Horses are earth’s most familiar inhabitants. The ebb and flow of earth is constant, and with it, the most intimate animals moving in conjunction. Unfamiliarity allows movement towards earthy discovery. Curiosity is vital for growth. Curiosity plants the seed for so many indispensable conversations.
You reach your fingertips as far as they can to grasp the air that floats more above your head higher than any of the other air. Is there more oxygen only in the places you can’t reach? Your arms tangle into the branches like matted hair. Intertwined, as if they had emerged along with the tree for centuries. How do you, now, extrapolate your limbs from the branches, withdraw your mind from what you once knew? How do you unturn the screws that were once so harmonious within the grain?
Something is placed upon the ground in front of you. You pick it up and explore it. You overturn it, tap it with your fingernail a number of times. You lick its smooth surface. You place it back on the ground. You are asked why you’ve placed it on its side. You wonder how the object is meant to be placed.
The horse is now exhausted and pawing and the dirt, hard. The hoof strikes the soil many times. The horse is dismissed from its labor and stillness is returned to the landscape.
Creative Direction, Garments, Styling, & Words by Alexa Chepolis
Photography by Cameron Emory
Photography Assist by Lulu Hamilton
Makeup by Ai’yannah-Ne’Chea Thomas
Horse Handler Ava Briody
Talent by Belle Cohen, Ella Luhn, & Riley Mckinnon