Horse Culture

One of my early works was this Paleolithic
Horse shown at left.





Horse Culture evolved slowly beginning with a piece of steel I believe is a catalytic converter heat shield found on the side of a road in New Hampshire.  In combination with the toe section of a woman's white shoe (formerly my wife's), a head emerged.


By itself, this was a suggestion of a head.  In mounting this on the section of a mortised beam from an demolished barn, a figure developed.  The mouth, formed from the heel of the same shoe and wire clippings plus a vertebrae from an unknown animal pushed the figure towards the horse-like shape shown here.

The significant move towards the title came when I added a previously made figure as the rider.  Discovering both the logic of the form and the import of humanity's connection to the horse both in the time when it was transportation, a war machine, and a revered animal with a unique spiritual link to humankind, brought other elements into play as well as the first use of oil paints (from a 50 year-old painting box).