Visual Language Magazine Contemporary Fine Art Vol 2 no 10 October 2013

When I was a child my favorite toys were a pencil and paper. My mother, grandmother, and aunts will
all tell you I always knew the proper way to hold a pencil. I’d sit for hours at 4 years old drawing the
usual things little girls draw; fairies, princesses, birds and horses, so many horses.
When people ask me how I became an artist I tell them it was my love for horses. I was a little girl without
a real horse so I drew myself herds of them. At the age of 9 I was fortunate enough to begin riding
lessons. The teacher, knowing my love of drawing horses, gave me stacks of old horse magazines. I
studied them cover to cover and made many drawings using the horses in the magazines as inspiration.
What an amazing gift that old stack of magazines was to me.
I did finally get that horse at the age of 14. She was small and dark and I named her Sassy for good
reason. I discovered that my favorite part about owning a horse was watching her run thunderously
across the pasture and kick up her heels in joy. It’s an amazing sight to see.
It was summer and I was 16 when I began to paint. My father had bought some wood panels from the
local craft store and I borrowed one, went into the attic with some craft paint, and started painting. I
was amazed at what I had done. It actually looked good. I think it was a painting of deer by a lake.
Next, I did a beautiful horse running through a field of bluebonnets.
The painting bug had bitten and all summer I was in the attic with my coffee, blueberry bagels, and my
CD player. It was heaven on earth. I sold every painting I made that summer.
The following summer was truly inspirational. In high school I played the french horn very well and I
had the invited to tour 7 countries in Europe with a band made up of high school kids from all across
America. I was able to see the old and magnificent European cathedrals and tour the Louvre in Paris,
France. Seeing centuries of art all together in one amazing palace was more awe inspiring than this
small town Texas girl could have dreamed.
www.songbrushgallery.com