Jim West & Others

One of the lesser-known and seldom-seen aspects of being one of the official NAN photographers is the chance to get people.  When I heard of Jim's passing, a little bell started dinging in the back of my mind.  For all that I barely knew him, hadn't he given me... something... special... a good shot?... once?
I went back through hundreds of photos, and there he was.
Oh Jim.  It's after the first shock passes that the loss of you really starts to hurt.  How could anyone ever fill those boots?!?
At North American Nationals 2013, in Harrisburg:

Doing what he did so well,

And with that famous grin.

This one was good enough to zoom in on.

On a day when he manifestly had a million other more important things to do, when I aimed my camera at him he found time to give me a smile.

This is my own moment with Jim.

Any good photographer will tell you there are just some people who are kind to the lens.  They look good even if, as in this case, the photographer was excited, shall we say.

In the same batch of photos from NAN 2013 was this one.

I'm 99.9% sure that's Keith Bean.
Is it just a cruel coincidence, to have two rare fellows in the hobby taken, one after the other, and both way too soon?

Out of thousands of literary references and quotes on the subject of death, these two have risen into my awareness more than usual lately.  The "Cabby" is the driver of a hansom (horse drawn) cab.

"Now then, now then," came the Cabby's voice, a good, firm, hardy voice, "keep cool everyone, that's what I say.  No bones broken, anyone?  Good.  Well there's something to be thankful for straight away, and more than one would expect after falling all that way.  Now, if we've fallen down some new diggings -- as it might be for a new station on the Underground -- someone will come and get us out presently, see!  And if we're dead -- which I don't deny it might be -- well, you got to remember that worse things 'appen at sea and a chap's got to die sometime.  And there ain't nothing to be afraid of if a chap's led a decent life.  And if you ask me, I think the best thing we could do to pass the time would be to sing a 'ymn."
--- The Magician's Nephew, by C. S. Lewis (1955)

"The news of Farah's death to me was hard to take into my mind and very hard to keep there.  How could it be that he had gone away?  He had always been the first to answer a call.  Then after a while I recognized the situation:  more than once before now I had sent him ahead to some unknown place, to pitch camp for me there."
 --- Shadows on the Grass, by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)  (1960)

My thoughts travel backwards in time, across the hobby as I've known it, ranging all the way back to 1979.  Who else joins this elite company: gone too soon, that I knew?  The rest of this post will be a Retrospection, with the last 2 paragraphs about Jim.

Of course the first next name is Karen Grimm, 2011.  When I was emerging from my treatments she was facing her final challenge.  I don't have a picture of her or her work handy, but I do have a link. 
http://www.bhranch.com/model/museum/museum.htm   Down on the second page is one portrait of this collector-artist, a giant of the hobby.

The Kirkpatricks, Vivian and Gaylene, of MN, were good customers of mine.  In 2008 I heard that Gaylene had suddenly fallen.  She was in her thirties.

In September 2007 came the news we had lost Judy Renee Pope.  Digging through my 4 shoeboxes of [actual film] photographs, I came across this:

It's Joujouka the Moroccan Barb, wearing TSII #117.5!!  Judy had bought this saddle from me back in 1984, discovered much later I'd never numbered it (the only saddle unearthed so far that I'd missed), and sent me a picture.  The back of this still carries their handwritten Missouri address.  Paula, of course, is responsible for this heartwarming (and very long) tribute page for Judy:  http://www.spookhouse.net/angelynx/comics/judy-renee-pope.html

In October of 2003, Shirley Ketchuck made the difficult decision to leave us.  While I could not find a picture of her (and I remember her very well, her hair in silver beads crowned), I did pull out some photos I had taken in 1994, at BreyerFest.  You collectors of 'Sailor' out there:  She had the idea long ago, and the skill to make it happen.

These are all repaints by her.
It so happened that the silver dapple Running Stallion passed through my hands.

Shirley's skill was awe-inspiring.  A couple of years later I commissioned a Copper Dapple Running Foal from her.  I received amoung others this photo:

Those were her own Decorator Foals, but I still have the Copper foal shown on the left.  Shirley has a fitting tribute in the Perpetual Memorial Collector Class; I am jealous.


Going back further, to the late 90s, memories getting a little misty now!, I recall Dick Eighmey the vehicle maker (not technically 'taken too soon' as he was an old man) whom I knew and had done business with; and an episode in the Holiday Inn, probably in the 2000s, featuring "Lynn's older sister," with Candy Evans and Eleanor telling me about it.  That was my first time experiencing someone's death during BreyerFest.

 Somewhere in the late 2000s (definitely misty memory) Dave Blenkey passed on.  He was also an elderly man with whom I had done business.  Again I found pictures in my shoeboxes.  Who or what was Dave Blenkey of Nordwain in England?  This:

To my uttermost astonishment, I actually found a picture of Dave.

The Draft Show Cart in front of us was the one I had just purchased from him.  This was taken at the Hobby Information Booth at BreyerFest.  (That's me.)
Thank you, Robin.

Now I have reached the middle to early 1990s.  Somewhere deep in time was the loss of Sue Rowe's infant son, definitely "taken too soon."  A faint memory was the loss of sculptress Linda Lima's husband in the early 90s.  Further back, in the early 80s, in AZ, Patty Brannan lost her mother -- on the day Patty was hosting a show I was attending.  This was my first acquaintance with death in any form in the hobby.  My grandmother, with whom I was staying that week, steadied me in a rare display of deeper emotional support. 

But the pioneering name, leader here for me as in so many other things, is Marney Walerius.  I had gone to her shows, spoken with her, exchanged written letters with her and sold tack to her.  First to invent much of our hobby, she was the first denizen of it I knew personally to die:  again, "too soon," in 1992, in her 40s.  Here is a link to a thumbnail history of Marney: http://ketain.com/EarlyModelHorsePioneers.html   Many early issues of Just About Horses have pictures of her, and articles written by her.  I have a complete collection of this magazine; and yes, those letters from Marney.

In Retrospect, for me, Jim West was unique, even amoung a hobby filled with one-of-a-kind people.  Some of these are artists of staggering talent (Judy, Shirley, Dave); others were collectors (Karen) or showers (Keith).  But Jim, like Marney, appears to me to have been a rarer talent: he was a large-scale enabler.  I hesitate to call him an administrator (a dirty word in my house, as we suffer from bad ones) and yet I think that's one term for someone who heleps with the legwork, working behind the scenes arranging and organizing events, so that others may enjoy them.
He stepped up and seemed to cheerfully and quickly take on an enormous job, fitting right in with amazing speed.  Words can't really describe a personality.  My sense of his ability, instant comfort, reliability and understanding and connecting with the hobby is what I will miss most --- I who was just another casual acquaintance to him.  Rest easy, Jim, wherever you are soaring.

The Great Clydesdales Caper

Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time to do someone an enormous favour.   Everything lines up, and amazing coincidences occur, and you feel like you're in a movie even while it's happening!  These are sentences I used at the time:  "sudden request from a friend of a friend; hobby oldtimers in trouble; trophy order gone wrong, rescue needed!  Ten tons of champions headed for an international border!  Poorly communicating customer, incredible sculptures at risk, daring dash by third-form heroine!"   This last bit is a steal from a teen pony book, Tall and Proud, but it says it all.

The Caper began with an email, which I didn't get until 11:30 on Sunday when I finally turned on the computer.  We had been taking it easy that weekend.  A longtime hobby acquaintance was passing on a message, bewailing she hadn't time herself:
" -- Are you anywhere near the Grange Park Horse facility in Center Hall Pa.?  I have some resins that need to be picked up there ASAP.  We did 10 ... Clydesdales for a woman and sent them there for her at the show and now she has decided she doesn't want them! I need to get them picked up and into a safe place .... She is apparently leaving ... at noon, ... to Canada.  If you are not close, do you know anyone who is? -- "

Accompanying the email were 2 photos that nailed me to my seat.  One of them was this:

My first thought was I didn't recognize the mold.  The second:  What beauties.  A rescue mission?!?  The Grange Fair was a bit less than half an hour away.  The nearest gate to the complex was right across from my eye doctor.   A fever began to come over me, a wild anticipation, --  excitement, the kind that makes you daringly wacko!! -- and the first sign of it was that I referred to this doctor as my dentist.  The Caper was just getting started.
     But if she was leaving at noon, there was no time for logistics.  My husband and I read the message with unease, and regretfully passed it up.  The Grange Fair was a large place, and I hadn't been there in years.  I emailed the caster and gave her my phone number.   I'd be home all that day, ostensibly making tack.  Too bad, too bad...

The next thing that happened was my phone ringing.  After that, developments flew thick and fast.  Emails, calls.  The woman wasn't leaving at noon, but at 2.  I would turn on my cell phone.  I could get there in 20 minutes.  Deb would have her call me.  I suggested a meeting place, the horse show arena -- the only real landmark I knew.  I decided to take the truck.  My husband offered his help, but I wanted to go it alone.  My cell phone rang.  It was the woman, who had originally ordered these horses as trophies for a Clydesdale show.  She told me how to find her at the grounds:  "We have just about the only motor home there.  A big grey motor home..."  I said I'd be there in 20 minutes, threw a lunch into the truck and took off.

My haste was such that I didn't get her cell phone number... and my skill was such that I did not know how to extract the last-number-called from my phone.  The odds were against me.  A complete stranger showing up and making off with hundreds of dollars worth of trophies?!  The fairgrounds were enormous...  They had built several barns and a second arena since I'd been there, dabbling in driving classes.  In a bid to be recognizable (as well as supplying moral support) I'd grabbed 2 models.  One was Bonne Chance/Bon Fete, still wearing her Donna Allen saddle.  The other was a Stone Trotter, my bay Travis.  I got there in 15 minutes flat.

I reflected on being an ambassador as I drove.  You have to be nice to people, tell them good things, try to find common ground.  All I had to do was collect two boxes.  I tried not to panic at the possibility of error or loss.  I wore my rawhide-braided cowboy hat and strolled in as though I belonged.  At the bottom of the parking lot full of horse trailers (apparently there was a show going on, though not of drafters) I spotted a huge grey motor home.  A man left it, wearing a jacket sporting a Canadian flag.  Ahah!  I said to myself, and approached him.
And he was friendly, and knew what I was after.

The woman turned out to be small, dressed in red, with short hair and snapping dark eyes.  Her daughter was showing Gymkhana.  She said, "I feel so bad about this!"  We determined she was after another material for the trophies, one she'd ordered elsewhere but which was discontinued: a porcelain-like substance, with a glossy finish.  Her job was owning and operating a ribbon and trophy company!  at which I hastily observed, "That must be fun!"  She smiled.  "It is."  I showed her my tacked-up model, eliciting a bit of interest ("A whole different kind of trophy!") and the Stone model, which resulted in a conversation about collecting, pricing, discontinued pieces and insider knowledge.  When we parted she'd told me her company had taken ribbon orders for model horse shows, and she'd given me business cards made of ribbon.  I tried to give her my card, but had none to hand, alas.

The Clydes made it safely home, back into the hands of the hobby.

Named "Aggie,"  they were sculpted by a new artist, Carissa Kirksey, in Ohio.
So seriously was my responsibility impressed upon me that I took pictures of the unwrapping:

The horse was incredible.  I stood her up with the Trad I was currently working with.

I had 2 photographic difficulties with her.  One was she always appeared bigger than the plastics.

Finally I took a birds eye, which shows size pretty well.

Part of this first shooting difficulty was the base... and the little felt feet on the base!  Still, I prefer a base over pegs, and it gave her a very solid feel.

The rest of the evening was spent on an embarrassingly long session of harness- and cart-cleaning, with some harness updating thrown in.
This is a very long post, but everybody wants dessert now!! I don't want to break it up, so on we go.

The next day I set up my indoor arena.  Wargaming (which uses the muffin tin) was fortunately taking a break, so the big table was free.

Initially I used a florescent light on one side and a small incandescent on the other, which resulted in a dark head to a right-facing horse, plus an unusual two-color arena surface, not to mention a contrasting red bay to a plain brown -- on the same model!

I have two Draft carts.  The red one was created and bought in 1983; it was made by Mel Reigsecker.   Unfortunately the base on the Aggie made her much too tall for it.  I rolled up the pillowcase she'd come in and stuffed it under my arena sheet.

 I loved the pose.  It reminded me of the old Hartland Budweiser Clyde.

Such character.  I was sorry for the bad whip, but was amazed that the rest of the harness fit as well as it did.  This harness originally dated to 1990 but had been redecorated and rebuilt over the years.

 Of course the collar was too big!  Possessors of the Guide out there, trim the bottoms of the collar patterns for this horse...
My second draft cart was built by none other than Dave Blenkey of Nordwain, in England.  Another case of being in the right place at the right time, I had snagged it at BreyerFest the moment he unpacked it.

 That was in 1998.  The doll was made by Kim and Lenore Jacobs of PA, with customization by me (the braided hatband, for instance).
Now the second photography problem began to manifest itself.  Aggie always seemed to be travelling downhill.  

I started tilting the camera.

It was dawning on me why Draft photographs often showed the beasts headed uphill!
I also tried unusual angles.

 More fun on a rainy morning I can hardly imagine.

This one remains my favorite shot.

The rest of the story can be told simply.  The next day I shipped all 10 to the sculpting artist, Carissa Kirksey, who will be handling sales.  They arrived safely.  Here is a link:
http://carissakirksey.weebly.com/artist-resin.html

I had been exceedingly lucky to be in the right place at the right time.  More: somehow both sides had trusted me.  It had taken many friends to put me there:  the first correspondent (thank you Kim!), doing business once with Deb, and knowing draft breeders (Central PA is famous for its Percherons and Shires).  The whole adventure had been an astonishing coincidence: we are usually out canoeing on weekends, and what if I hadn't turned on my computer? 
Location, contact, availability, interest:  they had all worked together, down to the empty table.

One last bit of trivia for those who collect coincidences:
The day of the Great Clydesdales Caper was my sister's birthday.

Purple Reins

 When I got my purple Donna Allen Western set back in April, it looked like this.  The reins were black braided floss.  It looks better on this horse, and in this picture, than it does the rest of the time, "in normal life," -- you'll have to take my word for it.  (And please pardon the bit not-in-mouth -- I really wasn't looking!!)
I had designed this set, using elements from 4 other Donna Allen saddles.  I hadn't designed the reins.  When it arrived, I loved it -- but I somehow took a dislike to those reins.  The only other black on the set was edges.  I thought those reins should have been purple.
As it turned out, Donna did too;  she said, "I was gonna make the reins purple, but I thought it would be too much for you!"   Alas for mistaken impressions. 
In time, I took this as permission to fix the situation myself.

Last week I needed an excuse to walk, and to do a little something for myself that was "not silver parade."  JoAnn Fabrics was a mile away.  I had been studying the black reins.  I concluded they were made of Pearl Cotton, a material I had never used.  I decided this was the perfect opportunity to start my acquaintance with Pearl Cotton.  I packed the horse ("Bonne Chance," thank you EJH) in a pony pocket and sneaked it into JoAnn's Fabs.  Lousy lighting in there, but--!!

I found a good Pearl color, a dusky lavender.  I bought some matching DMC for good measure.  The color number on that was 3041, in case you're curious.  Remember that all 4 colors of purple on this set (blanket, edge braiding, seat, and bridle/bc buttons) didn't match each other.
I dug out exactly the same snaphooks as the blacks and made two same-gauge rings.

This picture doesn't make it look like it, but take my word:  the purple reins didn't match.  They just clashed.  They drew attention away from, and darkened, the purple edge braiding, made of nylon sinew (which I didn't have).  Texture-wise, color-wise:  my idea didn't work!!
Now what!!

I spent some time staring at this set.  What would it, itself, want to be reined with?  What would be a good color, that wouldn't clash, if I was going to use that 4-strand braid texture?  I pawed through my 2 bags of embroidery floss.  I found some nice dark browns.  One in particular was a lovely milk-chocolatey tan which went well with the leather color of the tooling.  (Photo makes it redder.)
This hank was not DMC and it had no number.  It was labelled "Designs for Needle:  Made in Mexico."  In a flash I knew what had happened to a bundle of extra floss I had been given by my mother-in-law, a bundle I had been looking for recently.  I had already distributed those hanks between my two bags of ready-to-use floss.  Supreme organization is not my forte; my floss is divided into warm and cold colors, nothing else.
More snaphooks, more rings.

And now I was happy!!  Now the various purples stood out, each with their own strength.  Now elements went together, didn't fight.  My eye got used to the whole set very quickly, a sure sign the right decision had been made.  I'd had my little fling and felt much refreshed.
I felt more: I was inspired.  I tried to tie some purple floss buttons on the brown reins.  After all, the bridle and breastcollar had those, didn't it??  But here I failed.  Not only couldn't I match what threads Donna had used for her buttons; I couldn't tie a 5P6B button on those reins, which was what the bridle & bc used.  During the first button I gave up.  It caused me to ponder deeply on when to stop, always a problem with the artistic sort.  Just let this one be...

So now I had some extra purple reins.  As it happened, I had a headstall, by Danielle Hart, that had no reins, but four colors of buttons:  white, 2 purples and pink!  Huzzah!!  Matchmaking was a natural by now...

(Please excuse the too-close-to-eye;  I really wasn't looking again!!)  This time the purple reins looked right at home.  I now had Pearl Cotton and another beautiful bridle!  Snaphooks are a perfect in-scale device for rein changes.  Problem solved.

Keep up the good work, D. and D.

Bonus Shots:  Purple English. 
This outfit has been accumulating for at least 15 years.  Fara Shimbo of Boulder, CO made the saddle back in the 1980s; it has her cast-Aluminum-dust stirrups.  I made the bridle.  I honestly don't recall who did the various leg bandages, boots and wraps -- they came from various sources.  (All I can recall is Ensor.)  The earnet, the last of all the parts to be attained, was made by Virginia Sherman, who was at Region X Regionals last year (2014).  When I saw that earnet I knew I had to have it.   Now you know why!

The horse is an O.F. Breyer resin.

The bell boots need replacing; they are badly cracked.  Any leads would be appreciated...
Happy Collecting.

The Copper Queen Puzzle

For at least 10 years -- ever since I found out how to search eBay -- I've been looking, on and off, for this puzzle.  My relationship with this image goes back to childhood.  Imagine, then, my electrified, astonished delight when I discovered this lovely toy from the 1970s, in amazingly good shape, on Sept 9.  I hit Buy It Now very quickly, before I checked out the buyer or saved the images.  It's a wonder I even looked at my balance.  But you may guess that 10+-year obsessions can generate behaviour that instantly reaches critical mass.  Thank you, o thank you eBay!

When I was a kid, my grandparents contributed to my inevitable-equine-spoilage by getting me and my sister horse-themed toys and books.  Family legend has it a patient of my grandfather's (he was a doctor) named Claire Sittler started this.  But I think I added a good deal on my own.  Who can tell?  Is horse fever explainable?  My love of jigsaws was certainly started back then, with Springbok round and octagon puzzles, purchased in Tucson toy stores and worked in my grandparents' home in Tucson.  They weren't all horsey -- we have an Early Motor Cars one -- but my absolute favorites were the horse and carousel ones.  (Some day I'll do a post on how the carousel one influenced the TSII head logo.)  Today [2015] my collection of jigsaws numbers about 150.

My earliest memory of Copper Queen, the above Saddlebred, painted by Ruth Ray, is doing a puzzle of the image when I was about 10, circa 1970, in the basement of the family home (Fox Hills, Boulder, CO).   Copper Queen had a particularly difficult cut.  The pieces had almost no interlocking.  With the slightest bump or jostle, great cracks would appear, and everything had to be pushed back together again.  Exasperating for a ten year old, whose patience was still developing.  Yet the image itself, so compelling and supernatural, really burned into me.  It has stayed with me with astonishing power.  It is timeless.

In the early 80s, during college, somewhere in an art shop, I found (and instantly bought) 4 small studio cards carrying images of horses that Ruth Ray had painted.  Copper Queen had siblings!!  Other people have documented these Donald Art Prints; thank you so much, Paula.
http://www.spookhouse.net/angelynx/horses/ruthray-mainpage.html
Part of my story is that I somehow managed to lose track of those 4 cards for years.  I can only dimly guess when -- late 80s? early 90s? -- amd even dimmer as to when I rediscovered them -- sometime in the middle to late 2000s.  When I finally dug them out, I carefully made a scrapbook called Horse Images.  I started remembering the puzzle around then.
Madly, wholly without grounds, I began wondering if puzzles existed of all four.  Searching the Internet was now part of my life.  I'd used it to find horse stamps, not to mention model horses and tack!  I slipped into a pattern of occasionally searching eBay with 'horse jigsaw puzzles.'  This was not at all steady or committed, just whenever I felt like...  a drunken binge of eye candy.

In the fall of 2013 I hit pay dirt.

Another moment of instant recognition, of thank god for Buy It Now.  Gold Seal, a division of Whitman, had produced this puzzle.  It had 500 pieces.  "Handsome Witch," which I had remembered, incorrectly, as Night Witch.  It was in superb condition.  I put it together at Bay To Remember in New York, in January of 2014.

The cut, while poorly interlocking, was not quite as bad as my 10-year-old self had remembered.  The most revealing aspect, however, was the side of the box.  It listed other titles in the series:  Moulin Rouge,  Madeline,  After the Rain,  Sierra Morn,  Peaceful Vista.  None of these could remotely invoke the other 3 horses.  Was my memory wrong?  But I was immensely reassured.  The puzzle existed and I had found it; the sister horse was a reality.  I had a chance.  Back to the occasional search.

When Copper Queen arrived, I was amazed at its condition.  Only the bottom of the puzzle box revealed any ageing.

Still carrying traces of the original tape, by gar!
Whitman again, but a different line:  Crown.  The number of pieces was 713.  No date.
The side of the puzzle was disappointing.  No chance of Golden Ruler or Storm King, alas.   "French Provincial,  Quiet City,  Copper Queen,  Village Lane." 

When I opened it, I got a strong impression of long-preserved virginity.  Many of the pieces were still stuck together, always interlocked pairs.  Separating them was hard --  the factory, I thought, had failed at this job.  The cardstock was immensely thick; this is one of the thickest puzzles in my possession.  Only wooden ones were thicker.  The 60s and 70s overbuilt some things...
This shot shows the pieces after I had separated most of them, so the side-by-side alignments and parallelism, something that would happen over a very long period of storage, was not photographed by me.  But it was there.

Although at first I thought the puzzle was truly virgin and unworked, over the course of doing it I found evidence it had been, at least once.  I found hairs, one damaged piece and one bent piece with tape on the back.  But the tape was as old as the narrow tape on the box.
It took two days to do.

The beginnings were the small "moon-horse" and the moon itself.  Moons must have been important to Ruth Ray.  Next, overall arrangement, chestnut pieces going in the middle, darks at the bottom and blues towards the top.  The mane and tail are coming together, then the head.

Unlike my S.O. I do not necessarily do the edge first.  Working this brought back many fuzzy memories of how I had struggled with these pieces.  I could remember it!!  Eerie!!

 Words are not going to be able to capture the way handling these peices made me feel.  Handsome Witch's box calls them "scroll cut;"  Copper Queen's just says "machine cut."  What they evoked was an amazing sense of Art Deco, only in a wonky, nerdy 70s way.  Spaciousness is part of it; comfort, as of an old blanket;  so also is a smell, cardboard-y, almost fresh, like a beach.

 With Springbok, Ravenburger, Schmidt, Educa, Buffalo Games, and many other puzzle makers under my belt (not to mention recent additions such as SunsOut and Cobble Hill), I began to see why Copper Queen might have remained unworked for forty years.

Indeed it was worse than Handsome Witch.  The cut was very "untight," loose, slidey, not liftable one bit.  So many edges of pieces were nothing but gentle curves, no 'noses' or 'wings' at all.  Only the border pieces fully interlocked.  My husband suggested this would be easier for children to fit.  I had never thought of it that way.  Amazingly none of the curves got confused or tried to fit one another; they were all different, in subtle ways.  The Young family has a term for pieces that are so close to one another you get them confused: you've been "Ravensburgered."  This puzzle, Copper Queen, could not have been further from that particular fault.

You can see the one damaged piece near the left edge, one nose of torn paper.

Right about now, my own beloved model horse hobby caused me some discomfort.  It has trained me, for many years, to look critically at a horse, and judge its conformation.  How I wished, now, I had never been taught that -- for once!  Alas, it's true:  her head is too small.  In desperate defense, I note that her off foreleg is also too small.  In fact the whole horse seems to get bigger as you move from nose to hindmost hoof.

The pose is tremendously iconic.  It shouts breed.  Yet the setting is magical, mystical, haunting.  In fantasy the viewer may make of images what they wish.  I will justify the small head on grounds of Victorian fashion; old masters portrayed horses like this in the 1800s, laying the groundwork for the Arabian.
But that's another story.