Special Events
Everyone who participated had a fun and enriching experience. Thank you everyone for challenging yourselves and sharing your art and insights about other people’s art.
These free Critique & Art Appreciation have no limit as to how many times you can participate or attend. Attendees do not have to bring a finished or nearly finished artwork to be critiqued. The experience is designed for artists of all levels or for people who just want to learn more about appreciating visual artwork. To help us manage the space please register online. Attendees must be 18 years or older.
The events are on the last Thursday evening of every month through September 2024.
These two recent workshops were a lot of fun and seemed to be appreciated while participants learned new skills:
March and April 2024
In Helena, Montana at the Holter Museum,
April 13-15, 2024
MAEA Mixed-Media Art Workshop participants (caring art teachers) with the instructor.
Limited enrollment! Collage and the Art of Design …
Collage does not require strong drawing skills, and is a fast way of being productive. We will be producing unique collage materials to help create a visual language unique to you, rather than cut images out of magazines. This workshop is designed to introduce you to composition and design concepts that should fuel your understanding with your future projects.
www.explorethearts.art/workshops
Equine Art Extravaganza
On August 19, 2023, I was one of six artists selected to create art on a horse, literally hand-painting a horse as a fundraiser for Dunrovin Ranch in Lolo, Montana. See friendsofdunrovin.org for more information about its special facilities, events, and services.
This was a fundraiser for Friends of Dunrovin Ranch Programs. Online voting of $5 a vote for your favorite painted horse. This was my handsome partner, Flynn.
Artist Statement: Since the first time a human touched the hide of the modern horse, sliding the hand, making a connection that would create a partnership through human history, from plows and swords, pulling, packing, traveling, and riding through these few thousands of years. This partnership was more than utilitarian, more than taming the spirit, perhaps being a true partner with each other. This was to be an extraordinary relationship of trust between the predator and the prey.
The oldest known paintings by human beings on cave walls are human hands, actual hands used as stencils with pigments spray-spitted around the hand with spread fingers, becoming a universal symbol for human beings.
Native American horse cultures were branded with pigments, symbols including the human warrior hand imprinted on the hide, maybe saying this horse was touched by part of that warrior.
The uniqueness of the horse hoof being imprinted on the earth for thousands of years maybe, says the same thing, “I was here. I ran here. I found the wind here...”. Seeing a horse move across the plains, so began a relationship with the imagination of a person wanting to move like the wind.
Working intuitively with tempera paint, moving hoof tracks over the horse with painted handprints in visual relationships that hopefully conform to the body contours of the equine.
Be a partner with friendsofdunrovin.org, and see interviews with each of the six artists and more information. Thank you to all who voted to help support this organization.
Click here to see some of my newest images
Large commission for local hospital hospice livingroom on display
2021, Douglas E. Taylor with hospice director, after installation of commissioned mixed-media artwork in newly remodeled hospice living room at our local hospital. The Seasons measures 70 inches wide and 30 inches tall. This was a very meaningful project to create and have displayed in a special space. High-quality limited edition digital canvas prints are available of this special image in several sizes.
The Dunrovin Ranch Equine Extravaganza
2020
Online Fundraiser Event
Favorite equine photographers
were selected by your votes to
benefits Shriner’s Children Hospitals
FriendsofDunrovin.org/watcheae/
I was selected as one of two artists, actually “painted” a horse, August 15, 2020, at the Dunrovin Ranch in Lolo, Montana.
Because of the Covid 19 pandemic, it was conducted differently than in previous years. This time the two selected artists were photographed and documented by six photographers, the main subjects would be the painted horses.
On-line viewers voted as many times as they want, at $5 a vote that benefited the Shriners Children’s Hospitals. Click this link to find out more…EAE and to see amazing photographs by six incredible photographers of my painted horse, Jasper and the other horses.
The equine painting will last most of the day. Below are photos of Jasper, the horse I selected. I have designed an image with a herd theme, creating a simple graphic image in black and white as depicted on the concept sketches seen below.
Lisa, my talented assistant and I had a lot of fun contributing to this special event and having some equine connection.
See this link for my interview with SuzAnne Miller: https://vimeo.com/449075515
Douglas painting on Jasper; Photograph by Bev Hennager
Lisa and Douglas Taylor and Jasper; Photograph by Bev Hennager
Jasper
A concept sketch
Because of my parent’s passion for horses and western life, they always encouraged me to paint horses. Now, I have an opportunity to “paint” a horse, literally.
I grew up around horses; my parents were both horse people. My father working professionally as a horseman, all-around-cowboy, as a ranch-hand breaking horses, and his lifelong profession as a farrier, shoeing horses and blacksmithing.
As an artist, it is extremely interesting to me, to interact with the equine subject. My concept of graphically depicting a herd on the living hide of a horse, painting symbols and gestures of the horse, to be appreciated and puzzled over by humans, is quite a confirmation of equine/human relationship.
Ancient peoples painted the horse visually on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago. Then when Native Americans domesticated horses and used them in battle, they painted on them as expressively as they painted themselves. The horses were an extension of their intimidating selves, charging into battle.
Photograph of horses at Dunrovin Ranch, Lolo, Montana, including Jasper, painted by Douglas E. Taylor,
photography by Bev Hennager, 2020
For me, this is extremely rewarding, using my artistic abilities to create an expression and be part of an event that helps a community. The horse and I collaborate; the horse providing inspiration to the poet and artist, and me sharing it with my human herd.
In my artwork, a persistent them has been the significance of the individual, the contribution one person can make to a society and the responsibility that entails. Do you want to make a beneficial or a harmful contribution? We all make a difference with our choices.
In these challenging and interesting times, I feel one of the benefits is our own personal realizations of what is important to us as individuals. I see people exploring their value in their society, experimenting with being a part of something bigger. Our relationships with friends, family, and with community are being recognized as a purpose. Our purposes are especially valued when our connections are challenged by a stifling pandemic.
Photograph of horses at Dunrovin Ranch, Lolo, Montana, including Jasper, painted by Douglas E. Taylor,
photography by Bev Hennager, 2020. Bev won the publics Choice Award for her five-photograph portfolio.
People and horses share in a need to be part of a group, a herd. We feel healthier with companionship. Both the equine and the human find comfort and purpose in our collaborations and the commune with each other. It does take a village and it does take a herd to fulfill the individual.
As a visual artist and poet, I am perpetually experimenting with my thoughts and which shapes and colors they may take, attempting to find interesting ways to expose them. Below is a poem I’ve written to celebrate the purpose of this special event.
I enjoyed the creative challenges of painting on an actual horse, being a kind of muse, inspiring photographers that document and connect my efforts to an audience, and raising funds for a worthy cause. I appreciate being a part of something much larger than myself. Below is a poem I wrote to celebrate this connection and event.
String Theory Suite
A train of horses thundering across a horizon
sewing the terrain to the sky
with healing golden stitches darting
connect heaven and earth as birds do
as rivers bind to the sea
ground and roots to a tree
not separate parts
the beat and
the heart
Everything is tied with a stout string
knot bound
once freed
webbed to everything seen and unseen
this string that is strung through all life
twines spirit to the moment
when we discover we are more alike than different
simultaneously
more unique than the same
as every blade of grass has a name
every tree has a story
standing slowly in one place
holding birds and making shade
A horse needs a herd, as we need each other I’ve heard
we are the heart of a group, a family, a troupe
always part of something bigger than the portion
rivers run, galloping horses to the ocean
becoming every drop due
in everything there is
a part of you
Strung through the eye
of a needle so fine
that sews the so and so to the you know what
something given
something sought
that binds us together no matter whether
you know it or not
Douglas E. Taylor © 2020
Photograph of horses at Dunrovin Ranch, Lolo, Montana, including Jasper, painted by Douglas E. Taylor,
photography by Bev Hennager, 2020