"Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us. To gallop intemperately; fall on the sand tired out; to feel the earth spin; to have - positively - a rush of friendship for stones and grasses"
- Virginia Woolf
Writer's Statement
I write for the horses…
Horses, wild and domestic, have always been my greatest passion and inspiration and I see myself continuing to do the kind of work that allows me to write about them in a way that connects with people. Writing and photography are both creative pursuits and complement each other well. I find the blending of prose and imagery the ideal combination of the very heart of the work I aspire to do – a reflection of who I am as a person and who I want to become as a writer.
As a child, I devoured books. I took solace in them and spent most of my childhood reading or playing outside. The house could be falling down around me and I wouldn’t lose focus. Writing came at an early age as well. I illustrated short stories and told my mother what I wanted written and she carefully inscribed the words under my close instruction.
As I grew older, I continued to write. I wrote for myself, to shake things off. I wrote in order to say what I meant because I wasn’t, and still am not good at speaking. But I did not think of myself as a 'writer.'
A Creative Writing class at UWS ignited the spark to share my writing with others, but it was a Nature Writing class that nurtured that spark into a flame. In the fall of 2016, I was inspired by a day trip near Mesa, Arizona when I set out to photograph wild horses at the Salt River Water Basin. I wanted some nice pictures - I ended up learning something about wild horses and myself in the process. As I wrote a short essay about the experience for my Nature Writing Class at UWS, I realized I wanted to do more of this – needed to do more of this. Not only for myself, but also to raise awareness of the issues surrounding wild horses and advocate for their preservation. Many people are unaware that there are still wild horses in the United States, and the sad fact is, far more of them live in captivity than are free.
So now I write for many of the same reasons I take photographs – to capture a moment, honor a memory, to record what I love about this world and mourn what I have lost. To tell a story, to remember it and hold it close. I write to honor the beauty and wildness in the world around me while there is still wildness left.
But most of all, I write for the horses…
