Unfinished Business With Horses
Born a city kid, yet somehow developing a great love for horses, especially ones that could talk and fly, I devoured all books and television programs with horses, and cajoled my friends into playing a game I rather unimaginatively called “Horse”. Sometimes after my mother put my older sister and I to sleep in the same bedroom, my sister would pretend to be asleep. I was waiting for that in order to pop up and pretend to gallop around my bed undetected. Of course, as soon as I started galloping I would hear raucous giggles coming from the other bed and had to abandon my ride across the prairie.
Later as a preteen, I planned on becoming a jockey, but as I grew bigger and couldn’t really fathom the racing pages, I was forced to abandon that career plan. We eventually moved to a house in the suburbs with a small backyard. My mother swore no one was allowed to have a horse in their backyard. I called the Town Clerk to verify. The Clerk said horses were allowed if kept 11 ft. from the property line, a regulation I triumphantly relayed to my mother. She asked if I understood I would be the one to clean up the considerable mess a horse would make as she was already busy cleaning up after the dog. Maybe it wasn’t such an appealing idea after all.
I settled for sitting on my bike with the kickstand down and a rope attached to the handlebars for reins. There were a few actual horseback rides over the years though. They were magical, but more difficult and painful than I had imagined. My obsession with horses slowly faded as I grew into a teenager.
Fun memories of my former delight in horses started to resurface in recent years. I was fascinated reading about the huge equestrian statue for the Duke of Milan that Leonardo da Vinci designed and created in a wax model. Unfortunately an invading French army destroyed it but it was re-created from his design at a foundry in Beacon, New York in 1999. It’s said that it was a source of pain to Leonardo that the statue was never cast in bronze. The Tallix Foundry finally realized Leonardo’s dream and the beautiful bronze statue was brought to life. It was on view to the public and I saw the magnificent work there before it was given as a gift to the city of Milan.
Somewhat sadly realizing that having reached this stage of my life without having galloped anywhere, it was clearly never going to happen. Feeling a sense of loss, I saw that I still had unfinished business in my heart with horses and decided to explore it in this painting. The comic book panel format lends itself well to underlining the passage of time as my relationship with horses, real and imagined, changed over the years. The painting is 36” x 24” on canvas painted with acrylics and India ink and utilizes 4 panels to illustrate the story.
Panel 1 – Tethered
In Panel 1, a child-like figure sits on a horse wearing a jockey’s costume. The marionette looming out of the panel is typical of childhood toys and characters, but is also, like the horse, tethered with complex restraints. In childhood, dreams can loom large but constraints are very much a part of being small and dependent.
Panel 2 – Traveling
As an adult, now free to travel the world, I did get to sit on a camel in Egypt. It wasn’t quite the same as flying like the wind across the Great Plains on a majestic horse. However, with the Great Pyramids as a backdrop, sitting on a four-legged animal that could gallop across the desert at 40 mph if it wanted to, was definitely a magical and close second.
Panel 3 – Artistic Aspirations
Panel 3 represents my years dedicated to painting and mixed media. The equestrian statue is based on Leonardo da Vinci’s design. The base is inscribed as such with a nod to his backwards handwriting. Being a great admirer of Renaissance art, particularly Leonardo’s, the horse rearing up to unseat any artist daring to sit on him seems appropriate. No one has really been qualified to sit there since Leonardo.
Panel 4 – Untethered
The last panel returns the horse and marionette from Panel 1 transmuted into art on a gallery wall, as viewed by an artist now grown and looking back on childhood yearnings. Is the now untethered puppet Childhood waving good-bye? How will he live with no restraints, a question we all face as adults. The painted horse has broken free too and runs untethered to greet me. Even though childhood has gone, imagination can still conjure up a beautiful white horse to stand loyally by my side again anytime I want. The viewer is invited to revisit their childhood dreams and honor them as the seeds from which their life’s realities flowered.
Unfinished Business with Horses by Ellen Chadwick, acrylic and ink on canvas, 36″x24″, 2025, in collection of the artist.