Brenda Moore Statement

As a child I yearned to keep a horse to posses a horse and was obsessed by everything related to this creature to the point of taking on its spirit. Never was this yearning realized in actuality. I started making art about this subject as early as age five as a means to cultivate this desire. It was as if I believed a horse would magically materialize in my suburban backyard from performing this act. For most of my life this goal has been put aside for one reason or another. Since childhood I have felt a kinship with horses with a sense of compassion for their nature: their joy, curiosity, their fear, sorrow: their loss of spirit or soul, due to mans treatment. Having never rode horses as a child or had any contact; save for a few glimpses from a car window or petting zoo, this creature has remained aloof. As the years have gone by embarrassment relocated emulation to be a horse on the outside to the inside.

Looking back on my work I have noticed that at least every five years the horse has been included in or a main focus as subject. For this exhibition I decided to indulge my desire to possess this animal, researching horses: horse sense, handling, grooming and care, owning, learning to ride, etc. A Standard Saddlebred named Ace is my current teacher in the schools of self- determination, discipline, and respect for my teacher as well as myself. Ultimately this has led to a self-reckoning that has reconnected my sense of compassion and vulnerability.

This body of work was indeed to be about the horse solely, by portraying its behavior from the animal’s point of view. In doing so, human nature crept in: pretensions, apprehensions, anxiety, as well as self-doubt all surrounded the work. The original intention to represent this subject changed in part to more of an anthropomorphic view, realizing I was using this animal as metaphor for people in my life as well as myself (also casting this subject in roles significant of recent events).

The horse in the bedroom. is inspired by my bedroom from childhood. Universally it is to symbolize a girl child’s room that has fallen head over heels in love with horses. My Breyer horse collection is in tact on the shelves of the hutch along with my childhood books and my modified rocking chair/horse. Also in the bedroom is work made through the years to include a more recent past. The horse in the bedroom. is a reflection on my life, about making connections of present and past in order to order my future.

When I was a kid I begged relentlessly for at least a rocking horse, a nice wooden one or plastic it did not matter. My parents never came through. Through desperate measures I reinvented my little wooden rocking chair into a suitable substitute for riding by drawing a horse’s face on the back of the chair and sitting backwards.

When I was like 7 or 8 I remember working on a drawing of a horse in pencilfor hours. My model was one of my plastic Breyer horses. I tried painstakinglyto record the proportions accurately, working diligently to capture my subject. When the drawing was finished I felt a sense of accomplishment from having worked so hard. I presented it to my grandmother, as she studied the drawing her only comment was “If this horse was real those legs would not support him, he would topple over”, (pointing out the disproportions in the body). Needless to write I was crushed, devastated. Now I find myself much older and trying to make the same impossible drawing of the same subject.

3.Equianthropy: a made up word to describe the desire to want to become a horse, displaying horse behavior usually afflicting young girls

I used to imitate horses, make believe I was one. I would gallop through my backyard, setting up the picnic table benches to jump over. In the yard was a weeping willow tree with leaves to which I would fashion into a tail. Hours and hours I played this, if I could not have a horse I would be one. Making up elaborate stories playing them out with my friends or happy to just pretend alone. Horse names were important: Clearpiece, Snakedancer, and Savannah are a few I can remember.

4. C.W Anderson: artist/writer of children’s books, particularly known for the Billy and Blaze series. The adventures of Billy and Blaze were a childhood favorite and I believe undoubtedly sparked my interest in drawing. These books featured beautifully anatomical renderings in graphite.

Since the age of four I have known how to work needle and thread. Studied as a painter, I picked up sewing again in graduate school. Moving to Chicago I found greater influence of stitch as a form of visual communication.

I have arrived at this body of work from different desires. The first initial desire was to use a dickie collar that was given to me by a woman I worked for in some kind of art related piece. It was hand sewn from France, delicate, unusual and old.

The next desire was to elaborate on this initial intention to use something given by applying a principle of recycling utilizing material that I already had. I started to use my hair. I have long hair and often have to collect it to avoid clogging up my bathroom tub drain. I found myself feeling guilty disposing of it in the trashcan. I was not sure why just that I was wasting it. So I began to sew onto the Victorian dickie collars I had begun to collect using my hair to make delicate designs. Being an image-maker I wanted to add this part of myself into the work, I chose the medium of mono-print based on extensive drawings. The subject matter: weasels, nasty little creatures like minks and so forth that are often used to make fur coats to encapsulate one in luxury and warmth. I decided to show them in their original state, as nasty little creatures.

So all this is coming together through natural, instinctual choices, when a friend suggested I research some Victorian practices. Thought this investigation I found I was using some of the same practices of the Victorian period, particularly hair art in brooches and also the use of hair for stuffing pillows and blankets etc. Not all the dickies include my hair some of it is from one of my students and some is horse mane.