The Best Art: Stream of Conscience and the Minimalist Philosophy of Horses

The morning after I slept in a caboose, I walked the grounds of the Donovan farm trying to capture its beauty in a 6" flat cellphone. I was literally drunk on aesthetica. (Did I coin a word there? Maybe. I do that frequently). The four souls in the cover picture above were the icing on the cake, so to speak. Especially since one is a Morgan, and I have a special fondness for that breed. I used to dream of buying a particular mare who was half Appaloosa and half Morgan, Back In the Day. This particular horse is hiding. All you can see of her is her hindquarters, in the extreme left of the pic.

I love horses. I love their looks, their smell, their whinnies, their gallops, their snorts. . . but I never had one. Mary Beth has FOUR of them. Coincidentally or not, she also has four pieces of minimalistic horse art that she has linked with each of these lovely creatures...who regarded me with curiosity, until they realized that I had not come to feed them, only to ogle.

I discovered these works of art in her bathroom and dutifully clicked their pictures. I was struck by their starkness which was juxtaposed with the profound wisdom of their captions. I knew I would refer back to them, again and again...and I have. Now I want to share them with you, to see if they will reveal themselves to you while they play with your mind. I bet they burrow into your souls alternately like thorns and salves like they did mine.

And yes, I have permission to do so.

Interestingly, Mary Beth and I have similar tastes in sinks. I too have a waterfall sink, but mine is large, rectangular and burnt orange. Yet our tastes are decidedly different in the same style of sink. There are metaphors in those differences, but they are probably only evident to me. Such is the lot of poets: forever self-analyzing; forever seeing types and shadows of the self compared to others in inanimate objects.

Moving on...

When I was younger, my preferences and perceptions of art involved lavish color, quasi-lurid shapes, and provocative subject matter. Think Monet. Think Van Gogh. Think Dali. But there is something to be said for the process of aging. Time may filter perceptions and tastes, distilling them to their important elements (and hopefully to their quintessences). Now I find myself preferring the simple line of contour and context. And the profundity of the understatement.

So then: what is art? Is it merely the pretty replications of real or imaginary perceptions? Far greater minds than mine have tried to smooth out the wrinkles in that question, so I know better than to go there. I want instead to suggest that you let these simple watercolor drawings of equine philosophers be like periwinkles in the shoreline of your minds. You will doubtlessly treasure their wisdom once they dig in.

Because the captioning is highly stylized, it may not be easily legible. That's why I am going to patiently and pedantically write out each one.

"What is freedom?", cried the boy. "To be loved as you are," said the horse.

"What is the bravest thing you've ever said?", asked the boy. "Help," said the horse.

"What was the most beautiful experience of your life?" "Finding I wasn't alone," said the horse.

And finally, I saved the Morgan for last. Now you can see why these magnificent animals are my favorite...AND the Morgan gets to deliver the Best Line of Equine Philosophy:

"What's your favorite discovery?", asked the boy. "That I'm enough as I am," said the horse.

Hopefully I didn't get in the way of these terse objets d'arts. It has felt like trying to weave a basket from guitar strings, horsehair, hay and watercolor.