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Painting Wild Horses by Karen Aleman
After several months of searching, I was driving home from town when I saw a stray horse on the outside of a rancher’s fence. Figuring I was doing someone a favor, I pulled up near the horse and grabbed a lead rope out of the back of my truck. As I slowly approached the stallion, a neighbor yelled, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, that’s a wild horse!” I must have turned three shades of red. I felt like “out-of-state” was written all over my bumper, but inside I was bubbling with excitement. I had seen a wild horse! It turned out that the horses were closer to home than I thought. A band of about a dozen wild horses roamed the hills around our house, and I had the joy of observing them on several occasions. I began to recognize the individual members of the herd, including a beautiful jet-black stud colt. In the spring the babies came with their long, spindly legs, fuzzy ears and curly tails. The band would let me approach slowly at a distance, especially if I looked down with my head turned away from them. They would always let me know when I was too close, as if I had crossed an invisible line. The mares would nudge the foals to their feet and hide them in the middle of the herd as they trotted away, while the stallion positioned himself between us. It wasn’t long before I purchased a longer lens for my camera and photographed them all summer long in the evening light, with the Pinenut Mountains turning purple and red in the distance.
When winter came mounds of wind-sculpted snow covered the sagebrush. Trudging through the snow, sometimes up to my knees, I was able to photograph the horses in their long coats with their heads lowered and their backs turned to the harsh wind. Then the miracle of spring arrived, and the high desert came alive with tender green grass. Incredible wildflowers carpeted the hillsides, with snow-covered peaks visible in every direction. I couldn’t get enough, and I began pulling out my pastels to paint the amazing scenes I was observing. And then came the greatest discovery yet. I came across a valley where over thirty wild horses had descended from the mountains looking for new spring grass. These were the wilder mustangs, unaccustomed to people, and not as easy to photograph. The different bands kept to themselves and seemed to cohabitate peacefully, with the exception of one young loner stallion in search of his own herd. He was a tall, muscular chestnut with a thick neck, a flaxen mane and tail, and a white blaze with a brown spot right in the middle. I watched him challenge stallion after stallion: snorting, pawing, backing down, and sometimes fighting. One day he walked straight up to me as I was sitting in the sagebrush with my camera. He stood there tall, proud and unafraid, silhouetted against the snow-covered Sierra Nevada. He took my breath away. It wasn’t until two years later that I saw him with a herd of his own. He deserved it, after all that effort. A friend recently asked why the wild horses I paint always look so pretty. I told her it’s because that is the way I see them. They are by no means refined show horses. They are compact, sure-footed horses with convex profiles and long, tangled manes. I paint them as they are, without embellishment. Yet if I am able to portray their untamed spirit, they are indeed beautiful. |
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