Salvaje (Wild)

Acrylic Painting 36” x 24”

As I traipsed across the Flying Horse Ranch, I encountered various bands of horses roaming freely within assorted massive pastures. They would look my way, then return to grazing. Some curious horses would approach me with lowered heads and relaxed ears, eager for a scratch under the chin. However, there was one bay who stood out from the rest. As I approached him and his band from a sizable distance, this trail horse raced out in front to meet me, head tossing, nostrils flaring, ready to protect his little band if I were a threat. In that moment, I felt like he reached out and squeezed my heart.

Like this horse, there is a wildness in me I can’t contain. It’s difficult to capture in words, so I shan’t even try. Suffice to say, some people think it is inspiring; others find it unnerving and unacceptable. I would love to say I have encountered far more people who celebrate my inner wildness, rather than those who try to exterminate or regulate it, but that is simply not true. If I am honest, that truth was a source of pain for many years. I longed to be a bit more tame and conventional so I would encounter more acceptance and understanding. Oddly enough, healing came through painting, not through the acceptance and understanding of others.

Salvaje (Wild) celebrates every wild heart. I painted it for the trail horse that sometimes still acts like a band stallion, for myself as wild speaks to wild, and for every person who moves for the sheer joy of it, who envisions more than the eye can see, who explores simply because the mountain is there, who dances to music that others can’t hear, and whose hearts and souls do not conform to this world. Stay wild.