A story about Frankie, and why I paint what I paint.
Hi,
I wanted to share a little about Frankie.
For three years, we lived up in the Los Padres National Forest in a little cabin in the woods, dreamy I know... And I spent hours exploring the trails on Frankie, with my cattle dog, Lolie, trotting along beside us. Sometimes we rode with friends, talking and laughing along the way. Other days, it was just the three of us, surrounded by sage, oak trees, and open sky.
The Los Padres trails are some of the roughest backcountry I’ve ridden through. Loose rock, steep switchbacks, and water crossings that changed with every storm (rougher than Namibia at times, more on that later) - some crossings were deep!
Early on in our time together, I made a conscious decision to completely trust Frankie’s choices. During the trickiest parts of the trails I made a decision to rest my reins on his neck letting them go, and trust that he would keep us safe by choosing the right way to go. From here he would lower his head and carefully choose his footing with no guidance from me. Through this, I came to know his wisdom so well and learned that he would always keep us safe… and slowly our confidence in each other grew. Horses are so wise after all.
I think about those rides often. Frankie finding his way, Lolie beside us, and hours to wander together with nowhere else to be. Frankie and my trust in each other grew slowly during these rides, over all the many, many miles together. Each time he carried me through a difficult stretch, I felt a little more at ease. I like to think he felt it too.
The artwork I later made based on this feeling is called Confidence (shown below in the gold frame) and it holds a little of that feeling of what those moments are like. The trust that grew between us through time spent on the trail, as letting go of the reins felt like the most natural decision in the world.
