Hi Everyone....I just want to thank everybody for staying in touch with me even though I have been horrible about staying in touch with everyone. Summer is such a busy time for me, and this year it seems even worse! I want to thank everybody for being so encouraging about my artwork. It sure presents me with a lot of stuff....it is my constant teacher about what I need to surrender in my life, what I need to embrace, and what I need to just sit down and figure out....sometimes it is about memories as well....good and bad. I don't have any contact with my family, because we just don't seem to fit. I got tired of being the bad guy all of the time, so I needed to let those old stories go. In the process, my family let me go. Today it is my birthday, and I am missing them...I have a painting in mind to do, but I am just not sure I have it in me to do right now. This painting is of my horse...I kept seeing him in my dream....and I painted him....he is wild and has this exceedingly thick mane of hair. When I was five, two of our mares were pregnant. Since I was the oldest, my grandfather told me that the first one born would be mine. We named him Michgo...he was this beautiful chestnut colt. He had a mind of his own from the beginning, and boy was he feisty. He never took guff from anyone. I grew up in horse racing, so when the day came to register his name, we were told that another horse had it already. Two horses cannot have the same name in horse racing. I was devastated, because we had called him Michgo for two years! How in the world would he know his new name now? How would he know when I was calling him? I refused to accept the new name that my grandfather chose for him. I was furious, and someone had to stand up for my horse.

My grandfather patiently took me by the hand and took me to the stables. These were my favorite times....anytime I had alone with him, and especially when we went to spend time with the horses together. My grandfather truly was a horse whisperer. He was born blind in one eye, and he had heard problems from the moment of birth. He was told he would never survive his childhood. He lived for 78 good years....:) He died when I was 18...just after I moved to New York City.

Anyway, we went down to Daisy's to hang out with the horses...to feed them carrots and sugar cubes, and for my lessons on how to "see and feel" horses. He could see problems before anyone else could. Anyway, we were watching my horse play with his teather ball. Yes, we installed a teather ball. He had so much energy that he was always going after all of the other horses. My grandfather put this teather ball in, and he and I used to play teather ball together....and he started leaving the other horses alone.

We were leaning over the wood fence when my grandfather gently began explaining why we had to change his name. I vehemently, and with tears in my eyes, explained my protests to this. "We just had to find another name!" I stated. He looked at me with that twinkle in his eyes, and that smile that told me he was completely amused by me in a loving way, and he said, "We have to change his name...there is no other way. I chose another name, and I want to run it by you to see what you think first. If you don't like it, we will find another name. I want to name him Big Ruckus. Do you know why? Because wherever he goes, he causes a Big Ruckus. Everyone notices him. He is always kicking up dirt, and he never follows the others unless HE wants to. He is just like you, and I am naming him after you." Well, of course I liked the name, mainly because I think someone finally got me...finally understood me and this beautiful horse of mine.

For some reason, this is on my mind today....

And for some reason, Yahoo won't let me embed videos, so here are some links of vids I did.

This is a vid of my kitten nursing on my 100 pound puppy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6JfHGoFzX4

Here is a vid my friend and I shot during Telluride Bluegrass. It is of Ben Kauffman who is a musician in Yonder Mountain String Band:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er3ZtpLcpL8