The story of the toy horse

 

The symbolisim of the horse in celtic mythology is well known although to me it was only after personal experiences I had had that made me reflect on it more.

As far back as art college when I studied about the Blue Rider group the idea of the horse representing spiritual renewal struck me as poetic and the images painted by Franz Marc and others in posters promoting their ideas must have left an imprint in my brain. For me at this time there was an awakening as I began to study art in earnest. I drew fanatically and read about this movement and Kandinsky and how he used the music of Schoenberg to break away from figurative art into abstraction.

In 1995 while working as at the Octoberfest in Munich I saw a lot of Kandinskys works IN THE FLESH and maybe it was because I had studied him before, but the pictures really SANG OUT TO ME. Rarely have I had that same impact from experiencing art that I had in the LENBACHAUSE museum in Munich.

I painted and drew images of horses and went out to STUD farms to draw an investigate horses and their anatomy in more detail, but it wasn't really what I was looking for or saw in the paintings of the blue riders.

After my mother PASSED AWAY I had several experiences with horses and on finding the small horse in the back garden of my parents' house I began to build many small sculptures and several larger works around the horse.  

In July 2002 my mother died while waiting at the hair salon. 

I was working as an art teacher in Ireland at the time and I had finished the same day for the summer holidays. 

I spent a lot of time with my father that summer in the garden. 

                     The period directly after my mothers' death I felt hyper-sensitive in my grief. 

Things that at other times I would have passed over now took on a greater significance. While working in the garden of my parents' house I found a small toy horse. 

I thought it was either mine or my brothers. 

This simple toy symbolized so much for me in this moment and gave me much strength. 

For me it was a sign of her love. An act of affection that now built a bridge between us. A kiss to demonstrate that still she was with us.

The house was always full of people and life and laughter. I remember the silence was like the echo after a big applause .... 

I had many dreams of the sea in these times. I always felt it was something more infinite like the universe, it's waves crashing like rings of time as our lives pass through it. 

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