After a lifetime of dreaming about life with horses, and owning a horse as a child, that dream was realized again as an adult. Life was grand! Then an accident abruptly shattered my dream. While struggling to accept the finality of my situation and searching for distraction, I tried photography and found that the borrowed digital camera I was using had magical powers. I could look at a horse through that view finder and not be reduced to tears over what would never again be. Shazam! I had a new connection to horses and the world around me.

   Fortunately, my years spent as an actor and teacher of actors offered some preparation for the challenge of a new type of storytelling. While I knew nothing about cameras, my stage work, teaching, and directing provided a foundation in the areas of composition, lighting, focus, and a taste for dramatic structure. A fiery new passion was born.

   Soon, the romanticist in me strained at the boundaries of my photographic images that depicted the cold reality of exactly what I saw. But these special creatures had played a major role in my childhood fantasies, and I yearned to articulate something more of the power, beauty, and grace that horses meant to me. I wanted to convey not only what I saw, but more about what I felt, when I made the image. Moreover, I wanted to infuse my images with the cherished fantasies of my childhood.

   Thanks to digital tools—virtual brushes and paint, for example—I learned to stylize the photograph, by adding multiple layers of color, texture, shapes, and lines. Over time, I blur the lines of reality until the image more clearly reflects my feelings about what I saw. No longer are my final images limited to what my camera sensor recorded. The final image is as much about horses that I remember or dreamed of as it is a likeness of the horse that I photographed.

   Now, late in life, this is what gets me up in the morning—making images that come from the collected stories in my heart. Ultimately, I realized that my mission is to share my memories and dreams with all the others who have similar dreams and memories. As a little girl, I dreamed of having a horse and pictures of horses soothed those yearnings until I got my horse. Now, I hope to provide the images to soothe the yearnings of others. My images are imaginings. They emanate from dreams, half-forgotten memories, impressions, and feelings. Share in my imaginings, please. Allow my images to pique your memories, awaken your dreams, and remind you of the stories in your heart.