Jody Miller

In 1984 I uprooted my life and moved to Thermal, CA. I lived on a local Arabian horse ranch while a friend of mine from childhood trained the horses. On the outside it looked like I was mucking stalls, feeding and grooming horses, being a ranch hand. On the inside this was my therapy, discovering how to connect to the world. This Arabian Horse ranch and these beautiful beings had become my eye in the storm that I now called my life. By 1984 my parents had divorced, my father had passed at the young age of 47 and I was struggling with the realization that I was gay. I finally had found my place where I could not only persevere, but discover who I was and how I felt about it. I was looking for a soul connection, my soul’s connection. While I could not put this into words to talk about, I knew that I would find it with the horses as I took their photos.  This was the beginning of my Horse Art Career.

I find the spirit of the horse and turn that into a stunning image that keeps on giving, if you will. I want my horse art to renew the viewer, to remind them of their connection to their horse, or to horses in general. I want that to be palpable as you stand in front of the horse art. As an artist, I hope you can sense your own feelings of strength, of freedom, beauty, aliveness, passion, inspiration, self- assurance, and poise, well up within you as you look at my art pieces. This is what comes to life within me when I look at these majestic animals and I hope you share that feeling.