After years of city living something changed with our move to the country, something we weren’t expecting. Not after all the years of turning off, blocking out, bolting in, keeping the sensory overload on the other side of the locked apartment door. We ventured to Long Island each weekend for Alexandria to ride horses. We knew nothing about them but in a short time we each had a strong wanting to be with them, something that was yet to be understood. I don’t remember the exact moment that we even thought about moving but when we found a barn on 3 acres in various stages of disrepair, we just knew.
It was imperceptible at first. We were changing on the inside and only began to really know it once we were comfortable enough with horses to just be with them. A stillness at day’s end, their exhale, our exhale. To find this pure moment in yourself is a kind of prayer, a gratitude, a transcendence carried on a breath. The gates open to a place where nothing is as you have always believed. Not even yourself. Silence has its own voice, ever changing subtleties paint each dawn and dusk, fill the sky with stars and wash the paths in moonlight. Of course, all of this had always been there but now was our time to know it. The only way to ever see the stars is to stand in complete darkness.
The seasons came and went like tides, changing the contours of our lives, leaving behind their tokens, filling the crucible of our creativity. We worked as always, painting, building, shaping, layering but now the sticks and stones had new life. A voice. We make things with what has been all around us, wood, stone, metal, clay, all with their own beauty, spirit, story. We make things with what is inside of us. Our collaboration is an echo of the old ways, we bring our skills, our ways, our knowing and infuse our creations with what has given us meaning. It is the meaning that sustains us on the journey.