Archive | August 2022

Last year good friends of mine moved to Wichita Falls, Texas, a city about a two hour drive north and northwest of Fort Worth. This summer I went back to visit for a second time, just to hang out and have fun with them for a long weekend.
As I made my travel plans, like plane tickets and car rental, I explored what the internet offered about the area. In this exploration, I stumbled on The Mane Event. “The Mane Event is a public arts project of Leadership Wichita Falls, a non-profit organization dedicated to the recruitment, development, and preparation of individuals for civic leadership while providing a foundation and ongoing opportunities for community involvement.”
An art project that began in 2007 to raise money for Faith Mission, Downtown Wichita Falls Development, and Patsy’s House, it now includes over 70 decorated horses all over town. At banks, schools, funeral homes and businesses in between, these horses add a pop of color and local art to the area. My friend had not herd of the project though she recalled seeing quite a few of the statues around. She drove me to the ones she knew (and a few extra!), and I had a list from the internet for the rest. With this information, we ended up taking a fun little tour of her fair city – the city with “blue sky and golden opportunities” and corralling a herd of horse photos. Running out of time to see them all, I left Wichita Falls with a few to see next visit.

As it was quite hot out (upper 90s F), we barely rolled the windows down for most of these photos and stayed in her car with the AC on. Drive by shooting was a bit different kind of photography adventure than I’ve been on before. You can see some evidence of the car and the limits on the angles in some of these photos. I tried to crop them to look their best, but little I could do apart from more heavy editing.

The city of Wichita Fall is also home to Midwestern State University. And they have horse statues as well!

I think this set is my favorite. “Things to Come & Rebirth” was a pretty buckskin with bright butterflies. My mom always liked seeing Ben Cartwright’s buckskin on the old Bonanza tv show. Like a butterfly, I know she was born again and will live again. I miss her.