Debi McSwain combines love of horses with love of art

Horses are a lot of things to a lot of people.
From the chargers of the cavalry to the companion of the cowboy, horses and humans have found unique and lasting bonds in so many different ways.
For Debi McSwain of Valley Center, horses aren’t just her friends.
They’re works of art.
Though she majored in fine arts for film and television and minored in French at Chapman University, McSwain says that studying abroad at the Academie Du Port Royale in Paris changed her life.
“I was studying in the Sorbonne, and they offered an art class up in this little attic,” she says. “The bathroom was just a hole in the floor and the teachers spoke only French. It was near the cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried. But I thought, ‘This is great!’”
Since then, McSwain has combined her love of horses with her passion for art, painting a series of equestrian-themed pieces.
“I started riding at age ten, then got out of it as a teenager, but got back into it in my early twenties,” she says. “A few years ago, I started following this program where you do a painting a day and post it online. I use my four horses for a series called ‘Four’ that I’d really like to continue. I was doing that for about two years while I was taking care of my husband’s grandfather, but we’ve been so busy for the past year or so that I haven’t kept up with it. But I really want to keep going with that.”
The four horses McSwain paints are characters in their own right, and have their own artistic undertones. Cody, the oldest at age 17, is a Paint, though he looks all white from a distance. He shares a corral with Georgia (named after Georgia O’Keeffe, the modern American artist), a 12-year-old mare. The younger horses are seven-year-old Vinnie (named after Vincent Van Gogh) and Fiérte, a six-year-old Hanovarian and son of Georgia. Both Cody and Vinnie are great-grandsires of Secretariat, the thoroughbred who won became the first American triple crown winner and is featured in a new feature film.
McSwain shows Fiérte in dressage competitions, but says that Vinnie is “still trying to figure out what he wants to do.” She adds that she broke them both when they were young, but admits that breaking a horse is probably not something she wants to continue doing.
McSwain and her husband, Dan, both enjoy the outdoors, especially with their home right on the edge of Hellhole Canyon Preserve. Debi says that the family is thinking about starting an after-school program for kids in the area.
“I would love to teach kids about horsemanship and art,” she says. “And my husband loves nature. He could take the kids out on nature walks around here. Our daughter [Brittany] is coming back down [from Ukiah, in Northern California] and she could teach them yoga. It would be a really fun way to share what we know and what we love with the kids in our area.”
In the meantime, McSwain and a group of her friends enjoy riding horses on the trails around Hellhole Canyon and camping in different areas across Southern California and beyond.
“The older horses are great trail horses,” she says. “My girlfriend and I will go out riding for two hours at a time. We see coyote, quail, we even saw a bobcat up here the other day. And we’ll go camping on the weekends in Cuyamaca or up in Casper Park in Orange County.”
As for her art, McSwain says that she’s eager to begin some new projects.
“We’ve been rehabbing this house for over a year, and now that we’re moved in, I’d like to get back into more painting,” she says. “I want to do some really big paintings, like life-size. And I’m going to keep on painting my horses. That’s what I love.”

See the full gallery of photos on the Roadrunner Facebook page and visit McSwain's Web site at www.debimcswain.com to see more of her pieces.