This week’s innerview was a Total First for me! My innerview-ee, Red Woods, lives onna Super Pawsome farm/ranch/rescue place WAY out in the Boonies: Florida Rescue Ranch an Sanctuary.
I should mention, Red is a horse. Happily, he speaks not only Horse, but also Pooch an Human.
An (this is the Totally Crispy Biscuit-est part) Red is an AR-dist!! He PAINTS! I KNOW!
Right?
We opened this big gate, drove though, closed it an drove down a dirt road to a big, nice house with lotsa trees an pass-chures and farm buildings. The Ranch Watchdog trotted over to check us out. It wasn’t, of course, a Wag-an-Sniff sit-chew-WAY-shun.
I innerduced myself an my assistant. The very business-like Aussie Shepherd paw-rused my business card an notebook an gave us the Paws-up. “Welcome! I’m Hunter, Property Manager. This is our Mom an Boss, Cara Woods. She’ll innerduce you to Red. Just gimme a woof if you need anything!” An off he trotted, On Task!
“Thanks, Hunter!” I called after him.
We followed Ms. Woods back to the barn: a nice cool, dim place with several stalls, whose occupants were quietly munchin’ or dozin’. (I’ve always liked the smell of a barn: sorta soft an grassy, if you know what I mean.) She innerduced us to Red, a tall, very hansome fellow with a red/gold color called Red Roan (I Googled). Red lowered his head to my level an grinned a big, happy, toothy grin. I saw that he was wearin’ a jaunty, very painterly, black beret.
“Such a pleasure, Mr. Bonzo!” His voice was pleasant: low an a liddle hoarse. “I am so pleased to share my work with you. I came to it late in life but it is my PASH-un.”
“I am so excited to hear your story an see your paintings,” I said. “I can’t even imagine how you do it!”
Red laughed. “Come’on! I’ll show you the stoo-dee-o!”
He led the way to a smaller building. Inside, his colorful work was displayed onna wall anna table: some originals, an some copies he called prince. They were beautiful! Swaths of color, wide and narrow, curves and swoops, splashes, dots and sprinkles. I was amazed.
“Woof! Red! How do you even … I can’t imagine …”
“I’ll demonstrate,” he replied. “Follow me.”
Red led us to a narrow, shady, fenced-off, grassy track/alleyway between the pass-chur an the barn/house area, lined with eucalyptus trees. Ms. Woods set up one of those wood thingys – an EEE-zull – an placed a spechull sorta canvas on it.
“As you can see, I’m a plein air artist. I’m not gonna ackshully paint today cuz it gets a liddle messy. I’ll just demonstrate the moves. I’ll show you an ack-shull video later, but first let me tell you my backstory.”
“Pawsome! I’m all ears,” I said, flipping my notebook to a fresh page.
“I first came here back in 2016. My owners had to find another home for me cuz, I haff to admit, I was havin’ anger issues with some fellow horses. My Mom an Dad (he’s Kyle) had another rescue horse, Lexie, who had just lost her BFF Aurora an was Exceedingly Gloomy, and they thought I could be her new buddy. Well, even tho we are both Alphas, it was just Meant To Be, Bonzo. Now we’re Totally BFFs. It pretty much saved both of us.”
“That is a wonderful, uplifting tail, Red! But when did the paintin’ part come in?”
“After Mom an Dad had rescued me, they realized they wanted to rescue other horses an animals-in-need. Now we’re called a Non-Profit, which is a human kinda thing I don’t totally understand. Anyway, with more an more rescue animals movin’ in, they needed lots of feed an stuff an, since us quarter horses are a workin’ breed, I needed Work to Do! So Mom decided to try to teach me to paint. An maybe humans who are Art Collectors might want to donate for one of my works.
“At first I was like – ‘Seriously? In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have Thums. Or hands, for that matter.
“But I figured if I could really do something, you know, meaningful, I’d trust Mom an give it a try. She got a buncha diffrent brushes till we found some I could hold in my TEETH!
Well, I picked it up Fast. I guess I’m a romantic at heart. I always felt there was more to me than just munchin’ grass an runnin’ around.
“So me an Mom worked an worked. I learned how to hold the brush an nod my head up an down when Mom gave me The Signal. Then I learned to nod AN swoop the brush over the canvas. (That’s what we call that thing I paint on.) Then we added ack-shull paint. It took a while.”
“I’ve totally never seen anything like that, Red!” I exclaimed. (Later, he showed me the amazin’ video.)
“I have other jobs around the ranch, as well,” he continued. “I help Dad move the animals around. One time I helped wrangle a liddle calf, GusGus, who didn’t want to get into the trailer. Dad rode me and we got it done!”
“You are a horse of many parts!” I declared.
As we chatted, a frenly donkey, JK, came up and began nosin’ my Assistant, who (of course) offered him carrots and scratched his top knot, between his very large, impressive ears. When a herd of goats galloped by, I turned to look, an JK took a large bite outta my notebook. His Mom tried to ree-treeve the pages but it was too late.
“Oh, man, I’m sorry!” JK apologized. “That nice crisp paper looked so duh-li-shus I just sorta zoned out.”
I assured him it was fine. Matter fact, I’m gonna keep the munched-on pages as a reminder of the great time I had. An the colorful, original painting my assistant brought home will be another reminder of a very speshull day.