Nina de Creeft Ward
Fawn in Landscape, Head BackResting Doe, Head UpResting Doe and FawnResting Fawn and Doe Nose to EarResting Buck and DoeAlert Buck and Resting DoeDoe and FawnAlert CoyoteResting BuckDoe in Landscape Head BackCrossing: Two Pronghorn BucksChariot Horse #3: ThorionCap: "I'll take any job."ChallengerLookoutCoquetteBen: "They Cut Back My Hours"Bob: "I Can Pull Anything"Bill: "I'm Done With the Collar"Blue: "Aren't We Going Out Today?Babe: "Mom, I Applied Everywhere"Joe: "I Heard You Calling Me"Dave: "I Got Laid Off from My Job"Bess: "You Didn't Forget the Sugar?"Chariot Horse II: AetheChariot Horse I: Arion
Recent Works
Horses: Thoughts and Process

This series is about horses: about a lot of tossing, turning, expressive heads and necks in various surfaces, textures, and colors. For a long time now I have especially enjoyed drawing draft horses and using them as a theme in my art. This may be because my first horse, Red, was an old roman-nosed chestnut, sixteen hands tall and a little furry around the fetlocks. We bought him out of a field in Goleta when I was twelve, for twenty-five dollars. He might have been a plow horse, but I just rode him. He had his opinions, and a mouth like iron, but we worked things out together over time. I had other horses, but he somehow filled my eye, and it is mainly draft horses that have the solid look I love.

When I am working, I control the medium to a large extent, but I also feel some guidance from it, working in a sort of contemplative collaboration with the clay, or the printing plate, and the theme, and possibly the deity. I am usually hopeful when new directions appear, as they do, but I am never sure what will emerge. With this series, I started each neck about the same way, with two large slabs, impressed with rope and net textures when rolled out, then shaped over hump molds of piled up tee shirts. I made the form for each head by wrapping a slab around a lozenge shaped tee shirt bundle. When the parts stiffened up enough, I joined the neck sections. I worked on two at a time. In joining head and neck parts together, and adding mane and ears and features, the variations appear, and the attitudes emerge. Draft horses have simple names, so I gave each one a name, first, and then listened to what each one had to say to me, for the title. Nina de Creeft Ward, Fall 2012
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