Additional Information
Heart of the Wild Sanctuary rests on 21 wooded acres in West Tennessee, surrounding my home and my personal studio, Studio on the Pond, where I create my work as Enchanted Quills & Whisperwood Fen.
This is not simply a place where horses live. It is a place where lives have been allowed to soften again. Many of the horses who came here arrived carrying more than age or uncertainty. Some came in terrible physical condition—thin, neglected, weakened by poor care, or carrying the visible evidence of what they had endured. Others carried wounds that were harder to see: fear, mistrust, hypervigilance, and the learned expectation that humans might hurt them. Some had reached the point where the world no longer seemed to know what to do with them.
Here, they were not required to prove their usefulness. They were not asked to perform, to become more manageable, more profitable, more convenient, or more pleasing to anyone. They were allowed to simply be horses. They were given time. Space. Safety. Choice. And, perhaps most importantly, they were given back a measure of sovereignty—the freedom to belong to themselves again.
Over the years, I have come to understand that sanctuary is not something I give them from a position above them. It is something we create together. I care for their bodies, their comfort, their food, their shelter, their old bones, their fears, and their complicated histories. I learn their ways. I watch their expressions. I listen to the things they communicate without words. And in return, they have given me something equally precious. They have taught me about stillness. About trust that cannot be demanded. About the dignity of growing old. About the courage it takes to remain gentle after life has not always been gentle with you. And about the extraordinary healing that can happen when one living being simply allows another to exist without judgment.
I understand something about invisible wounds myself. I live with medically diagnosed PTSD and depression, and in 2024 my own life changed profoundly when I suffered a stroke. That experience forced me to reckon with something sanctuary work does not often talk about: the caretaker is human too. My pace changed. My strength changed. My energy changed. Things I once handled without much thought began to require more time, more planning, and sometimes more help. I had to look carefully at what I could continue to do well, not from guilt or attachment, but from responsibility. That meant downsizing.
Some of the horses I loved were moved to other carefully chosen sanctuaries where they could continue receiving the level of care, attention, and management they deserved. Letting them go was not easy. Sanctuary creates deep bonds, and there is a particular ache in placing a horse you have protected into someone else's hands.
But love is not always keeping. Sometimes love is recognizing when another place can meet a need better than you can. Sometimes stewardship means knowing your limits before those limits become someone else's hardship. The sanctuary became smaller, quieter, and more deliberate. And in many ways, so did I.
The horses who remain here live within a rhythm I can sustain. I move more slowly now. I notice more. I rush less. I have learned to accept help, to simplify, and to stop measuring worth by how much I can carry. Perhaps the horses taught me that too. They do not care how quickly I move through the day. They do not require me to be cheerful, strong, productive, or anything other than what I am in that moment.
Sometimes healing here is not dramatic at all. Sometimes it is the sound of hay being pulled quietly from a feeder. Sometimes it is an old horse standing beside me in the pasture. Sometimes it is a nicker from across the field. Sometimes it is simply knowing that another living creature has chosen to remain near. That relationship finds its way into my artwork.
I call these horses my Spirit Horses, because what I create from them is never merely a portrait of a horse. It carries something of their presence, their histories, their resilience, their wildness, their tenderness, and the quiet conversations that have passed between us.
The work begins here, among them. Then it travels outward. A piece of art finds its way into someone else's home. Its sale helps provide hay, veterinary care, feed, fencing, shelter, and the countless ordinary things that allow these horses to live safely and with dignity. And so the gift circles back to them.
I call this the Blessing Circle.
The horses give me inspiration and companionship. I give them sanctuary. The artwork carries their stories into the world. Someone who is touched by that work brings it into their own life. And through that exchange, the horses are cared for once again. There is no beginning to the circle and no true ending. Only a continual passing of something good from one hand, one heart, and one living being to another.
Heart of the Wild has changed over the years, and so have I. I no longer believe that doing more is always the same thing as doing better. Now, sanctuary means creating a life I can sustain, honoring the horses who remain with me, and making thoughtful choices for the ones whose journeys needed to continue elsewhere. Beneath all of those changes, this remains the heart of it: I hold space for these horses to live the lives that belong to them. And, in ways I never could have anticipated, they hold space in this life for me. Somewhere between those two things, between sanctuary and gratitude, between horse and human, between healing and creation, is where my art is born.
There is no greater purpose than doing what is right, and there is no greater reward than knowing you made a difference.
Reveille Starr ... American Mustang 34 yrs old
Revielle HMA, Nevada
~ In Memorium ~
Sept 1988 - August 8th 2022
Maggie ... American Mustang
Salt wells HMA, Wyoming
Coming soon ...
Lady Lyra ... American Mustang
Cedar Mountain HMA Utah
Cedar Mountain HMA Utah
Cedar Mountain HMA Utah
Cedar Mountain HMA Utah
Cedar Mountain HMA Utah
Coming soon ...
Cedar Mountain HMA Utah
Cedar Mountain HMA Utah
Destiny Rose ... American Mustang 35 yrs old
In Memorium
In Memorium
In Memorium
Sept 1988 - June 25, 2024
Logan ... Kiger American Mustang 17 yrs old
Riddle Mountain HMA Oregon
Coming soon ...
Kiger Mustangs in the Wild
Coming soon ...
Arwen ~ Arabian Unicorn
Riddle Mountain HMA Oregon
Riddle Mountain HMA Oregon
Riddle Mountain HMA Oregon
Riddle Mountain HMA Oregon
Riddle Mountain HMA Oregon
Coming soon ...
Riddle Mountain HMA Oregon
Kiger Mustangs in the Wild
Kiger Mustangs in the Wild
Riddle Mountain HMA Oregon
Kiger Mustangs in the Wild
Coming soon ...
~ Lily Belle ~ ... In Memorium
~ Reactive ~
In Memorium - June 8th 2020
~ The Sweetest of Girls ~
Lily came to HOTW in Nov 2016 via RRR in Jackson, TN. She was swiftly going blind, and had become dangerously reactive as a result.
~ The Sweetest of Girls ~
In Memorium - June 8th 2020
~ The Sweetest of Girls ~
There is a thing whereby some animals think that if they cannot see you, you cannot see them, & so with Lily it was the same. She would call for me to let me know where she was, all of the time, and I would whistle to her, and she would be comforted knowing I was near. I hope one day to hear that neighing for me again, when it is my time to leave, her voice in turn guiding me.
In Memorium - June 8th 2020
In Memorium - June 8th 2020
In Memorium - June 8th 2020
Though my heart is literally broken, it is comforted in the knowing she runs free in green pastures that in life she could no longer run in, for being fully blind. She was buried by the pond in the shade of the treeline. I am guessing her age at around 27, My old girl who loved only me. RIP Sweet One.