Artist Statement for Never Ending Leap of Faith: My current project is a large scale piece discussing the hostile environment horse-enthusiasts face on a regular basis in the non-equine world. I chose to construct a 'wall' out of paper slips with commentary from horse-enthusiasts about their experiences with bullying, specifically bullying done by non-horse enthusiasts for being open about their passion for horses. From experience, I know that the passion ranges from owning and riding horses, to playing with horse toys and collecting model horses. Also from experience, I know that we (horse-enthusiasts) are always bullied for projecting that passion in a multitude of forms in any phase in life. I chose to represent this harassment as a wall because we cannot knock the wall down to pave a better path for ourselves, so it continues to grow taller and wider for the next generation of horse-enthusiasts. I also chose to crumple up the slips as a visual metaphor for what our brain does with bad memories. We try hard to throw those bad memories away, but yet they reappear every once in a while. The second part of the piece would be a silhouette of a horse and rider sailing over the wall. This silhouette is the metaphor of how we horse enthusiasts get passed the life-long harassment: we go to our horses, and get over it. No matter how bad the words hurt, or how hard the physical barriers are hard to cross, the horse helps us sail over it each and every time. Thus, I have titled this upcoming piece Never Ending Leap of Faith to convey the constant yet triumphant struggles of getting through day-to-day life as a horse enthusiast.
PamelaV Vigo Sanchez pivigosanchez@yahoo.com