Sandisfield — Marking its 30th anniversary, the Sandisfield Arts Center hosts a series of events celebrating horses and their connections with humans. Events include two literary talks, a poetry reading, and a presentation from a local horse farm entrepreneur.
Suzanne O’Connell, co-president of the arts center, said the focus will be on how horses make Sandisfield special among the Hill Towns.
One speaker is Rose Nelson, who owns and runs Sunny Rose Farm. “We thought about who rides there—some amazing women with local ties, including national authors Kari Weil and Courtney Maum. Other people in the area who work with or write about horses complete the picture,” said O’Connell.
Kari Weil, researcher in the field of animal studies and human-animal relations at Wesleyan University and part-time Monterey resident, opens the festivities Saturday at 10 a.m. with her talk “Making Horse Sense,” on the language shared between humans and horses. “When we are with horses, we often speak a language that we don’t know because it comes so much from our bodies,” she said. “We don’t always realize how much the angles of our bodies are saying.”
Weil, a lifelong admirer of horses, did not come to the field of animal communications studies until later in her career. Her third book, “Precarious Partners: Horses and Their Humans in Nineteenth-Century France” (University of Chicago Press), considers the social and personal relationships between horses and their humans in European culture.
She remembers a precise moment when she recognized the unique physicality of communication with a horse. A young woman friend had been injured in a car accident, and she asked Weil to exercise her horse. “Her horse was a highly trained and very beautiful Oldenburg horse that she had been training for the Olympics, and I was so thrilled she asked,” said Weil. “But the first time I rode him, when I eventually asked for a canter, he gave me a passage—a very high-stepping trot. I tried to ask again for a canter and again got the same response. Finally, as if the horse knew exactly what I was asking for but doing so incorrectly, he jerked his body in such a way as to thrust my legs and seat into the correct position, and we cantered off. ‘This is how you need to ask,’ he was teaching me. And so, I learned.”
Weil’s talk includes an appreciation of poet/philosopher and animal trainer Vickie Hearn’s work on animal communications. “I used Hearn’s notion of establishing trust and how you must develop it before you can make progress—it’s that back and forth between not letting what we think we know get in the way of what we have to learn from the horse,” she said.
A few years ago, Weil found herself at Nelson’s Sunny Rose Farm, as she and owner Nelson share an appreciation of the wonder of horse communication. “People and horses and their communications are hard,” Weil said. “Most people think horses are like gentle dogs, but their nature is more complicated. I work with the human’s body communication as well as the horse’s responding body language—on the ground and in saddle—until it is as though the person must become part of the herd.”
‘Horses in Words—and in Sandisfield,’ panel discussion, Saturday, 4 to 6 p.m.
Nelson’s Saturday afternoon presentation will be on her horse farm’s offerings, which include riding lessons for all levels—she has seven lesson horses and boarding facilities. It will follow a three-author panel discussion.
Courtney Maum, the panel moderator, also boards her horse at the farm and trains under Nelson. Maum is an award-winning author of five books, including the 2022 memoir “The Year of the Horses,” which was The Today Show’s pick for mental health awareness. The afternoon panel includes two other award-winning authors: Donnaldson Brown, who wrote “Because I Loved You,” and Barbara Newman, author of “The Dreamcatcher Codes.” Both books consider the horse-human relationship. Brown has also ridden at Nelson’s farm.
“This will be a provocative panel discussion appropriate for people who like horses, but also educational for people who might dislike or fear them—we’ll be looking at the horse and human connection from many angles,” said Maum.
Maum lived in Sandisfield for 10 years before she took up riding horses, and she now returns daily to Sunny Rose Farm. “I think that horses and horsewomen have been having a literary moment for the past three years,” she said. “I’m just delighted to see that it continues to gain momentum, this celebration of horses in Sandisfield—with its all-women cast of participants. It’s proof of the joy and independence horses bring to so many.”
‘The Poetry of Horses, a Community Read,’ Sunday 3:30 p.m.
Hilde Wiseart, poet and co-president of the Sandisfield Arts Center, a previous Geraldine Dodge Foundation Poet in New Jersey, and author of her poetry collection “The Scheme of Things,” first envisioned Sunday’s community poetry reading.
Community members are invited to come and read aloud their favorite horse-related poems. If you don’t have a favorite, and you would enjoy reading aloud, the center staff will share one with you. If you would rather listen, your attendance is encouraged as well.
“The things I love about animals, which include people and their bond with horses, are the amazingly unexpected connections,” Wiseart said.
To learn more about the weekend’s “Magic of Horses” at the Sandisfield Arts Center, visit their events webpage.
