Lindsey Molyneux Going With The Flow - Fall 2007 Issue of Horses in Art Magazine

Lindsey Molyneux Going With The Flow

by L. A. Pomeroy

The Morgan – 15-hand Driftwood horse created by Lindsey Molyneux.

Riverbanks are where solid earth and fluid water meet. Where scraps of life, torn loose and washed away, return familiar and yet changed, back to shore. Along such riverbanks Lindsey Molyneux finds inspiration, reclaiming gnarled driftwood and using it to create equine sculptures as raw and elemental as the natural materials she collects.

“I like the look of random association in a recognizable form,” says the 27-year-old artist and horse lover, who grew up in the rural western Massachusetts town of Worthington where her parents, Penny and Jim, supplied her with an easel and paints by age three. “My first horses were similar to cave paintings, but we all start somewhere. I only painted horses. Nothing else resonated with me.”

Not even the beach, her mother remembers, could distract her horse-crazy daughter. “We would scavenge for treasures for making sand castles, and instead, she would build horses, decorated with seaweed and shells, and bits of wood.”

Today, her recognizable shapes – crafted from bronze and copper, as well as driftwood – continue to celebrate the equine form.

“My first real pony (minus countless imaginary ones) was named Peekaboo and belonged to a neighbor. She was a dream come true. Those early years insulated by horses, barns and hayfields began a love affair with horses that I will always keep.”

Eventually, Lindsey’s teenaged legs outgrew Peekaboo, but horses remained in her life until an unfortunate twist of fate in her early 20s left her ‘horseless.’ She sought solace in her art and decided if she could not own a horse, she would make one. “There was such a void in my heart, as anyone who loves horses will appreciate, that I decided to build a life-size one just to feel better. I had no resources other than a few tools and a river. So the first horse (crafted from wood) was born after muddy days in the river and late nights in the garage. It took me three months to get him to stand because I had built him suspended from the rafters, and the legs came later. I have since figured out it’s best to start all things from the ground up!”

She faced the same technical hurdle of balancing a powerful torso atop four fragile legs that challenged evolution since prehistoric Eohippus, but the effort was worth it. “When I stood at the base of my first horse, and it felt like a real horse, that I had built out of my imagination, that was a nice moment. Then,” she laughs, “the bubble burst!

“There are all these components: physics, balance, longevity, loose screws, visible screws, welds, etc., that make great sculpture. That stuff drives me crazy. The art is easy. The evolution of these wooden sculptures has been a quest for skeletal stability without compromising the carefree form that driftwood can rapidly take on,” says the self-taught artist. “ I learned to build armatures to support the wood, but had to learn the hard way. Now I can produce them quicker, and without conformation flaws, because I have a structural system that works. The rest is up to the river to provide inspiration.”

Working with the river and adapting to what it might yield, is part of her creative process. “Picking wood is like treasure hunting. The best place to get wood in quantity is at the base of a large dam.” Smaller pieces are discovered along the banks of slower-moving waterways or wedged in rocky banks. “Small streams are coldest but provide the best curly roots, because there are no strong currents to break them down.”

Scavenging wild places also comes with surprises. “I watch for hornets and yellow jackets that will chase you back to the truck if you disturb a nest. I also find animal carcasses the river has claimed, which are good for a fright if you grab a bone you thought was a cool piece of wood.”

Lindsey also finds expression through metals, particularly bronze. “I use bronze when I want a lasting portrait. I made a bronze of Peekaboo for her owner and others that grew up riding her. Bronze was perfect because I could reproduce it and share the end result with more people.

“I love bronze because it is hard, cold, and deliberate. But a horse does not always bear those adjectives. Driftwood has a special energy. Each piece has gone through a metamorphosis, like a butterfly.” She compares a river to a master carver, shaping once-living parts of trees into pieces of puzzles waiting to be found and joined anew. “I am a collaborator with the river, using what it has created. Driftwood horses do not have the permanency of bronze, but they do have a sense of life that not many inanimate objects can project.”

Lindsey is now exploring using copper to express her equine forms. “I have been working on small horses in copper that copy the driftwood. I know what lines go together to create a horse, so I have been replicating my favorite shapes with a hammer and heat, in hopes of providing a more lasting material to carry those ideas forward.”

Ultimately, she dreams of casting a life-size, driftwood horse in bronze. “When trying to express the spirit of the horse, it’s more important to go with it, rather than worry, Will it last? Won’t it? The result is magnificent in the moment and that is good enough.”

For an artist whose inspiration comes from the river, it’s all about going with the flow. Currently based in Ocala, Florida, Lindsey’s work has been on display at the Vermont Horse Country Store in South Woodstock, Vermont; the Montpelier state capital in conjunction with the Vermont Arts Council; The Fells of New Hampshire; Sculpturefest in Woodstock, Vermont; and Our Horses, Our Art in Northampton, Massachusetts. See www.lindseymolyneux.com.

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