Spiro Arrives

 

This is a long and convoluted blog post about a visit inside a car with another model horse person delivering a horse, which included handling another of her horses plus playing with much tack, but somehow didn't include a shot of the deliveree!  Once home, I had another shoot, but it quickly bounded beyond the model to include dramatic handler-action poses.  About the only thing these 2 situations had in common was a striking silver bridle,... and Stone horses.  It's a mishmash and presents a 'day in the life' of one horse, with many shots, to put it kindly, totally impromptu.

If that isn't enough, I wanted to answer a question:  Why did I fall for this horse so badly?  I'd almost never had so desperately scrambling a reaction as I did when I saw him online December 8th.  It was unlike me.  But subsequent thought has revealed it had, in fact, plenty of precedent.  Ah me.  Welcome to the herd, Spiro.  I'm keeping your name until such time as you tell me seriously otherwise.  But resist calling your foal Graf I will not.  :)

The story started with this photo.  Kim Bleecker, gifted painter and performance shower, was doing the selling.

photo by Kim Bleecker, TotalEquineImage

She included performance photos.  The horse came with NAN cards.

photo by Kim Bleecker, TotalEquineImage

One of the consequences of such a high perecentage of Stone pieces being OOAK and very low runs (3 to 15) is that ye random collector has no idea what exists.  Yes, Stone keeps archives, but how many of us paw through hundreds of horses at a time?  The archive is not sorted, except chronologically:  not by scale, not by mold, nor by artist.  It is easier to ask FB groups what your horse is, a growing phenom (but separate subject).  I had been collecting pix of Stone ASBs for months, brewing over my potential NaMoPaiMo horse, Kotinga.  NaMo Dreams: Kotinga  After seeing Kim's ad, I'd found Kirsten Wellman's carefully curated collection pages (see www.whitehorseproductions.com) and it was this that told me Spiro was the issue name and not the individual.  But I'd had no idea the run, 30 head from 2011, half matte half glossy, even existed.  Until now I'd never seen him in black.  

 

(Spiro is technically seal brown.)  I had been worried about making Kotinga the equivalent of glossy, able to withstand my hard use of a model horse.  Kim's Spiro brought together 3 factors at once.  He was an ASB and looked spectacular in Parade.  (This mold is statistically the most likely winner of a NAN parade class.)  He was a glossy.  And he was stunningly beautiful.  Black and white is my favorite companion color to the palomino.  I have 2 favorite colors, one warm one cool, as many of my 2-horse congas attest.  The black bay, close to but not pure black, was symbolically important to me.  The blue eye was the icing on the cake.

I had plumped unexpectedly quickly for Sassy.  Also for Kotinga, for Nebelwerfer (who may change his name to Graf 😀), for Florissant at BFest, and, as it turned out, for a bay Irish Draft I'd found a week ago that pulled the same trick as Kotinga.  It has become a pattern for me now:  Do my own etching and make a true one of a kind plus save some money and a whole lotta time and uncertainty.

Nebelwerfer, aka Spiro's Graf

The deal for Spiro was consummated the next day, December 9th.  The first twist of the unusual was that I refused to pay postage.  Kim was only 3 hours away in the same state.  I wanted to save her trouble while at the same time I was hatching a wild idea to go on a cross country drive with my beloved navigator.  He can be bribed with birding trips,...  I found the Hamburg Cabela's three-quarters of the way to Kim's house. (He and I needed to go shopping there.)  All parties agreed to my plan.  Though we did have to wait until after Christmas, this month-long pause was nothing compared to Sassy's 5-months-and-1-week.

The day agreed upon was January 3rd.  It was biting cold.  This was why the visit took place inside my car.  We just couldn't waltz into Cabela's and plop down and do model horses, much fun as that would've been,... 

Naturally, each of us brought horses and tack to show off.  This was the first time Kim had handled Stone's Half Arab mare.  I took lots of photos of her tack.  I had asked to see her Remington.  I don't have one, and it is always good to be familiar with an important Western mold.

Being Kim, it was a fabulously gorgeous Remington.  Being me, these photos will probably not be useful to anyone but hardcore model horse tackmakers.

 I find his shoulders angled amazingly far apart, almost unnaturally,...

 but he is quite tack friendly.  So friendly, in fact, I could not resist plopping my latest and most show-offing-est piece on him.

 I like Kim's smile in the above shot.  :)  This was all very casual and I did not stop to tighten or carefully place things.

 This beautiful old silver parade set was made by Cary Nelson, probably in the 80s.  The color went so well with this horse!

Here's a sample of the tack shots:  An Evelyn Munday saddle belonging to Kim.

I was able to tell Kim how Evelyn did the alligator leather:  with a homemade embossing plate.  This was the most detailed saddle by Evelyn I'd ever seen in person so far.  It took my breath away.

 Just another day in Cabela's parking lot!!

 How I managed not to shoot Spiro appears obvious in restrospect.  I'd unwrapped him briefly but he much needed a bath.  There were far more interesting things to shoot.  My attention was not on him but on timing, visiting and shopping:  Kim had never been inside a Cabela's!  I was saving Spiro for later.  Needless to say that visit and drive was a uniquely fun experience.  We got home just before dark.

The next day and after a bath, I tried the same bridle on my new ASB.  This horse is, after Kotinga and my earlier Moonstruck / Spirit of Cinnamon, my third Stone Saddlebred.  After a few portraits, I wondered how I could explain those superlong reins.  I didn't want to go to the trouble quite yet of fitting the entire saddle, although I did try on the breastcollar.  But it distracted from the portraits.

 Then it struck me.  The blue of his eye could be balanced by Chalif my Field of Dolls Western rider.  Blue reflections on this horse (see earlier and below) are from the window.  And so everything came together.  (Why I can go to the bother of hanging up the background sheet but not fit a saddle is a question better left unanswered.)

Now we had something.  

 It's not out of the realm of possibility.  A handler could be doing this.  But how she had to stretch to keep up!  

 I didn't like how her face was shadowed.  She wasn't looking properly at him either.  Below, I photoshopped the corner of the sheet so it at least matched.  I'm also cleaning off tiny white specks, mostly dust.  Despite the bath he's got some age (which I don't mind at all).  The minute nicks and scratches, only visible up close in person, give character.

Finally I got an angle where Chalif was correctly aimed, unshaded and you could see her eyes.  I then changed the saturation balance to let the blues come through.  The confluence of hat and tail, quite unintentional, made me laugh.

What a duo!  Spiro's got a future here.

Thanks for reading.

 

Yuletide Cheer Extras

 

 This post might well be called Bonus Tracks.  In my creating the 31 posts for Kirsten Wellman's Yuletide Cheer Photo Challenge (see my Susan Bensema Young FaceBook page for them all), some pieces were forgotten or discovered too late while others just didn't get chosen, yet were worthy in themselves.  Let's be honest, I'm having too much fun to stop!  To call them 'Extras' is just shorter.

Above is one of my favorite genuine extras, a pony shot for the Day 21 Solstice Pony.  He unfortunately could not compete with the far more magical & mystical Colyer Lake ice sleigh shot that was used.  Yet I thought he was a pretty nice idea for a burst of light.  He sparkles and shimmers like a flame!  He's Black Horse Ranch's Shetland in Gold Charm wearing a Breyer blanket.  Even more unfortunately, I can't recall exactly which blanket this is, nor find it anywhere in IDYB--!!  Bad girl -- I'm ashamed,...

We should start with Day 9, Evergreen.  It dawned on me, several days too late, that I did indeed have a pair of green horses besides the Hartlands I wound up using.  Here they are:  Chrysanthemum and Lily of the Valley, from the 2012 Blossoms series.

 

Likewise for Day 23, Hounds, there were some I realized I'd forgotten.  Unlike Evergreen, there were Quite A Few,... and then I had to go looking for Lupines (wolves) as well as Canines!  We start with two of my normal carriage-sitting dogs, the small china HR and the old Hartland Bullet.  Bullet has often been seen riding in my Hitch Wagon.

 

 

  

Upstairs on the bookshelves was my Breyer Corgi, completely overlooked.  In the small-chinas display cabinet (in the bathroom) were lurking these other dogs.  They are old and of a plaster type material.  They look a bit like wolves, but you ain't seen nothin' yet for lupines, and I think they are on the canine side.

 

 

My final dogs are the most curious.  The wooden Beagle (?) needs help to stand up;  he's missing 2 legs.  (He could probably qualify for "weirdest.")  The little eraser-rubber Shepherd is a much brighter blue than this shot shows.  Adorably cute anyone --?! 

 

 Well I did mention wolves!!  Here we go:  These first three are what I'd call "normal" lupines, the sort you can get from Safari and Schleich.  The hangtag one is a resin-type tree ornament of the kind one can get in a nature center gift store, nicely detailed but too delicate (and heavy) to play with much.

 

 

These next wolves are what I'm calling Strange.  We are a long way from Yule here, although we are really close to Wolfenoot!!  The origami is from my best friend Gertchen, so long ago I couldn't tell you whether she made it.  It's a Christmas-tree ornament now.  The flocked furtail is from my high school years, a German collectible with wire-core legs.  And the red vintage Marx Toy is, of course, from my deep childhood.  Remember all those plastic dinosaurs--??  Those colorful play sets had Dire Wolves with them....

 

 In the early 70s my parents took us camping in Yellowstone.  I stupidly left my toys out overnight.  You can still see the teeth marks where my beloved dire wolf got chewed on by a chipmunk.  Mom said it was because my hands made him salty.  Oh I hated chipmunks for a while then,...

 

My final Bonus Track is for Day 29, an extra shot of the Five Florentines.  I thought it was less well positioned (angled) than the one I used on FB.

 

Thank you ever so much, Kristen, for giving us this Photo Chaos Challenge.  It's been like a photo show for me, but with far less stress.  I've dug up pieces I'd completely forgotten about, and many others that certainly deserved 5 minutes of fame.  What a fun thing to do with December and my FaceBook.  I have thoroughly enjoyed it!

Happy New Year everyone!
 

 

Congas I

I promised a blog post on congas.  This was partly because this new class was so much fun at my recent show, and partly because I counted how many congas my collection really had ("King's Herd's Hidden Congas") and was astounded at the answer (if you define conga as 3 or more of one mold, it was 36).  Also, I find myself increasingly collecting other peoples' conga photos, Stone and Breyer alike.  It is a fascinating field.  While I cannot possibly document all my thirty-six in one post, I thought I might start with a mix of shots from this year's Happy Valley Fun Show and from my existing files.

My own HVFS took place on November 15 and had 33 classes, all judged by one person (me).  The conga class, new for this year, was near the end.  We had 5 entries for it.  The winner was Kim's Classic Walking Draft Horses, sculpted by Mel Miller.  I'd had no idea there were this many.  I thought the variety, arrangement and documentation were very good (nobody else had papers or boxes).  Yay Kim!

 It's always hard to explain placing.  While these teeny little charmers stole everyone's hearts, they only drew second place.  These are the grazing Mini Whinny foals, who first came out in 2005.  Again, I'd had NO idea there were this many!!  They were so cute that both Kim and I photo'd them.

 A more traditional conga showed up with these Roxies.  These were also popular and both Kim and myself photographed them, but from different angles, so you get to see them twice.  These Roxies took third -- that is why the yellow-colored chocolate candy ball is sitting there -- it's the 3rd place ribbon.

 A more unorthodox view has me comparing and considering the many different tails of this mold.

I'm afraid no one photo'd the 4th-place entry, composed of Stablemate Pasos.  But the fifth place Frieseian conga did get photographed.  Although this is clearly the largest conga, I thought them less cute than the foals, and the mold is less close to my heart than Roxy.  Still it is an impressive sight, and must have taken a long time to assemble.

My own collection boasts 2 'official' congas in addition to hordes of unofficial ones.  Having said that, when I counted them, the official ones came in at 12 and 11 while an unofficial trounced everyone with 18--!!  Of course, those eighteen were my ISHs, Stone's Ideal Stock Horse.  I knew I had a lot,... the number fluctuates over time.

So we'll end this first phase congas post with a look at my Classic Liams (Stock Horse Geldings)(the 11) and my Buffaloes (the 12).  I recently posted this shot on my FB in tribute to the kindness of Margaret Loesch of the GrayWoodsCat.  Indeed and truly it is a gift to have a friend who's a dealer.  Thank you Margaret.

 There are some earlier blog posts featuring some of the horses in this conga:  Black Beauty vs. RCMP  and  PalmHenge  and  Reshelving the Classics.

And finally, there's my Buffaloes.  They already have a couple of blog posts of their own, but thanks to the Yuletide Cheer Photo Challenge, they got to be re-shot.  I don't want to talk about the dusting!  What a stampede!!

 Here are their blog posts:  Buffalo Conga  and   Hunting a 12th Buffalo.  Clearly I did pick up a 12th buffalo -- he's just not Waban.  He's a standard no. 76.  I've reached the point where I don't know which one he is;  one of the 3 with white horns with black tips that aren't identifiable as anyone else.

 We'll quit for now with this dizzying view.  It would be nice to blog about King's Herd's hidden congas, but other subjects have priority, not least a fabulous silver saddle.  It has been harder than I anticipated to start work on one's own saddle.  I have dozens of Christmas letters still to go out too.  It's been another year of slowing responses (I must be getting older), but it had some truly great spots, and I am so glad for them.

As ever, thanks for reading. 

 

 

Sleighing with Rowan

 

This will be that rarest of things for me, a short blog post (hah!).  I had so much fun harnessing, posing, shooting and processing this little guy,... all for one prompt for the Yuletide Cheer Photo Challenge.  This series of pix deserves to be shared, not only for their holiday appropriateness, but for learning about basic PhotoShopping.  An earlier sleigh post by me will be linked at the end.

I've been wanting another driving pony for some time.  I chose the long mane stallion version of Rowan partly because I had a pony mare waiting (she is the Rapunzel), partly because I was convinced he could wear a harness regardless of all that hair (he could), but mostly because I just liked him better than the mare Rowan.  (I'm even keeping his name!)  And isn't that what it's all about -- ? 

I'm enchanted with myself for remembering to make tracks in the snow. 

 I want to start with the unprocessed shots, that is, the ones that aren't yet PhotoShopped.  Above we see my back deck, flower pots and all, in the fast-melting snow of Dec 11.  It is, in fact, snowing, but the camera didn't catch it.  I'm lying down on a coat with my back to the house wall, trying not to disturb the snow.  These 4 shots are the pick of the litter of 17, so there's the first lesson:  Digital images are Cheap.

 There was considerable difficulty getting my head low enough, and getting the appearance of distance around the rig.  A front shot solves at least one of these problems:  It allows you to collapse the length.  Also, this angle did not need any Photo-Shopping of the snow.

I cobbled his harness together from 2 other sets, one made for a pony and the other for a Trad.  (Which just meant a session of reversing the process afterwards.)  The santa suit was a gift from Bobbie C. and has shown me a neat way not to need a new Santa figure.  Instead, the famous white ermine cloak is given to Steve's lady friend, my Western rider Chalif.  Neither one of them has gloves,...  Stupidly, I couldn't find the whip at first.  Imagine my chagrin when I found it lying in the sleigh body!!

This one's great (above) but damn he looks like he's going downhill.  Below:  I have cropped these 4 shots, taking out the railing and most of the white tray on the right horizon.  I was also trying to show the bumper stickers on the rear of the sleigh.

So far, so good.  Now for the PhotoShopping.  I've had years of experience with PhotoShop Elements, yet I still feel I've explored only a corner of its vast warehouse.  One thing it can do is warp, or skew, a photo.  The downhill pony could be levelled.  However, I ended up not using that particular shot.

What I did do was erase most of the lines in the snow.  They originally were melt lines from the planks of the deck.  I also moved snow higher, to cover the bases of some of the pots.  I used a combination of Smear and Healing Spot, along with several passes of custom draw, copy, move and paste.  Here is the bumper sticker photo, before (above) and after.  Can you see how the snow has unmelted?

Here is my final product, the finished version of the second photo of this post and the pick of the litter.  I liked the way there was white behind Rowan's head.  Note the snow around the black pot's base in the upper left.  The strong little pony, comfortable with a breastcollar harness and wearing bells!, is well equipped to travel all the way to an old friend's house.

Here is the promised link to my earlier blog post on Sleighs:  Sleigh Pix

So, what's next?  Beyond something like 48 Christmas letters, I sure want to buckle down on a silver saddle.  Yes, it's just one now;  the other is on holiday till spring.  I know I promised posts on congas and saddles.  Thank you for your patience.
 

Timaru Star II #12

 

Back in July I published a blog post about Breyer's 75th Anniversary display in the Kentucky Horse Park's Museum of the American Saddlebred.  Ever since then I've been meaning to blog about the striking silver Parade saddle contained in that display.  I'm almost out of time!! -- the 75th year will be over in less than a month.  Well,... better late than .... you know.

This saddle is one of my oldest silver sets.  It has a long and interesting history.  Its story can be divided into 3 stages, with a fourth for this year's display.  Meanwhile here is a link to that July post:  75th at the American Saddlebred Museum 

The first and oldest stage began in April of 1983 [the 1982 of the museum is wrong], meaning this saddle is 42 years old,... older than my marriage, if y' can believe it!  In 1983 I'd been operating the TSII as a mail-order business for 5 years, long enough to get some of the kinks out.  This painted-silver piece was for a fast-becoming-important customer of mine, an artist in her own right.  It was the second silver Parade set she'd ordered from me;  the first, TSII #10, had been ordered in March of the same year.  Repeat customer!  How valuable they were!  As was the custom of extremely kind customers who were photographers in the era of photo showing, she sent me a picture of her completed entry.  This is *Opium, an Amarna r/r/h.  Yes:  it was Elizabeth Bouras who became one of my 3 most important and influential early patrons and supporters.

Photo by Amarna / Bouras

This photograph is still in my Red Scrapbook for the first 15 years of TSII Silver Parade sets.  The bit was by Sue Rowe of Sojurner Studios.

The second stage for #12 came circa 1988-1989 when, undoubtedly for reasons of artistic expression and development, Paula O'Keefe decided to decorate the set.  She "tarted it up" with black backgrounding and red jewel dots.  

I have to admit the black made for a more striking set.  

Nine years later, in 1997, for whatever reason (I do not remember the circumstances), on March 12, the set came back into my hands.  The goal was a complete rebuild, restoration and re-do with silver tape.  This job was one of my first, if not the first, restorations of a TSII saddle.  Number 12 was fourteen years old (14) at the time, and silver tape technology had swept away the earlier silver paint ideas.

 

(I just want to say, at this point, that silver paint should not be dismissed out of hand.  It is one of the longest-lasting, and easiest, technologies we have for silver on model tack.  It can be easily renewed and protects things well.)

And so #12 reached its third stage.  It took me almost a month to redo the whole set.  I remember cleaning and polishing the bridle.  It had an elegant simplicity of the sort I had been looking for, in that year of working towards the publication of my first book, Guide to Making Model Horse Tack [1998].  I was trying to describe the concept of design within your skill level, not making things too hard for beginners, but showing how beautiful and harmoniously detailed simple tack could be.  This bridle was an awesome example of that concept, straight from my earlier self.

 The page below is from my Red Scrapbook.  The writing is transcribed below.

 

 

"The Three Lives of Saddle #12

"The first life began in April of 1983.  The only photo I have may be seen in the Red Parade Scrapbook.  No red spots;  solid silver taps, drapes, breastcollar & fender;  silver pommel;  no hip drops.  It was the third Traditional size Parade set ever made w/ the [diamond] stamp;  and the second TSII saddle for the same customer, Liz Bouras.  Original purchase price:  $75.00.

"The second life began in 1988-9 when Paula O'Keefe added the red dots and other black markings, seen here.   Bit by Sue Rowe, c. 1983.

 "The third life began March 12, 1997.  Extensive notes, as well as photos, were taken.   See N.A. Notebook IV  9703.12 - 9704.03.  Twenty-seven pages -- surely a record, even if they are small pages!   I chose to keep Paula's idea of black background with diamonds, but the red dots had to go.  Completely silver taped,  fenders raised, seat darted, new reins, new blanket, new hip drops.  Total hours:  30.7   3 Weeks & 1 Day.

"To silver-tape old painted sets ike this, first I scratch off the paint w/ a knife.  Use Scotch tape to lift more off.  Black Dye & Edge Dye areas.  Cut silver tape to fit, stamp it down w/ same stamp used 14 years ago.  Cut off excess, smoothe edges.  Finally, paint with a glue solution, to help prevent lift.  ALL THIS is only for the solid silver areas!"

 "The goal is to retain as much as possible of the spiritual and physical old saddle, while also incorporating modern improvements that 1) are possible, 2) have proven their worth, such as liners, single neckstrap, rotating ring in reins etc. 3) do not compromise the saddle as a whole, but rather enhance it and prolong its life.  Some might say I'm ruining history.  To them I say Look at Notre Dame.  & I am assiduously documenting everything.  Who better to make these decisions than myself?   --  N.A. Notebook IV"

 This last rather self-centered and confusing paragraph, I'm afraid, tried to defend against attacks that were never made.  The reference to Notre Dame reflects, I think, my reading about this famous church, and how it continually evolved over time, being constantly under repair!  In any case, I went on to restore something approaching a quarter of the 100 or so TSII silver Parade saddles that exist;  so I cannot've had too many qualms about it.

Three years later, in 2000, I took pictures of the restored #12 on this chestnut PAS.  The shot can still be seen on my website.
 

It is not clear to me how the saddle landed back in my hands.  Perhaps I made something for the Bourasi and they paid me for it.  What is clear is that for the next 25 years, TSII #12 sat on my saddle rack, under the plastic sheeting, and watched while my tack collection slowly grew along with my skill.  I probably put it to use now and then, but I'm not remembering anything much about that.

(2512.19 Note from the future:  I found this pic, taken 4 years ago, while searching for something else.  The horse is Seurat, named Sorpresa in my herd:)

This view shows the bit well.

I also found this shot of TSII #12 on a completely different mold, the Stone ASB, taken in June of this year.  There is not room for the hip drops;  despite his long back, the saddle is large.

 For the record, the lowest (4th) pole holds my 4 Terry Newberrys, rightmost.

Fourth stage.  When Breyer contacted me in June of this year, 2025, I had about 8 silver parade saddles on hand:  the 5 shown above, one miserable painted one in a bag (a wreck), TSII #309 prism tape Canadian on a horse on the shelves, and my precious Carol Howard silver set on a Carol Howard resincast.  Most of this number were old painted ones.  TSII #23, the one on the second pole down above, might have qualified for their purposes, but its jewels, in the centers of the medallions, had all corroded into blackness and were falling out.  A lot of repair would be called for!  The best and brightest, TSII #400, my own Rainbow Brilliance prism set, was simply too loud and colorful for the job.  That left #12.

Amazing how a 40+ year old saddle could still be used,...  Take note ye, how good tack lasts and lasts!

If you managed to get into the Museum, let me know whether you enjoyed the display.

 ************************************************************************

So what's next?  Blogwise, it's congas and cavalcades if it's not silver Parades.  Tackwise it's definitely silver Parades!  But, in fact, it's probably gotta be Christmas letters.