All my life, I've been a horsey girl and have gotten to do just about everything on horseback, from foxhunting in Virginia to trailing cows in the Missouri Breaks of Montana; showing jumpers to starting colts. As a painter and sculptor my strength comes from depicting what I know: horses and cows, sheep, dogs — all the four-leggeds that I live with, and observe, daily. Cows and sheep both lend themselves to abstraction, because they have an endearing blockiness, and because they're cud chewers, and they lie around a lot.

 

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A horse is a lot of weight and power on perilously thin legs, balanced and beautiful, stalwart and frisky. It’s hard to better an honest horse.

Betsey Hurd received her BFA, cum laude, from the University of Montana,
Missoula, MT, 1984, with concentrations in ceramics and drawing.