Ever since she was a little girl running around on the family farm, Laura Cox has been spellbound by horses.
There is a mystique, a majesty about them that she finds hard to describe. They touch her artistic spirit in a way no other creature can.
Yes, she likes cattle – it’s hard not to after so many years in their company. She even has a cow called Sarah as a pet, and she adores Stubby, her goofy short-legged dog. But horses will forever be her “bestest” friend.
It is a friendship that easily survived those times she was thrown from the saddle, experiences she dismisses as “just a normal part of riding.”
“Horses go places with me, they do things with me,” she says. “They even talk to me. They are amazing animals and I feel this strong connection with them.”
Given this bond, it is unsurprising to learn that horses are Cox’s favourite subject matter as an artist. They feature in her award-winning paintings and her displays at Barrhead Art Gallery; they have inspired work that captures a disappearing rural Alberta lifestyle; they have graced canvases at Cox’s home, compelling strangers to offer to buy her art.
What is more surprising is that it took so long for this to happen. When Cox first started painting seriously, her focus was landscapes and flowers.
She didn’t think she could draw horses, despite having a huge advantage over many other artists: she knew a horse’s physical characteristics with the precision only a lifelong farm girl could possess.
“One day I decided to give it a try and found I could do it,” says Barrhead Art Club’s artist of the month. “That must have been about ten years ago, maybe not even that.
“To paint horses properly you have to know where their muscles are, you have to know the shapes on them.”
Since that watershed moment her confidence has soared, along with the ability to realize her potential.
She has become a household name in the local art scene and now runs The Laura Cox Studio from a converted barn at her home, where she teaches art on Tuesdays between September and end of April.
Born in Dapp, north of Westlock, Cox grew up on a farm, learning to read animals’ eyes and body language. When did she start riding?
She was so young, she can’t remember clearly. But she can remember the horse. It was Dolly, who boasted an interesting history, having accompanied Cox’s mother on a railway car from Montana to British Columbia and finally to Alberta.
“Dolly died on the farm aged about 39 or 40,” says Cox. “I was about 11 at the time.”
At school Cox didn’t have much opportunity to do art, and after marriage she didn’t have much time, given the demands of raising a large family. When she did pick up a paintbrush, she quickly established herself, becoming a member of Fort Assiniboine Art Club before joining Barrhead Art Club about 14 years ago. Bright colours dominate her work. Although she has dabbled in oils, watercolours and pastels, acrylic paints are her main medium.
In 2008 her painting “Come Along Girls,” which depicts her husband walking across pasture with four mares, won the “people’s choice” award in the northern zone of the Alberta Community Art Clubs Association Cox show in Redwater. Two years later she won another “people’s choice” award – this time at the Barrhead Art Club show for her painting “Hug My Buddies.”
Those award-winning qualities have kept her busy – she takes part in the Onoway “Night Of Artists” show and recently painted a Soap Box Derby cart on a tile for the “Cultivate Life St. Albert” mural.
Her daughter, Megan Leah Pederson, who inherited her creative talent, also painted a tile for the mural.
Cox’s next project is to help create another mural, this one for Westlock’s Spirit Centre. She also has hundreds of photographs waiting to be turned into paintings. It seems the old barn at her property will see no let-up in activity any time soon. Cox calls it her woman’s cave.
“I tell everyone I’m the queen here,” she laughs.
