Our Lunge Print

I ruminate on the act of rearing. These paintings are portraits of my life, both the interior conceptual and exterior physical worlds. The overlay painting is of my shadow as I train a colt at the ranch, our home in the distance. Vivienne’s painting of a unicorn underneath. This is a love song to the decisions of rearing. Years ago, at a crossroads of my life, I was offered a job as one of the elephant trainers at a zoo in the north of England. It was a fun job interview and I liked the German lady who ran the program. The snippet of wisdom I got form that meeting was from both of us. She asked, “why do we need to train the animals?” and I answered, a little confused at the simplicity of the question an un floundering, “so they behave”. Perhaps we can learn much from the simplicity of animal training for the complexities of parenting.