La Prière du Cheval

The Horse's Prayer is set in St Paul des Métis, Alberta, 1930's.

As a child, my mother Thérèse remembers when Monsieur Laboucane, a tall Métis man would ride his beautiful, tall, bay horse to town. He would always slow down and keep his horse at a restrained gait in case there were children playing nearby. She and her siblings, who were standing behind the fence at home, would wave at him and he would always greet them and wave back.

M. Laboucane's land bordered on my grandparents' small acreage, about a mile away from home, which was used for growing green feed for their cow.

He would allow my mother and her siblings to crawl under the wire fence to cross his land to go tobogganing on what they called the May hill.

And they would have to do this quickly in order to avoid his bull.

My mother remembers seeing his horse standing at a window that had been cut out of the cabin wall to accommodate the horse so that he could visit his master. There was no glass and special wooden shutters had been built so that the horse just had to give a nudge with his muzzle to push the shutters inward. This had been done when Mr. Laboucane started weakening from an illness . My mother's understanding was that this was tuberculosis. He eventually died and she had heard that the horse had stood at the window when his master died in the night.

The window in the painting is larger than the actual window. It was just large enough to allow the horse to comfortably put his head through.

I will continue with the Laboucane series later. I would like to take a break and start painting other subject matter and allow myself freer rein. I am telling a story with these paintings which are based on my mother's beautiful memories. I wanted to respect those and try and replicate them. There were no photographs to guide me. Nothing. I had to rely on understanding, logic, some research and creative license. I hope you have enjoyed these so far.