story

An accomplished rider since childhood, Dawn Senior, of Moonhorse Art Studio, translates her love and respect of horses into the The Moonhorse horse sculpture in bronze. This horse sculpture is one of the artist's finest bronzes.

This motivation also led the bronze artist to write the "The Moonhorse," a story about the dream that inspired this horse sculpture.

"The Moonhorse" By Dawn Senior

One night, several years after my father had passed away, I dreamed that he and I walked down a rocky hill toward the cabin which he, my mother, brother and sister had built when I was five, and where I had such a happy childhood. In my dream it sat I saw the cabin as a mirror image of the way it sits in reality. In the dream it sat on the north side of the snowmelt gully.

As Dad and I crossed the gully, I saw that a runoff flood had gouged out a small cave. At its entrance we found two paintings which evidently had been washed from the earth. Dad picked them up and showed them to me, but the dream didn't make them clear. I thought perhaps they were paintings I had made as a child, but I couldn't be sure. Dad showed them to me again. They glowed with simple, bright colors like the sun's light, like spring leaves, like sky.

I climbed down into the cave and found an object at the bottom, embedded in mud. I lifted it and saw a lumpy, crude clay statue of a horse. I thought perhaps I'd made it as a child, but I couldn't be sure.

Then I realized that mud still covered the statue, and when I crumbled that away, I gasped in awe and delight.

The horse was made of bronze, finely molded, and a beautiful shade of blue. At first I thought the blue patina came from being buried in the earth for a long time. But when I held the horse to the light and turned it in my hands, I saw that it had been freshly polished.

Now I know how mysterious and sacred was this gift. I climbed from the cave to show it to Dad. He stood silhouetted against the sky, his face in dusky shadow, but I discerned his expression of infinite knowledge, love, serenity.

Without speaking, Dad turned, took a step away, and vanished from my sight.

At that moment the cabin sat on the south side of the gully, as it does in life.

And I knew that Dad must resume that journey from which he had paused awhile with me, and from which he brought the mysterious gift of the blue bronze horse.

When I awoke and wiped away my tears of joy and sorrow, I knew I had to make the statue my father had given me, so that others could see it. As I modeled the horse in clay, I thought about how my father had taught me to ride when I was too young to remember, and I relived the adventures we'd shared, over the years, when we rode the rugged sagebrush hills. But it wasn't until I'd already finished the sculpture and entitled it "The Moonhorse" that I remembered the stories Dad used to tell me about the Moonhorses. Invisible and silent, they roamed the wild country, and only if you waited, patient and quiet, and learned to love the night, could feel the touch of their breath of moonbeams. I looked through a box of sketches that my parents saved from my childhood and found, among my first charcoal pictures, many Moonhorses.

If you would like more information on our artwork or would like to place an order, email Moonhorse Art Studio or call us 307.327.5381. We look forward to hearing from you!