Stella grew up in New Mexico and lives on a little ranch south of Santa Fe with her husband Seth and their three children, Wyeth, Whitman, and Winona. Baer’s paintings and photographs are western mystic naturalist prayers, physical manifestations of spiritual realities. (Photo by Juniper Workshop)

My name is Stella Maria Baer, I am an Earth Pigment Painter, Photographer, Horsewoman, and mother. I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico and live on a little ranch south of Santa Fe with my husband Seth and our three children. I have spent the last 14 years working as a painter and photographer of the west. For ten years I made paintings of moons and planets the colors of the desert where I grew up. The past nine years I’ve been making western mystic landscape paintings of horses, birds, antelopes, rabbits, women and children under the western sky. My photography includes desert landscapes, women in canyons, and wild horses. Like a bird, my work has two wings, my painting and photography practice, and then our work at Moon Horse Ranch. Our vision for Moon Horse Ranch is to be a place where folks draw closer to the land, one another, and themselves. At Moon Horse Ranch we rescue slaughterhouse bound horses, raise wooly angora goats, and offer workshops taught by artists whose practices are interwoven with the earth. On our back porch I teach folks from all over the world on how to make paint from dirt, rock, tree sap, and honey. Other workshops at the ranch include sheepskin hide tanning, natural dye with the flowers in our fields, quilting, spinning our goats fleece, and moon photography, all taught by artists we’ve come to know as friends over the years. Our ranch is named after our Appaloosa horse Moon and Stars, who we rescued from a kill pen in Texas three years ago the day she was scheduled to ship to slaughter. Just over a year ago we rescued a six month old wild baby pinto horse from a kill pen in northern New Mexico and named him Sky. He had never been touched when we brought him home and I’ve been working with him over the past year to grow the trust between us. When we first brought him home he’d run through a fence if we walked toward him. Now he lets me kiss his nose, pick up his feet, and run my fingers through his mane. (Photo by Juniper Workshop)

My paintings began as a prayer practice nineteen years ago. For many years I made paintings in secret and showed them to almost no one. Then I began taking painting and drawing classes, and worked as a studio assistant for an painter who was exhibiting all over the world. I started receiving critiques for my paintings and moving them from private to out in the open. I was surprised that they spoke to people in ways I never could have imagined. People began asking me if they could buy the paintings and I started exhibiting them with galleries and eventually museums. For ten years I made paintings of moons and planets the colors of the dirt and rock in New Mexico where I grew up, a way of bleeding out my memory of growing up in the desert. For the last nine years I’ve been making western mystic landscape paintings of women and children riding horses, birds, antelopes, and rabbits. While the moons and planets drew out a sense of feeling at home in a place that looks like another world, the western mystic landscapes often include our rescue horses in the fields at Moon Horse Ranch at sunset or sunrise. I loved painting the faraway, and I love painting the horses and wild grasses and mountains and junipers I see every day. Every painting I make is a prayer.

My painting practice is interwoven with the land at Moon Horse Ranch. My paintings are made with earth and mineral pigments from all over the world as well as pigments made from rocks and stones collected in our fields and on my morning walks. This past summer I had my first solo museum exhibition at Taos Art Museum and many of the paintings chronicle the relationship of our horses, from when baby pinto arrived and was very timid and frightened to both horses running together under the full wolf moon. (Photo by Isabelle Baldwin)

My painting practice is rooted in a relationship with the land and a desire to honor and care for our earth. I teach people from all over the world how to stop using paint made of microplastics and use paint made from dirt and rocks, in ways that are not extractive or destructive, but grounded in relationship, leave no trace, and go down the drain without damaging our rivers and oceans. I love Cleobella’s commitment to honoring the earth, paying workers fairly, and using organic cotton and sustainable leathers. I love the soft blues of the denim in this spring collection, and the linen shirts - they feel like classic western style. I often say my own style is Lonesome Dove and The Man from Snowy River had a baby - Cleobella’s denim this season feels in that vein. (Photo by Juniper Workshop)

I love the denim skirt and long denim dress - softest denim I’ve ever worn and they remind me of the denim my mom wore in the 90s at her family’s ranch in Wyoming. (Photo by Isabelle Baldwin)

So much of being creative is learning to listen - to the land, to the earth, to our own selves. A listening practice cultivating your own intuition is at the heart of every creative practice. Experiment. Play. Take classes and workshops. Don’t imitate other contemporary artists. Find your own unique way of creating that is as unique as you are. (Photo by Isabelle Baldwin)

This chapter of my life has been a story of long seeded dreams, letting those seeds fall into the ground and die, tending the garden. Persevering when tending those dreams is difficult, grounding myself in love, and taking time to bring the visions I’ve been given into being. My painting practice ebbs and flows but continues to be a prayer rooted in love for the land and for horses. We will continue to offer workshops at Moon Horse Ranch from artists whose practices are interwoven with the earth with the vision of drawing closer to the land, one another, and ourselves. During a time of great upheaval these workshops have been a balm, and as one participant said at my last workshop - the medicine we all need. Visit https://www.stellamariabaer.com/ to learn more about her life and art.