Horse displays his true colors

RIGHT: Buggs does an abstract painting while his owner, Carol Jensen, stands ready to assist at her farm in Iron Ridge. Jensen taught her horse, a 13-year-old former barrel racer, to paint as way to keep him from getting into mischief during the winter when he is not as active. Photo: Mark Hoffman

With help, Buggs excels at painting

By Erin Richards of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: March 15, 2010

Iron Ridge — He's mischievous and clever, an artist with an attitude.

On good days he's focused, his brush strokes smooth and long. Other days he knocks over the easel with his head, slathers paint on his assistant, or accidentally punches right through the canvas. Time to start over.

With a paintbrush between his teeth, Buggs, a 13-year-old quarter horse cross, produces novelty artwork that's attracting a growing number of admirers in Dodge County and across the state. He's a pioneer in a painting horse movement that's emerged in recent years, fueled by YouTube videos and the Internet, and part of a worldly contingent of "animal artists" that includes everything from elephants and dogs to chimpanzees.

Owner Carol Jensen, a multimedia artist, jewelry maker and musician who taught Buggs to paint two years ago, envisions filling a gallery with her horse's paintings one day, or maybe taking his show on the road, exhibition-style.

"I'm inspired by paintings I see, colorwise, and I think, 'Oh, Buggs could do that,' " Jensen said recently, while dressed in a white button-up smock and mixing paint on the ground next to Buggs' open stall door.

A few moments later she dabbed the brush in the paint, pointed the wooden handle at Buggs' expectant mouth and instructed, "Up and down, up and down . . . "

Jensen, 56, discovered Buggs' aptitude for painting while looking for ways to keep the restless horse occupied during the winter months, when poor weather keeps him cooped up in his stall. She had heard about people teaching horses to paint and figured that Buggs, whose personality equates to that of a smart child who acts up when bored, seemed like a good prospect. In October 2008 she started training the chestnut gelding to hold a stick in his mouth and target the tip on a designated area.

When he performed the action, she rewarded him by pressing a clicker and giving him a treat. Then she gave Buggs a paintbrush, moved his head up and down, and praised him when he repeated the action on his own.

"At first I used a sketch pad and no paint, then I went from the sketch pad to stretch canvas," Jensen said. "When he started poking holes through the canvas with the brush, I started using canvas board instead."

By November 2008, Buggs' first painting sold in a charity auction. Since then, he's created about 30 more paintings with Jensen's help.

Many of Buggs' pieces line the walls of Jensen's house in a colorful parade of abstract strokes, splatters, scrapes and mushes from the whiskers on Buggs' chin.

"As far as freshness and originality are concerned, he's got me beat," Jensen said. "But my dexterity is better."

Animal artists

Horse-produced art has attracted a fair amount of media attention in the last couple of years. Cholla the painting horse, with his own Wikipedia entry, has had watercolors displayed around the world.

The earliest documented art-producing animal may be Congo, a chimp that painted and drew in the 1950s. YouTube videos show elephants producing art - the Milwaukee County Zoo's elephant, Brittany, earned minor fame with her painting abilities - and dogs that wield paintbrushes.

Cheryl Ward, a Florida resident who started teaching her horses to paint in 2004, has coined the movement "interspecies collaborative action art" to reflect the partnership between human and animal. While Ward said the horses don't know what they're producing, she believes they get some sort of satisfaction out of the process.

"It's honoring their innate abilities to use their bodies in search of food or something else that feels good," Ward said. "It's deeper than just a fun pet trick."

In Iron Ridge at her Windy Hill Farm, Jensen sets up the easel outside Buggs' stall a couple times a month. It's up to her to select the hue of the acrylics, and to decide if she's going to let him paint wet colors on top of each other, or do a base layer, let it dry and then bring it back to Buggs for another round.

When they work together, Jensen stops and surveys what Buggs has done so far. She may rotate the canvas, or choose a different-sized brush. Going minimalist requires diligence.

"I'd have to take it away pretty quickly," Jensen said. "If I leave it up to him, he'll just keep going."

When not painting, Buggs performs a repertoire of crowd-pleasing party tricks - he opens the mailbox outside his stall, retrieves a package and hands it to Jensen. He picks up a rubber ball and drops it in the basketball hoop. He plays the keyboard with his nose, waves a checkered flag, and when it's all over, drops his head and bows.

A few miles away at the Celtic Crossroads Café in Mayville, Buggs' paintings pique many customers' interests. Café owner Cyndy Beecroft said people have bought nine or 10 of Buggs' paintings off the wall, ranging in price from $75 to $125, over the past year.

"I think Buggs' artwork is pretty sweet," Amy Tarleton, a patron at the café, said recently. "I'm not talented in art at all. It's cool because he's a lot better than I am."

Tarleton said she'd consider buying a Buggs painting, if she had an available $125.

Tarleton said, "I think I would because who could say, 'I have a painting done by a horse?' I think that's just fascinating."

Buggs online
To see a video of Buggs, a quarter horse cross who paints pictures, and his owner, Carol Jensen, visit www.jsonline.com/video.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/87733497.html
(Submitted by D.R. Shoop)