Niche's on Cosimo

This is one of those posts that started out innocently enough -- new horse in old costume -- but then took a completely amazing turn into deep history, astonishing me and blowing the whole thing into another dimension.  If this doesn't wind up as a vast case of intentional teasing it will be a miracle -!  Rabbit holes are just that:  wormholes through space into another place and time.  Clearly there's far more potential here;  but I'm out of time, I'm about to skip town.  We'll have to wait until I get back to see more.

When my new Cosimo arrived I was struck by his romantic Old European appearance.  He wasn't merely Baroque;  he was Medieval.  My goodness, Mink, he's a masterpiece!  I started cudgeling my brains as to what I had that would look good on him.

For my entire career I'd been telling people that I've never made an Arab costume.   In the sense that I'd never made one for a customer, that was true.  But several very intriguing and Arab-like costumes had indeed been made, ... for my own use.   

The best of them has been hanging on the top pole of my tack display racks for decades.  It had originally been created for my brindle bay John Henry, who was new in 1988 (the year I got married).  Of course, John Henry wasn't an Arab at all, which was part of the fun.  In the crazy way I name horses, I misread a local forest road.  I came up with Nichecronk [Nee-chay-cronk] and he grabbed onto it.  Cosimo, however, I liked enough to keep.

So far. 

Niche's costume had been made in the time right after my marriage, and it explored strong, new, rich colors and textures:  iridescent black, velvet red, gold.  The saddle tree was handformed from Friendly Plastic (thank you Fa Shimbo).  I followed no instructions, had no guide other than my own wishes on design.  (Maybe some carousel influence!)  It was made for the sheer fun of dressing up and exploring a tack form I hadn't done up to that point.

 The photo shoot happened at sunset in a local park I'd never visited before:  Fasick Park in Willowbrook Estates, technically Boalsburg, just south of State College.  My husband had found it during his year of intensely birding the surrounding county.

 

The costume explored velvet, bright gold, textiles and beads.  The bit was made from hammered brass wire.  The stirrups were jewelry findings.  I was well pleased at how the iridescent black worked with this horse.  Against the park landscape he looked beautifully noble.

 

 And then I started wondering exactly when this costume had been made.  Was there a photo of Niche wearing it in the photograph shoeboxes?  I didn't have a written registry of costumes (unlike the horses and the saddles, ahem, alas), but I did have the 5 shoeboxes, spanning 1978 to 2010, a full 32 years of my tack output and model horse worlds.  If it was anywhere it'd be in there.  Too early for digital of course...  I had a dim memory that the thing had been somewhere around 1992.  First place to look:  When had Nichecronk joined the herd?  Answer:  1988.  Earlier than I'd thought.  I started with the 1978 to 1992 shoebox.

 

The first real clue was Gypsy's wedding dress.  The reason this is a clue is that Gypsy is Niche's wife.  Gypsy Tintinnara, Breezing Dixie to the rest of you: 

 

 The date on her photo was March 1989.  My own wedding had been less than a year before that.  I remembered that bits of the same satin had gone into this costume.  I pawed on, forward through time:  1990, 1991, 1992.  Arab costume halters, colored Parade sets and prism tape halters showed that color and texture were important to me.  And then, at 2-92, something huge leapt out.

 

Glory be, it was the Grand Cavalcade!  

 

 Back then we'd rented a house in west State College, at 430 Airport Road.  We'd called it Niebenkirche [Nee-ben-kur-kuh] or "near church" because there was a church next to it;  near and nearly were both true.   On special occasions I'd held these enormous assemblies of every horse in the herd, usually to celebrate weddings.  THERE THEY WERE:  Right at the head of the parade, behind King and Maria (Fighting Stallion in an enormous pom-pom-fringed blanket and Running Mare in black and green), reigning couple, flanked by Ponderosa as head Shaman and priest, joined by their own son Tesoro (behind King in blue/white) and Goldenear behind Ponderosa, since Decorators were royalty in and of themselves.

 

The costume had been for Niche's wedding, and this was their triumphal procession. 

  

 

 

The bundle of white flowers in front of Gypsy was a tiny model bouquet, sent to me by Julie Froelich as an unexpected gift upon her happening to see the picture of Gypsy's wedding dress.   The flowers were bourne upon the back of an appaloosa FAF, Cricket, who happened to be the son of Gypsy and Niche.  (Now don't let's get into timing issues,...!)

 

The procession started at the end of the couch, extended to the other end and turned back 180 degrees.  And then the Cavalcade had spread out around the rest of the house.  Niebekirche had a complete loop of a floor plan:  you could indeed walk around in a circle through the rooms.   Looks like my Eight-Horse-Hitch of Black Belgians had been involved.   That made sense:  Their harnesses had been started in 1990 and would have been just finished.  Colts in the wagon bed!   Followed by my 6 Dapple Grey Clydes, as close as they could come to the same performance,...  Er-ma-gerd, ancient old harnesses on them,... and SO much more,...

 

 Astounding to think I had enough horses and tack to circle the house three times.  But I remembered the glorious flood.  I had photographed it thoroughly.  There they all were:  Every blanket, every notable piece of tack, even the bull for the piano.  No one was left out.  It even looked like other couples, in wedding finery (I had another wedding costume from Fashion Star Fillies) had joined in the happy throng.  Good heavens, the turquoise/white/red costume, three horses behind Niche, was my other Arab costume...

  

 

Even the Stablemates got in on it!! 

Perusing all the photos, I saw that my dear old friend Gretchen's carpet herd (all 15 of them) were here too.  She must have been visiting.  That went a ways towards explaining the fuss;  Gre lived several hours away.  Oh what fun.  It had been a happy day.

 

So Niche's costume existed at this time, February of 1992.  It could not have been made earlier than 1988.  My answer lay somewhere in that window of 4 years.  Not bad, given that I had not photographed it upon completion (bad girl!) nor written any accessible notes about it.  The problem with handwritten records is it's all but impossible to search them -- !! 

 

So, you won't get to see all the parade shots.  You won't get a blow-by-blow explanation of every horse, every costume, every piece of tack.  You won't get to see Niche close up and you won't see the other happy couples, nor the previous horse marriages I have celebrated at our current house, the one after Niebenkirche (1993 on).  Not until I get back, near October 24, and take up the reins again.  By then there will be other subjects to blog on,...  I might blog from the trip, if I can figure out how to do that with a phone,...  cell phone technology is not my strong point, but I can learn,..  

But in the meantime, hasn't this rabbit hole of a parade been a happy memory!

 

Thank you Mink and Cosimo:  You have inspired me. 

 

 

Runicorns 3

 

My pin collecting has carried on all this time.  I'm trying to get every Unicorn pin Minkiewicz Studios releases.  But she is so frightfully prolific!   Here are 3 beautiful "curly" Runicorns.  Forgive the trimmed edges and sometimes-fuzzy results.  It is, as I've often said, extremely hard to photograph these little cuties.

I'm calling these Runicorns 1, 2, and 3.  Their official names are Runicorn Series II green, blue and lavender (not to be confused with Runicorns Series II Talismans)*.  The first is actually backgrounded in chartreuse green, not always my favorite color but it works well here.  He can come out candylike, as above, or like this -- look at that mane!  

What looks black is actually the stunning rainbow-oil-iridescent layer, which worked so well with Chargon.  3 Mink orders  As that blog post documents, it was first used on a unicorn's body in 2023.  A couple of years later, heh there's no stopping her.

 I especially like charger no. 1.  His pose is rampant.  They all are.  

This second Runicorn has the very-typical-of-Mink pose of looking in one direction and leaping the other.  It gives him a Celtic gripping-critter unity, a curling about oneself that lends beautifully to heraldry and logos.  It forms lovely pairs.  It also shows, I think, the sheer athleticism of the unicorn.  Very few deer would do this!

This Runicorn 2 also can appear candylike.  Mink has a perfect sense of color co-ordination.  Forgive the poor focus;  I was shooting squatting and aiming sidewise -- ! 

 I usually collect the more realistic Dancing Horses and Imperial and Celestial (and Jewelled) Unicorns.  What am I doing going after the Runicorns, Cave Pony Unicorns, Unilumes, metal pins of unicorns and god knows what she'll dream up next -- ??!!?

There is a simple elegance to their design that is genuinely classic.

The third Runicorn can look pink:

 Or he can look lavender, which is what he's supposed to be.

 Together the three of them form a unity, which flows from one point to another.  Mink has done many Runicorn pieces in her two series.  These are some of the most enchanting.

*I have compiled an exhaustive spreadsheet of all of Mink's pins, five years' worth at this point.
 

Advanced Braidwork for the Model Horse

 

Finally!!  At the end of August, my great long dream has come true, and my next book is finished.  For the record, it was uploaded the evening of the 30th.  For the record, my hours chart shows work began on July 1, 2022, just one day after my husband officially retired.  (Not the 22nd, as previously claimed.)  So it really has been 3 years 2 months.  The truest way to think of the time frame is ask when I started braiding model tack.  Answer:  circa 1974.

Here's a link to the book's own page, with all its information:  Advanced Braidwork for the Model Horse.   And this is the back cover.

In a nutshell:  393MB, pdfs only, 225 pages, 324 photos, 47 Plates, $27.99 via PayPal.  

 

If this post is slightly wandering it's because I've put most of my publicizing efforts into the book's website page, into the TSII website Timaru Star II and into the seven (7-!!) previous blog posts.  I'll list them below.  Think of this post as a Bonus disc, like what you get with DVD movies:  extras and cutting room floor stuff.   Most bonus tracks make me want to watch the movie some more, so that's a good analogy.

Or you could say that since I've done Progress Reports on all the chapters, this final report is about the front and back covers. 

Meet the Eight,  Progress Report 2,  Progress Report 3 Peach Rose,  Progress Report 4: April's Hackamore,  Back Cover Progress (Report 5),  Progress Report 6:  Rinker's Hackamore,  Progress Report 7: Tissarn's

On the last day, one of the things I was doing was finishing the front cover.  It was exhausting.  It reminded me of finishing painting Marimba, my 2020 NaMoPaiMo Perlino Teke mare.  Marimba Finished:  the elaborate and troublesome dance of adding color and then taking it away.  I've learned quite a few new PhotoShop tricks in the course of this book!  I've learned that while I truly love digital painting, it is a skill that I should dabble in rarely.  It is physically stressful on the body, especially my hands and arms.  I was perched on the edge of my chair for days on end,... having a ball.  Digital creation is real.

The back cover came out beautifully.  It took longer than the front, but it fulfilled the requirements I had listed back in March:  Advertisement, index, promise and ornament all in one.  I could fill this whole post describing the various jugglings and re-shoots!  Five versions it went through.  But I'll restrain myself to mentioning that both the Peach Rose (right hand pinto) and Rinker's (left hand leopard App) got themselves re-shot.  

The choice of portrait for the Peach Rose bridle, a horse named Rayonnant, was influenced by this earlier shot of Fancy's hackamore.  Fancy's was so interesting it moved me to post on FB, but it did not wind up in the book.

There is something striking about photograhing the Ideal Stock Horse head-on.  Depending on how they painted the eyes, it either works hauntingly wonderfully or it doesn't work at all.  I wanted that bridle to show as much as possible and yet fit into that tiny narrow space.  I think it helps with the overall clockwise flow of the entire ensemble.  Besides, I just couldn't get the ISH to fit positioned sidewise.

I have a sneaky suspicion the Peach Rose might prove to be the most popular piece for people to try.  It is the 4th piece, being neither too easy nor too hard;  and alone of all of them, it is made of embroidery floss.  Mostly!  The buttons are braided thread of course,...  You'd still have to find the Hill Tribes Silver beads, or an equivalent for them.  But the basic design, with the button-and-loop bit heads and the round-braided browband with its flat braid ends, is robust.  (Meaning, accommodating to various interpretations and skill levels.)  Everybody likes braided floss reins because they drape so well.  The leather lace throat and curb are there to make this bridle easier than a fully-braided one.  And there's only 3 tassels!  

The front cover was an exercise in artistic pride.  As I've told earlier, the vision of it came to me in a dream.  When the time came, I photo'd a bosal and then drew it from the photo, similar to Tissarn's and Malaguena's drawings.

 In a twist of fate, it was Dry's.  Dry's Orange Hackamore  At the time of the dream, I'd thought I'd've made a superb bosal hackamore by the time I wrote the book, and could feature it on the cover.  But the timing was such that I used Rinker's Hackamore instead.  Yet the book took so long to complete that Dry's was in existence by the time it was finished.  So I put his on the cover, and also in the Photo Gallery inside -- Chapter 8 -- a bare 3 pages of what I've been calling "a regrettably very short coffee table book of TSII tack."

When it came down to it, Rinker's was just as fine a choice.

His level of detail and construction techniques had certainly reached the stage I was after for the book.  For most of the time of writing, I thought his was the hardest, and thus placed him last on the clock of the back cover.  But as told in Tissarn's, I changed my mind.  So the back cover remains as is, artistically perfected but not accurate.

The reception has been all I could have dreamed of.  Thank you all, so very much. 

So what's next for the TSII?  The website has been updated -- that which happens only every two years or so!  The Tack Sales Info page, what used to be the schedule of orders, has been dusted off and returned to service.  At the moment I'm well aware I don't know when I'll start or finish any of them; the schedule is only an outline.  But those orders have been accumulating for years, for just this day.  The Guide (1998) freed me from having to do basic tackmaking stuff, allowing me to explore more detailed pieces.  The Abaft is different.  I fully intend to keep on braiding at this level!  But I also know that the Muse has a way of making itself known.  I'll be watching for it with interest, along with the rest of you.  Any pieces born outside of the current crop of orders will be offered at auction, and you'll hear about them here.