"Artrageous"

By Rose K McCaughey
Sponsor: Harris-Beach, LLP

During my process of creating proposals for Horses on Parade, I was geared to using funny titles for a horse for design inspiration. My examples are "Thoro-Bread" designed with wheat sheaths, bread slices and loaves of bread too; another was "Race- Horse" complete with a checkerboard hood and depicting children of all colors and races. "Horse-Sing-Around" was another design, with musical notes winding all around the horse. But the horse concept I favored the most was for the horse to become an artist. A kindred spirit with a palette as his saddle and paintings of every genre juxtaposed about his body. My idea was for the paintings to include a landscape, still life, seascape, and portrait. "Artrageous" would be equipped with gigantic brushes stemming out of his boots, with three-dimensional puddles of paint on his palette, complete with a beret, topped off with an artist award. My sponsor Harris-Beach, attorneys, made only one request, that I show a Rochester scene. This suggestion carried off the theme for most of the thirteen paintings exhibited all over the horse. Included in some of them was a painting of High Falls, Lilacs, a portrait of Susan B Anthony, A winter landscape, sailing on Ontario Lake, a farm scene, a cluster of grapes, flying geese, and the Mercury Statue with the Wings Building shown in the background. This creative journey was exciting and lots of fun. I take pride in participating in the Public Art Project of "Horses on Parade".