Drift Horses: A Visit with Rita Dee
by Bernard Greenwald
For a couple of years now all of us who pass by the White Rabbit Cafe and Red Hook Inn have enjoyed the sight of Rita Dee's monumental wooden horse sculptures made from Hudson River driftwood. One would never confuse them with real horses, yet the dynamics of their pose and gesture have such vitality that one senses something ineffably lifelike about them. They are realistic and unreal at the same time. In silhouette, when the light is right or there is snow on them or on the ground around them, they seem almost to be beautifully executed drawings of horses. But going past on foot or in an automobile, one senses the mass and weight they convey. These horses are ridden by paradox: fake and real, flat and voluminous at the same time. Somehow their riders maintain a compelling equilibrium.
Rita lives between Red Hook and Tivoli with her husband Tom, three children, nine horses and three dogs. At 46 she is a tall, handsome woman with a dark mane of her own who speaks with obvious pleasure about her life and art. She grew up near Saratoga and got her first horse at about 12 years of age, but has been making wire sculptures since the sixth grade. She attended the College of St. Rose and other schools upriver, but it was only when she returned to school to study fine art here in Annandale--with three small children at home--that she found the true freedom to pursue her own sensibilities. She had been told in the past that "horse art" was nothing but kitsch, but at Bard College she was encouraged and supported by at least three artist/teachers--Judy Pfaff, Bill Tucker and Laura Battle--to invest herself in the horses she had loved since childhood.
When a serious allergic reaction to solvents made it necessary for her to give up painting, Judy Pfaff encouraged Rita to try sculpture. Since she wanted to do life-sized horses, it seemed natural to take advantage of the free materials washing up on the shores of the Hudson.
Rita sees her horses every day, often rides them herself, and she teaches children to ride. She draws and photographs the horses, but when time permits her to begin building a sculpture she stands amid her tools and stock of wood, hefting pieces in her hands for as long as two hours, working out in her head and hands what she intends to do. She tries to feel the implication of movement in each piece of wood; "You have to feel it in your body to make it believable."
The wood that arrives at the river's edge seems to become hardened in the process, whether because its softer portions are washed away or something in the water hardens and preserves it. It is very strong and burns with a blue flame. She tries to use the wood in its natural form, without cutting or shaping it, only giving it a coat of stain to protect it from weather. The stain imparts a subtle coloration. Her tools consist of an old cross cut saw, two cordless drills, and lots of stainless steel screws and toggle bolts--a modest arsenal indeed for any sculptor. She speaks of a tension between her respect for the skeletal anatomy of the horse and the structural demands of an architectural invention; and the way drawing from the human figure has helped her to see horses more perceptively. She venerates the ancient tradition and culture of the horse, and being part of an unchanging tradition. One senses these resonances in the work, the theatrical uplift she imbues it with.
Rita carries her art education easily. She speaks of Leonardo's great horse, the Renaissance tradition of equestrian portraiture, Degas' racing paintings and horse sculptures. She says she'd love to be the Rosa Bonnheur of driftwood horses. She is aware of her own history as well as she describes how her grandfather emigrated from Italy to Brooklyn, earned enough to bring over seven siblings by the time he was 14 and to open his own butcher shop by age 19. She says that all her forebears' hard work allows her to have the sweet life she enjoys today.
And indeed it does seem sweet. After several days of cold rain we were speaking in front of her barn during an afternoon bathed in sunshine. The horses in the paddock cavorted and conducted horse business and politics, the shiny patterns of their coats dappled even more by the white chiaroscuro of the clouds. The dogs dozed. An old pensioner of a horse, deaf and mostly blind, cropped grass near the sculpture. The sky was blue, the meadow a tender, sweet green, the leaves on the trees just about to come into maturity.
