The Wind in the Fields- Stella Maria Baer
The Wind in the Fields
Writing to you all from our little ranch in northern New Mexico, where the wind is blowing through the fields of wild grasses. My name is Stella Maria Baer and I am an Earth Pigment Painter, Photographer, Horsewoman, and mother of three children, Wyeth, age 7, Whitman, age 4, and Winona, age 2. We live on a little ranch south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the high mountain desert, 7,000 ft above the sea, where we rescue slaughterhouse bound horses and shepherd a flock of wooly goats. I paint moons, mountains, horses, and the sky with earth and mineral pigments, and I teach people from all over the world how to make paint from dirt, rock, and stones. My paintings are prayers, embodying the relationships between human beings and the cosmos, horses and land, flora and fauna, moon and sky.
Two years ago we rescued an Appaloosa horse from a kill pen in Texas, and our son Wyeth named her Moon and Stars. Over the past few years our children have been learning to ride her.
This past winter we rescued a baby pinto horse from a kill pen in northern New Mexico who has never been touched by human hands, and we are slowly working with him to build trust. He is beginning to let us touch his velvet nose and whiskers and we are teaching him to be gentle.
Our vision at Moon Horse Ranch is to be a place where people from all over the world draw closer to the land, one another, and themselves. We host workshops taught by artists whose practices are grounded in relationship with the earth, whether that is Fleece Spinning and Natural Dye, Earth Pigment Paint Making, or Moon Photography.
This Earth Day we are tending the seedlings we will plant in our garden after the last frost, shepherding our flock of wooly goats, listening to the wind in the fields, slowly building sacred trust with the wild baby horse, and holding on to our horse Moon’s mane. With each year that passes we learn a little more about how to honor this earth who so tenderly holds us.
-Stella Maria Baer