The Origin of Lost Creek Stables

I believe in the power and mystery of art.

It picks you. It takes you on its own journey, if you choose to allow it. It’s a surrendering, more than anything.

And that’s why I couldn’t control the subject or the time when I finally figured out what would hang in our main room. To get to that, however, we have to go back even further.

The Beginning of the Beginning

It was Christmas. My older sister wasn’t amused because I’d been peeling the corners of her gift to try and guess what she’d bought for me. It looked like a book, but she kept insisting it was a board game. On Christmas morning, I unveiled a horse encyclopedia.

I never loved anything so much in my life.

I used it to teach myself how to draw by studying and analyzing different horse breeds. In grade school I handed my dad one of the horses I’d drawn, and I remember him taking it outside to show Uncle Sam. That was when I first realized I had a gift for art.

On our dairy farm, one of my jobs was to saddle my horse and round up our cows each day in the summer. When I think back, it amazes me how little I was when I caught, saddled, and rode all by myself. The milk cows loved routine, so it wasn’t usually a hard job, but Dad put a lot of trust in me (and my mount). When I wasn’t riding, I would hang out in the fields with the horses or sit on their backs while they grazed. It’s a beautiful thing to grow up like that, and while I appreciate it so much now, during that time I became obsessed with one section of the horse encyclopedia: the sports that showed them jumping.

The world of helmets and leaping became an obsession. It was so different than my world of dust and ropers. There wasn’t an opportunity to learn how to jump white fences in cowboy country, but I drew myself doing just that in class (sorry Mr. K) and dreamt about it at night.

The encyclopedia crumbled my junior or senior year of high school. It couldn’t be taped together one more time. I don’t remember if it made me sad. I was ready to leave and experience the world. Horses faded away during college. I fell in love, married, and was eventually raising babies. We were state hopping and apartment hunting. Horses weren’t an option, and I rarely thought about them.

Fast-forward to 2014ish. We’d moved back to Wyoming. We were working our way back from the hits of the great Recession, I was recovering from some dark years of postpartum depression, and I was starting to have some success with my design business. My oldest daughter was fascinating: she never played with dolls. She had an obsession with horses that I had never given her. There were too many other things asking for my attention, like three kids and a new business. However, Dave and I decided we could buy one horse…a trail horse…and give her the delight of riding. So that’s what we did. We figured we could throw it in with Grandpa’s horses be done. Occasionally I would hop on, and every time I did, there was the familiar sensation of being home.

One day my curiosity got the better of me.

I had fought for awhile to regain a positive view on life after the depression. To believe in possibilities and miracles again. And I began to think of old dreams, even the impossible ones.

Like jumping horses.

A quick internet search showed that there was a barn an hour and a half away that gave riding lessons. In what I felt was a wild move, I called the number and set up my first lesson.

When my GPS dumped me at the barn, I timidly parked and found my way to to Anna, who I’d talked with on the phone. A few horses walked by, and their size immediately amazed me. They were so tall! Anna was warm and welcoming (thank you Anna), and I felt a little bit better about my crazy idea.

“Have you been around horses?”

“Yes,” I said. “I used to ride every day.”

“Good,” she said, and she handed me a saddle.

I was at a loss again. I couldn’t even tell which way it went on. It didn’t have a horn.

And so the rest of the day went. I was in a foreign but happy, sort of familiar world. I needed to get my “sea legs” back but it was thrilling. I bought a whole set of lessons and made the drive across state lines whenever I could. Eventually my daughter wanted to join me, so I’d swoop up the kids after school on Thursdays. The two younger kids watched movies in the barn while we’d ride. That will forever be one of my favorite memories. And around this time, I purchased my first riding helmet.

They say the Universe conspires for your good when you commit to something, and around the time I bought my first helmet, I got a phone call that would change my life forever.

I remember distinctly where I was when I got it.

I was cooking dinner.

Water was boiling away and I saw that I was getting a call from a friend in San Diego. I had come to know this woman and her family through my husband. He met them on a mission trip. He had become a son, and I, a daughter when I married him. Even though we had a deep connection, the time of the call surprised me. There was nothing exceptional about the day. It was warm, but it wasn’t a holiday.

The conversation was even more surprising than the timing of the call. Pattie, our other mom, wanted me to take her horse.

I was floored.

This horse was unique in so many ways. First of all, it was a baby that was raised by Pattie. She’d gotten her from a dear friend, who had passed away from cancer. The horse was also an Akhal-teke. If you haven’t heard of that horse breed, you aren’t alone.

I hadn’t either.

That breed wasn’t listed in the horse encyclopedia of my youth.

{If you are curious about this breed of horse, read more here.}

When Pattie’s mare, Mazali, was old enough, she put her into training for dressage. Due to some poor training techniques, Mazali had shut down. She wouldn’t even lift her head, so Pattie intervened. She was now doing better in a different location, but Pattie was troubled that she lived in stalls in California. It still wasn’t quite right. She finally came to the conclusion that she’d be better in a place with wide open spaces. Miraculously, at around this same time, we had purchased land where we could house our own horses.

We took a trip to San Diego to meet Mazali. Our first ride was a little rocky, but I instantly loved her. I knew we would be good together. And I was still amazed that Pattie would trust me with such a beautiful creature.

A year after the phone call, Mazali arrived from California.

She’s been everything Pattie explained and more. She’s smart, sensitive, and kind. Day by day, her trust of humans has returned. She comes to the gate when she sees me, and we’ve worked through her phobia of water together. She loves hacking out bitless and bareback, and we refer to her as The Princess because of her royal blood.

We have since added a few more horses to the herd. My daughter dragged me to a Pony Club meeting after seeing a flyer at school, and now I’m running the club. We can look out the window of our house and see our small herd, and every day I’m reminded that miracles happen.

So while I didn’t plan it, it turns out that Mazali is the perfect symbol to hang in the great room of our house. In this particular painting, it’s one of the first times Mazali was “meeting up” with me in the round pen. Her posture has special meaning to me. She was looking at me face-on, ears pricked, and as intent as any horse I’ve ever been with. It still gives me shivers when I knew that look was for me.

Princess, you are home.

For those of you interested in the hanging of this painting, here’s how we did it:

We took this hanger or clip (name unknown to me…you can find it in any hardware store with the frame hanging supplies) and slipped it into the groove of the ship lap. Dave was hoping that the weight of the painting would be enough to hold it, but it wasn’t. So he put a nail in the groove as well. Should we ever need a different hole, it can easily be spackled. It might not even be visible if we leave it. That’s how we preserved Dave’s beautiful trim work.