About Karen Keene Day, painter of wild horses

©Karen Keene Day

KAREN KEENE DAY

Inspired to create by her love of horses…

From childhood, with a bucket of crayons and a stack of drawing paper, artist Karen Keene Day evolved through the years, painting various subjects - alway including horses - using watercolor, mixed media, zinc etchings and, for the last 25 years, acrylics on canvas as her mediums.

Since 1999 her passion for wild horses has taken precedence over all other subject matter. Her dedication to painting these elegant animals is prompted by her goal of raising the public's awareness of wild horses.

Karen's mission comes from 23 years of traveling in the USA to wild horse management areas (HMA), managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management. There she observes and photographs free-roaming wild horses.

In 1999 the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range on the border of Montana and Wyoming in 1999 propelled Karen into her journey as a "voice" for them. Other locations of inspiration have been Sand Wash Basin, Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Range and Ryan's Gulch, all in Colorado; as well as Cumberland, Georgia and St. Helena's Island, South Carolina, where wild Marsh Tackies (a rare breed of horse, native to South Carolina) can be found. Lately, Karen's primary focus has been on the Spring Creek Herd in the desert of Disappointment Valley in Colorado, located between Durango and Norwood.

Noble, majestic, powerful, beautiful....it is these qualities that Karen Keene Day sees in these magnificent creatures and, through her paintings, with color and movement, she reveals their spirituality in a celebration of life. In all scenarios - in their strong family units in the wild, alone, running free or standing still - Karen paints them with rich colors, free of tack and rider. Her painting of horses in pastels, acrylics and watercolors have traveled across the United States and to Spain, to shows, businesses and clients' homes. Her work has been featured in horse magazines Equine Image, Andalusian and Conquistador, including several covers on Andalusian magazine.

Karen has been extensively covered by Wildlife Art Magazine and Equine Image, which also represented her in Louisville, Ky at Equitana USA, the leading international exhibition for the equestrian industry. She has given workshops, slideshows and presentations to business groups, artists' associations and school children.

Karen and Floyd, married 56 years and live in Ridgway, Colorado, are parents of Mollie, Kellie, Mark (Holly) and have five grandchildren as well as six dogs amongst them all.

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in gratitude

I would like to give special thanks to my husband Floyd Day for his years of love and support for my art, and we in turn give our thanks to wild mustang advocate and photographer TJ Holmes for years of helping us find the mustangs and for her friendship.

My loving gratitude to our children Kellie, Mollie Mark & Holly for their love, encouragement, business advice, and support for my art.

I would also like to express gratitude to Liz and Berta for our longtime friendships and appreciation for their contributions in editing and my many thanks to Nicole for her masterful web design.

— KKD

INSPIRATION

In 1997 I read America’s Last Wild Horses by Hope Ryden. The Pryor Mountain Mustangs of Montana in 1999 propelled me into a journey with wild horses. Since then, I have been traveling to different wild horse management areas (HMA) observing, photographing, and painting the horses, beginning with Pryor Mountain Wild Horses in Montana, near the Wyoming border and Lovell, Wyoming, staying at night at the Horse Shoe Bend Motel owned by Jo and Jo Ann Anderson. I wasn’t to return there for ten years, and did so in 2008 with my husband. I wanted to take him where I had seen my first wild horses that changed my life and work focus.

It was literally seeing the wild horses in 1999 that propelled me into devoting myself to painting them which I am still doing, just as passionately, 23 years later.

Disappointment Valley where the Spring Creek Basin Wild Horse Herd roams free has been my main focus for several years, beginning in 2003 and continue to return there each year for the summer. It is located between Durango and Norwood, Colorado in the desert.

Other horse management areas have also been inspirational in my work and love of the horses as well:

Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Range near DeBeque,CO. (2000,2003,2004);
Ryan’s Gulch, also known as the Piceance-East Douglas HMA; my husband and I could not find any wild horses in Ryan’s Gulch.
Sand Wash Basin near Meeker, Colorado (2003, 2004, 2005). This is the largest Wild Horse HMA. It has 160,000 acres. Dry Creek (which is now closed as all the wild horses were removed from there.) It is between Vermillion Bluffs and Sevenmile Ridge with Monument Hi 97, from Southside. Its field office is the White River in Meeker, Colorado.
The Marsh Tacky Wild horses I have seen are on Little Horse Island, St. Helenas Island in South Carolina.