Alpenglow Magazine | Young Artist Has A Way With Horses

Young Artist Has
A Way With Horses

Story and Photo By Cindy Kleh

It’s obvious that Jaime Sutton has a way with horses. She talks softly to them and they listen; she touches them and they respond. And when she rides them, the 15-year-old and her steed move in sweet harmony.

When she was a toddler, her mother worried as she touched the family horses’ legs and walked under their bellies with impunity. Soon she was going on week-long trail rides and helping her veterinarian mother care for the 14 Fox Trotters and one Quarterhorse kept in the meadow beside their Fraser Valley home.

About the same time that Jaime’s life-long passion with horses began, she also began drawing, so it’s no surprise that her first sketches were of horses. She even carried a sketchpad in her saddle bags.

Her art continued to evolve with watercolors, acrylics and a young girl’s imagination: Cowboy cats, medieval dragons and rearing unicorns, rainbow stallions with the wind in their manes, snarling bobcats and many more.

Local entrepreneur, Francie DeVos, convinced Jaime at age 11, to sell her creations at a Fraser Valley Christmas craft fair. “I was terrified,” the shy teenager admits. “I didn’t know what people would think of my work. But I did so well and thought “cool!” I’ve gotten used to talking to strangers and I don’t dread it now.”

The idea of putting her drawings on gift cards made her a regular customer at McConnell Printing Company in Winter Park. Her parents, Shawna and Matthew Sutton, encouraged her with an initial investment to cover the first card printing, but she soon paid them back. The rest of her business expenses have all been paid from her profits.

Her father, a structural engineer, mats her prints and builds professional looking displays for her booth while her mom helps her organize the business end. Both have worked hard helping her with the booth setup and selling of her artwork. But the art is still pure Jaime: colorful, playful and constantly changing as she matures.
Does she long to get away from the quiet rural life of Fraser Valley to seek more excitement in the city?

“I’ve lived here all my life. The only thing I like about Denver is shopping. I don’t like cities or cars. Here I know everybody and they are so supportive.”

She concedes that she will have to move away to go to college, and already has plans to sneak her cat into the dorm. But until then, Spice and the three family dogs will sleep in Jaime’s room, fighting for space on her bed.