I was very delighted to win the wonderful and highly talented artist  AriesRedLo for this new commission.

I love AriesRedLo's feel for equine anatomy and wanted to choose a perspective for this portrait of my Friesian stallion character Steppenfire that would make the viewer feel as if they were standing next to him – AriesRedLo captured this wonderfully!


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Here I am. My breath is calm and warm as the light of dawn dispels the darkness.

A new morning dawns... a new day.

Like the dancing lights of fireflies in the paddock, the twinkling of the stars in the firmament gradually faded until the night dissolved
as if it had never been more than a veil of thick clouds that had kept the sun away.

Now, as the sounds of the night slowly recede and give way to the voices of the day, I enjoy this silence of transition...
I feel the light of the sun warming my black coat...
Slowly, I stride across the dew-covered meadow, whose delicious grass seems to belong only to me in these moments.

And yet this cycle reminds me of the transience of things.

It seems not so long ago that I galloped across the pastures with the others... measuring my strength against my peers and searching for my place in the world...
back when everything seemed possible and farewell was just a word...
back when life was not largely determined by the expectations of others...

Like the sun, which inexorably follows its arc, summer soon gives way to the approaching autumn. And my body – once full of unbridled strength – reminds me more and more often of the growing number of winters that are already behind me.

But I‘m still here...

I gather new strength, carry my years with dignity and dispel the shadows of melancholy, just as the sun dispels the darkness every morning.
For in every rising sun lies the quiet reminder to cherish every moment – because they‘ll never come again

(by Steppenfire)


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♪-Mood: Max Richter - On The Nature Of Daylight (Erhu Cover by Eliott Tordo)