The Horses and the Craftsmen: A Vision of Restoration

I’m in the middle of a vivid dream where a long procession of people are leading horses in a line. Some of the horses are wild and defiant, tossing their heads and moving in and out of line. Some stop walking and just look around or sniff the ground. Each horse is different, representing a range of sizes, breeds, and colors.

Then I see one of my current students leading a zebra. I think, “Oh I know her! That’s Tina!”

When I woke from the dream, I knew what it meant. I knew for the first time that the horses I had been painting and selling for a few years represented artists. Not just artists in general, but the artists I was teaching. I saw far more artists than I could physically teach in a year. There were thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. I felt it deeply. These were artists who would carry something significant into the world.

The dream stirred me. It encouraged me. It also unsettled me.

How would so many artists ever learn from me? How could I manage that kind of impact with my current schedule? How many artists could realistically move to Queen Creek, Arizona for a year?

At the time, the answer seemed obvious: very few.

But I soon came across something that expanded the vision even further.

Shapers of Culture

As I was listening to a podcast about creativity and mastery, the speaker referenced the ancient book of Zechariah and the craftsmen that are mentioned there.

I was curious, so I went and read it myself. I saw how Zechariah describes a vision where four horns had risen up and scattered the people. When he asks what they are, the angel explains that they represent powers that oppressed and terrorized.

Then he sees four craftsmen who come to terrify and throw down those horns.

That stopped me.

Not warriors. Not politicians. Craftsmen.

As governing powers rise and oppress, it is skilled makers who are sent to dismantle what has dehumanized people.

I began connecting this to everything I had studied about culture and art. Socrates said, “Show me the songs of a land, and I will show you her laws.” Kandinsky wrote that artists are prophetic, that they lead culture into a new epoch. Long before the modern art world existed, creativity lived in ornament, in textile, in architecture, in design. The craftsmen shaped the environment people lived in. They shaped the atmosphere.

Zechariah’s vision felt like that same truth written thousands of years ago. Artists rising from every direction. Skilled. Intentional. Ready.

More Powerful Than Fear

As I kept reading, I went back to the beginning of the chapter and saw the first vision: horses of different colors standing among myrtle trees in a low place. They were called the sent ones, patrolling the earth and reporting back its condition.

I immediately saw my dream again. Horses of many colors. Each one distinct.

In the vision, the horses are not on a mountain. They are in a ravine. Hidden. Quiet. Among myrtle trees. The myrtle is a low shrub. It is evergreen and fragrant—a reminder that restoration often begins quietly, and that power is not always loud or elevated.

Artists are like that.

We often work in obscurity. We observe. We carry something subtle. Our work travels farther than our bodies ever will. Paintings hang in homes across continents. Images move across screens. Symbols take root in places we may never visit.

We are sent in a different way.

As I read about the horns that scattered people so that they could no longer lift their heads, I could not ignore how relevant that felt. Oppression lowers the head. Corruption numbs people. Endless conflict exhausts the spirit.

Beauty does something different.

Beauty lifts the head.

Tyranny reduces people to survival. Beauty reminds them they are human and made for more than fear. Art does not overthrow governments by force. It reshapes the narrative. And whoever shapes the narrative, shapes the future.

The Burning Question

As this dream deepened in me, even riding my own horse Beau felt symbolic. The strength. The sensitivity. The way a horse responds to the slightest cue. An artist is powerful, but also perceptive. Strong, but guided.

Still, I had a very practical problem.

If the vision was true, if thousands of artists were meant to be skilled craftsmen who would influence culture, how would that happen through a tiny school in Arizona?

At that time, we could train about twenty-five artists a year.

Twenty-five.

How could something that small ever touch the world?

That question stayed with me.

And the answer did not come in the way I expected.

Next week’s Artist Odyssey will reveal what happens next. Join the Artist Odyssey community to make sure you don’t miss it.

Have you ever sensed that your art was connected to something bigger than you?

Share your story in the comments below!