Mademoiselle Percheron Gris 13" x 12" x 6" on a walnut base, Ed. of 20	Hobbled 15 1/2" x 15" x 9"	Elegance 16 ½” x 17” x 7”, Ed. of 20
Kate and Dan Belgian mare and colt 7 ¼” x 10” x 6, Ed. Of 35	Little Misses and Miss Molly Mule 9" x 11" x 8"

Lifelong horsewoman, Yvonne Kitchen, feels that she comes by her equine art passion through her genes as both her father and maternal grandfather were artists, and horse breeders and trainers are on both sides of her ‘pedigree’. One of her earliest memories at age three, is of her father telling her “you have to Really Look at how the legs go...” as they sat drawing together on the hospital bed put up in the dining room after his heart attack. To this day she still sketches horses on every available surface. She sculpted her first horses in high school ceramics class and quickly discovered that water based clay was not a good fit with the fine legged animals she wanted to create. It took widowhood and retirement from a nursing career to afford the time to take an animal sculpture workshop with Dan Ostermiller to learn to build armatures. But it was AAEA workshops with Kathleen Friedenberg and Jan Woods, who both emphasize correct anatomy, that helped Yvonne find her voice to tell the stories in bronze of so many of the horses she has known.

College, marriage, raising two children and numerous equines, domestic and exotic animals related to her veterinary researcher husband’s career, farming, 4-H and competitive trail ride competition and judging kept most of Yvonne’s artwork related to one or another of those activities for many years. But the drawing never stopped, and she feels that grooming, clipping and shearing all those animals were fantastic living anatomy lessons that are now expressed in clay by fingers that sculpt as much by feel as by sight.

Yvonne calls her studio Bronze Portraits from Nature because even when she is sculpting purely for pleasure just as when she is doing a commission, she has a specific animal in mind, and she works to bring to life more than anatomical correctness while telling a story of a moment in time that expresses the personality of that animal. Yvonne’s work has been recognized with Full Membership in the American Academy of Equine Art, and Associate Memberships in the Society of Animal Artists and Women Artists of the West. She also is a member of the Equine Art Guild, Pacific Northwest Sculptors, and Southern Oregon Society of Artists. More information can be found on her website www.yvonnekitchen.com.