Rescue in Ink

This piece was inspired by my daughter’s best friend and the mare she brought home from a local kill pen. When the horse first came into their hands, we believed she was pregnant. She had been advertised as bred, but whether it didn’t take, she lost the foal or had one before ending up there, nobody really knows and after being home a month or so she lost her big belly. Like a lot of horses that pass through these situations, parts of her story are missing. She is, however, a good horse.

Watching these two work together has been a reminder that good horses end up in bad circumstances more often than people realize. Kill pens are complicated and emotional places, and there’s plenty of debate surrounding them, but one thing I’ve seen firsthand is that great horses with many years left to them absolutely come through. Now these two are working hard together to be up to speed for rodeo season using gentle horsemanship techniques.

The artwork itself was done entirely in tattoo ink on watercolor paper. I chose a monochromatic black and gray so the piece will fit in any home our young rider has in her future. This piece isn’t really about perfection or polished riding. It’s about the beginning of trust between a girl and a horse that deserved another shot.

MERC