"Guardian Spirits" is a painting based on a visit to the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in Hot Springs, South Dakota. These people work hard to maintain a privately funded reserve for some of the unwanted wild horses that had been culled to reduce wild horse populations. The horses were destined to spend their remaining days in feedlots until these people stepped up and offered to provide a place they could run free again.

There is a cliff wall covered in Anasazi petroglyphs located at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. As I stood and gazed at the carvings on this cliff, it was like touching the past. At that instant, I knew the combination of the wild horses and the ancient petroglyphs would be a wonderful painting.