Ohio Amish Country

Lehman's Local Artisan Festival July 2009

I love living in Kidron, in Ohio Amish Country.  It is like no place else.  I enjoy my Amish neighbors.  I share a lane with an Amish family so have lots of buggy and foot traffic on our little lane.  Since I am a horse person I often have conversations about horses with my neighbors.  Just the other day  I got to chit chat with Sam about horses.  I have an offspring of one of his horses so I was telling him how well my colt is doing.  Ricco is growing into a beautiful horse.  He is at that leggy, long necked stage and growing so fast its almost visible.  Thankfully he has the sweetest tempernment of any horse I've owned. 

We got on the subject of horse training and Sam was telling me he trained some half siblings to my colt but won't be taking green horses out on the road any longer after a scary near miss.  The roads are getting too busy and he commented that the people on the road honk their horns at frightened horses.  I think the downside to living in a community with lots of Amish is seeing horses on the road are common so its easy to assume the horses are very well conditioned to the traffic.  I could sympathize with Sam though knowing you have to start somewhere with a young horse.  I am always amazed at how well the horses do for the most part but I also keep in mind that a frightened horse is not thinking but reacting so a loud noise would heightened his fear.

Sam told me now instead of training young horses he is making halters as a sideline so if I ever need some to stop by.  I like to shop at these little Amish cottage businesses.  You get a glimpse into their lifestyle which is often fascinating to me.  I admit  I envy their way of life in some respects.  I am not sure though how an artist would fit in!  :)  Thankfully we can live side by side quite well.  I do know I have shown several Amish themed paintings to my neighbors and have enjoyed hearing their perspective and hearing the stories that come about from the scenes depicted in the paintings.   They seem to appreciate that what I do is 'freehand' (thats a term that often comes up meaning what I do is not traced or made by a machine) and that I do not make the painting specifically of them as an individual.  I paint it in an impressionistic style so the faces are not detailed and they become just part of the landscape-- just like the painting of the work horses on the banner of this page.

I will be working on more of this type of artwork in preparation for a couple more art events at Lehman's in Kidron.  It was decided the other day that we would do a couple more this fall and winter and have come up with the dates of Nov 7 and Dec 5th.  If you like more information you can e-mail me at artbysue@hotmail.com or visit http://www.lehmans.com/ to see their events calendar.  I have an ongoing project at Lehman's painting farm animal murals as painting demos and also help schedule other artists and crafters to do demos as well.  We've got a very nice selection of potters, fiber artists, wood carvers, wool rug hookers, oil painters to mention a few who come on a regular basis to do these demos.   So if you are planning a trip to Ohio Amish Country please check out the events calendar and mark your calendars!  We are heading into the most beautiful time of the year!

thanks for stopping by!
Sue Steiner
Kidron Artist