf off my horse's back, holding on to his mane and the halter rope. His legs would begin to churn beneath me and the cool water from the bottom of the pond would rise up and envelop me. It was the most perfect sense of freedom I have ever known.
7 comments:
You must have been a very happy little girl. The picture you are "painting" from the past reads like part of a very romantic story...
I love this painting. It's marvellous!
Greetings, Petra
Hi Petra. Yes, I had an incredibly happy childhood. I'm glad you enjoyed the story and the painting. Thanks for visiting!
wow, what a wonderful memory--which explains something for me. Your work often reads like a memory. I realize much of what you paint is done plein air, but they have the quality of a fond memory.
Thank you Ed- I think that is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about my work! I do believe strongly in the use of both memory and imagination in my work.
You have me fully engaged, here. I have a story like this, too, about an image remembered from youth.
I am making it a goal to follow that image some more this next year, BTW. Thanks for the inspiration!
It is so strange Deborah but at the moment I am reading a novel called "The seduction of water" by someone not so well known called Carol Goodman. It's about the memory of fairy tales told to her by a young woman's mother when she was a child. This mother used to write fairy tales and folk lore and tell them to the girl when she was growing up. Better stop now or I'll be filling up the whole of blogland !
Hi Casey. Thanks and I look forward to seeing/hearing more about that! And thanks for your mention of me on your blog too.
Sounds like a book I would like, Sheila! Water definitely holds a major fascination for me-transparent,reflective, still, moving, calm, angry-its a great metaphor for so much in life.
Post a Comment