RIDGWAY – Karen Keene Day and Alice Billings are both well known around these parts for their color-drenched paintings documenting the wild mustangs of Spring Creek Basin. The two friends have now teamed up to mount a joint presentation of their work in an art show that opens at the Ridgway Library this Saturday, Sept. 15 from 4-7 p.m.
The art opening includes wine, hors d’oeuvres, and a presentation by T.J. Holmes, the president of the Colorado Chapter of the National Mustang Association, who since 2007 has dedicated her life to studying and documenting the Spring Creek herd.
The wild horses of Spring Creek Basin live on almost 22,000 acres of public land in Disappointment Valley, about two hours from Ridgway. The herd is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, out of the Tres Rios Field Office in Dolores.
Day and Billings both belong to the Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners, a coalition of volunteers who advocate on behalf of the Spring Creek mustangs to the BLM for good management and protection of the herd and their range.
The artists were aware of each other’s work but hadn’t met until a year ago, when they both traveled to Disappointment Valley to observe a controversial BLM roundup, the goal of which was to cull about half of the herd, which had grown too large for the high desert range to sustain. A herd left alone will double in size in just four years, Billings explained.
Although methods have improved over the years, such roundups are not an easy thing to witness. The horses are chased by a helicopter into a stampede and corralled into enclosures not according to family group but rather by sex. Many things can, and often do, go wrong. Stallions fight. Mares protecting their foals start kicking.
On that particular day last fall, several horses lost their lives. The two artists forced themselves to watch, hugged each other, cried. A friendship was forged from the experience.
Billings, who is affectionately known around town as the “Horse Lady,” has a small horse sanctuary called Thunder Heart Haven on the outskirts of Ridgway. She was inspired by her experience that day to adopt one of the 40 Spring Creek mustangs that had been culled from the herd, a pretty young bay she named Liberty – Libby for short.
Libby had been impregnated by the head stallion of her band – dubbed Cinch by T.J. Holmes – whose neck was broken in a stampede during the BLM round-up last fall. Several months after Billings adopted Libby, her foal arrived in the world a stillborn. In spite of it all, Libby appears now to be thriving in captivity. She is the object of endless affection from Billings, and has found her place among the other horses in Billings’ herd.
On a sun-dappled morning late last week, Billings and Day perched on hay bales in the barn at Thunder Heart Haven, admiring how the resilient young Libby has adjusted to it all, and chatting about how the wild mustangs of Disappointment Valley have inspired them.
Last spring, Billings painted a series chronicling the horses that didn’t make it through the 2011 Spring Creek roundup. Now she has turned her painterly attention toward the new life that has since sprung from the herd in the form of 11 foals – some born wild in Disappointment Valley, others born in captivity to mares like Libby that were adopted after the roundup. Three of those foals live right here in Ridgway.
It’s in Billings’ nature to lean into the positive, and she sees a lot to celebrate in the way life has gone on, in all its sweet sadness, for the horses and the people that care about them. “It would be great if all of the horses could stay wild, but the reality is some management has to be done,” she acknowledged.
Day, a wild mustang activist since 1999, has also made a conscious decision in recent years to focus on the positive rather than allowing herself to become embittered by what can sometimes seem a hopeless cause. Her experience in activism taught her the hard way that people are turned off by tales and images of brutality.
But, those same people will linger over (and buy) paintings that portray the wild mustang’s magnificence, and will listen for hours to the soap opera stories of how the horses get along with one another. “They are majestic, amazing, beautiful animals, with an important place in our nation’s history,” Day said. “Focusing on the positive seems to be a more effective way to get people to care about them.”
Lately, Day has been making the trip to Disappointment Valley to paint and observe how the Spring Creek Herd has reorganized itself since the roundup. These days, for example, there is a “bachelor band” out roving the valley. Some of those “bachelors” – Libby’s father among them – are actually stallions that lost their family units in the roundup. Then there is Duke, whose role appears to be that of senior advisor – or lieutenant stallion – to the bachelors. Day mourns the loss of another stallion and favorite painting subject, Twister, who broke his leg this year and had to be put down.
Both Day and Billings, whose painting styles are quite different, agree that the mustangs have transformed them as artists and as women.
“They have so much to teach us,” reflected Day. “Their relationships with each other teach us about spontaneity, freedom and expression. In order to paint freely, you have to have so much passion and confidence for what you love to paint that you don’t worry about what you are painting. It just comes out.”
For more information and photos of the Spring Creek herd, visit springcreekwild.wordpress.com. Information on Alice Billings and Karen Keene Day can be found at horselady.us and karenkeeneday.com.
swright@watchnewspapers.com
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