Fibonacci Pins

 

Even before these 6 new Breyer pins joined my growing collection, I'd made the move from two display boards to four.  Ah, the Fibonacci sequence:  1 to 2 to 4 --!!  The last pin post on this blog was in June.  At that time I transitioned from one to two -- the Mink Unicorns got their own -- and the remaining Mink + Breyer + Misc original board was big enough to need two photographs:

Left Half

Right half (sans some miscellany)

And even these don't show all of them!  In October the collection reached a stage where something had to be done.  I went to JoAnn Fabs and bought some black velveteen.  [Note: Velvet can cost $30 a yard or $20.  I got the $20.]  With more cardboard, tape and staples, I indulged in making more display boards.  And just like that, my collection easily divided itself into 4 categories.

First off is the pride of Mink Unicorns.  These naturally set themselves apart. 

Faleadon is my latest acquisition.  To photograph him took some juggling of dark lighting and PhotoShopping, but I am very pleased with his sparkles.

The second-most-recently acquired was Kalasin.  This photo makes him look greener than he is (alas, the above photo makes him bluer than he is).  He's really a luscious, pure light sky blue.  Every one of these pins is a masterpiece.

The second board, the original, found itself home to all my Breyer pins.  Breyer has certainly found the golden cash cow with their enamel pin offerings!!  (Believe it or not I mis-typed that at first as the golden ow.  SO true!)

Earlier (c. Sept) new ones for me were the black Hope pony and the Artic Grandeur, bargains from MH$P.  Now, with my new 6, I had a blast arranging them and trying to photo them.  Up to now, Breyer has been a little stingey with their glitter on pins.  But the Mink sculpture of the Croi Damsha pony, named Cascade here, is -- most amazingly -- VERY glittery!  And a major challenge to photograph!  Pardon me for trying so many times here.   At first you can't really see it:  She just looks smoky and mysteriously foggy.

And then you darken the light and try to get closer.  I used PhotoShop to both unsaturate and sharpen, as well as enhance contrast.

Starting to see some of the real sparkles now!  The darker, the better.  And notice how they're never the same from shot to shot...

This little pony really challenged me!  The last shot is the most mysterious -- and it brings out the most glitter.

Who'd-a thunk-it!
Here's a closer look at three of the new Breyer pins, Mojave, Spectre and Lonesome Glory.  I was particularly pleased to see a Lonesome Glory;  I do love that mold.  However, this dark bay without white is nowhere near the original bright chestnut Lonesome Glory.  All dark makes a pin small!  What's up Breyer! 

Another interesting point is that Breyer's pins are starting to duplicate themselves moldwise.  I saw this first with the two versions of Nicolas the German Riding Pony, in 2022.  They're very different!  Mojave, the pinto Fireheart here, is different, larger and prettier (in my opinion) than the earlier Fireheart, Stein. 

The Spectre really does glow in the dark -- first of my pins to do so!

Here's a third case of duplication of mold:  This Holiday Highlander pin is the same mold (True North) as the Danash's Northern Tempest (Dani) small one released earlier, in 2021.  As with the others, the angle of view (of the pin) is different between the two.  Highlander is an interesting pin.  While he doesn't have glitter, and features (to me) boring colors, he has some unique textures in that fur lined coat.  I love those long cinnamon stockings!  The ?antler? headpiece on his poll is stupendous, giving him great character; and the gold metal color perfectly sets off the whole ensemble.

I suppose it was inevitable that we'd get Breyer pins that look like Minks.  That's because they are!  They're Breyer pins of sculptures by this amazingly talented and generous artist.  An advantage of this hybridization is they're produced in much larger numbers and anyone can get them anytime.  In my immense spreadsheet of Minkiewicz enamel pins, I've included the Anamar.  The pin was designed by Sarah and produced with her blessing.  Now I'm realizing I've overlooked at least 2 previous Breyer/Mink pins, both of which I now own:  the black Arabian Malik and the Cascade Croi Damsha.

Anamar, above, is a delightful case of how realism and fantasy can blend in a single pin.  I don't believe I've ever encountered a rose grey with a golden tail like that in real life;  but it just gives him so much character.

So here's my Breyer pin collection in toto:

Apologies for the dark corners and the clipped off black spaces.  It really is hard to photograph these creatures;  but now they've got room to grow!

So of course the third display board is given to my pure Minks:

The interesting thing to point out here is the size difference between the earliest Dancing Horse pin, Zigmund (top center, the leaping grey) and the latest one, Lucky, to his right (buckskin pinto with a light purple border).   These pins are arranged in the order I got them, downwards from Zigmund and then up again from the bottom.  Zigmund - Baxter - Rockette - Sayida - Sammy (the roan appy on the bottom).  Next to Sammy is Tango, then above:  Dreamer - Cobre - Dawnstar - Lucky.  You wouldn't notice them growing larger, but Lucky is seriously bigger.  Zigmund is under 1.5"  tall, but Lucky is a full 2" tall and more than 2" long, by far the largest Dancing Horse yet.

Elsewhere I have developed the theory that the increase in scale and size of model horses has to do with the steadily growing ego and power of their creators,...

Let's move on to my 4th and last board, Miscellany.  There are new ones here:  a colt that fits right in with an earlier family and a very welcome Carousel Jumper.

The lowest, chestnut pinto colt  is not really news as I blogged about him in July:  The Traditional Loot Shots.  What's striking is how perfectly he fits in with my Chincoteague family.  They might have been created by the same artist...!

And glory be, a fourth Carousel horse has joined up.  Once again, these seem to appear out of nowhere, usually on eBay (as was the case here), and I had no idea at all they even existed.  There are so many carousel pins out there that are primitive, or not enamels, or the wrong color or size!  Very few pass all the defensive filters I throw up in their way.  And yet this one did.  The fact that the clear acrylic layer was so old it had yellowed merely gave the horse a lovely ivory cream color, which I happened to fancy.  I love the quiet wisdom and colorful metallic streamers on this little jumper, lower left:

I have found a favorite collecting interest.

The Silver Dapple Fighter

 

This is a long post (long overdue!), so, important stuff first!  This horse is looking for a good home, but he's not for sale.  He is, hopefully, a gift, a donation to the next generation.  Money can't buy him, (although, in a perfect world, the new owner would supply the postage, Hah!).  In that ideal world, he'd go to someone who was conga-ing unique, unusual Fighting Stallions:  those with a touch of hobby history.  In this case his claim is a name:  he was created by a famous artist who is not known for painting but for tackmaking.  😁   He's been sitting around doing nothing for about 40 years, and for many different reasons I don't want to keep him.  This post is his story.  Email me at sbytsii@verizon.net with your own story of why he might come to you.  I'll wait til Halloween, then reassess.

 Sooner or later, good things come to an end.  It was hard enough to lose my mother this spring (see May's post), but it hadn't occurred to me that meant losing the house as well.  Yet in the end, things have boiled down to that.  We have been unable to find enough helpers for Dad to go on living there in the summer, and none of his 3 children wanted the house enough to keep it.  The process of cleaning out my natal home -- think of it, 63 years! -- has begun.  (Dad's now in the winter house, in Tucson.)  And so we come to the silver stallion.

We are all familiar, I think, with the concept of a model horse as a memorial.  Often they are portraits of real horses;  sometimes they are a memory-piece for a real horse (I have one of those).  Other times, the model is a souvenir of a person or a place, or of a time with a special person(s).  I have quite a few horses that remember places and people, happy visits and vacations.  But this one embodies an entire house,... as it happens, one without me.

I owe my brother Allen for my possessing the Silver Dapple Fighter right now.  He said quite simply, "But you have to take him Sue!"  Spoken with inside knowledge of my model horse career.  Skipping over, forgetfully, the Lipizzaner Reitschule plates and embroidered pictures still hanging in the old place; certainly skipping, because I haven't told anyone yet, my own Will's dictates for a few models to go to family, i.e. my sister.  The silver stallion is pretty much outside of everything.

He has no name, no personality.  He has no registry card (almost every other one of my models does).  He's not like Thomas, the Fighter on my piano:  Tuning my piano.  He has sat on the mantle for, let's see, about 42 years.  Thirty-six of them, appx., without me.  (Note the fireplace was never used in this house.)

Blog readers may recognize this end of the basement from my BCS Winter Photo Challenge post (see January of 2015, first photo).  Of course, particularly during the 80s, the silver stallion may have been residing anywhere in the basement.  I left home permanently in the spring of 1987, and I just didn't want him.  So there he remained.  I told myself he'd stay there forever, in the place where the TSII began -- where I began.  Every other horse I've owned or wanted I've long since taken away; they have continued their story with me, accumulating memories, history and story, layering richer.  This one I deliberately left behind, a symbol of unchangingness,...  of unthinkingness.  I couldn't imagine ever losing the house itself.  How comforting, for all those years!  far longer than many other families,...

Ah but how can you refuse little brother, especially when he's right.  😲   

The horse has no photos, not being represented in the 5 shoeboxes of photographs I have covering my pre-digital hobby life, circa 1978 to 2010.  I'd done a number of repaints and customs in my early years, and many are shown here:  Thoughts on NaMoPaiMo 2017.  Somehow, my few faux-Decorators are not mentioned.   I do remember one gold-dapple FAF.  Fake Decos appears to've been a phase I went through.

"Luke I am your father!"  I was a young artist in the first full flush of her powers, in her early 20s, going to college, discovering the model hobby and setting up a mail-order business.  He is a piece that reflects my early determination and stubbornness -- my love of silver! -- which would soon be turned to leatherwork and tackmaking.  With him actually in hand, I am astonished by his power now -- the raw strength of him.  I really had forgotten that.

Take an Alabaster Fighting Stallion (they were common in those days), strip off what little grey shadings there were (nail polish remover!) and leave the pink.  These photos don't show it but the sheath is pink.  If you look closely enough you can see the remains of hoof pads!  Take a can of silver spray paint and let most of the freon out (by spraying with it upside down).  The paint then comes out in blurts and splatters, dribs and gobbets, making for a satisfactory if not authentic reproduction of those most revered model horses, the fabulous metallic Decorators.  Handpaint the places that need it and run some polishing, smoothing factor (probably sandpaper) over the areas that got too much paint.  I did not have any gloss coating back then.

It's entirely possible he was my original White Fighter and got demoted when he broke his ear (honestly I've no idea how that happened).  A replacement might've been too perfect to destroy, so I kept the newcomer (today I have a great Alabaster Fighter dating from those years) and may have used the broken one to experiment with.  But it's also possible I bought him with painting in mind from the start.  The first flush of eager experimentation was successful:  that's all that mattered.  In this case that excitement went on to form a hobby artist who has lasted 40+ years,... although it took until 2018, and NaMoPaiMo, before I seriously painted horses again!  With NMPM to guide me, today I inked initials on him:

It should be clear we don't really have a year pinned down for the Silver Dapple Fighter;  but a good educated guess is 1981.  

A logical question is how many more of these surprises are there to uncover!?  Heh!  There's the mentioned-but-long-lost gold-dapple FAF (you'd know that one by his much-worn-down off fore hoof); and there's a TSII-saddled buckskin Stock Horse Mare on the Tucson mantle, but she is seriously ugly  😄  no desires there!  Every horse from those ancient days has either been dispersed long since or is with me now.  This one was an exception, sitting in the basement of Fox Hills, unwanted, quietly absorbing, suspended.  He was present during my Mom's last times there, but it's more than her;  it's the house itself I can hardly bear to let go of.  For once, I am not strong enough to want him;  it's too painful;  I have other horses to do this job.  The house's fate is his fate.

The best thing that could happen would be for him to go to a new generation that was trying to capture hobby history yet enjoyed pieces for their own sake.  Tell me a story, make me an offer.  I can help with the postage.

Stromness in Tack

 

When I first saw Eva Rossiter's Stromness, an Irish Sport Horse mare, I fell madly in love.  This was a bit strange, as I am Western to the core.  I comforted myself somewhat by remembering I had felt this way about Victrix several years earlier.  There is something about a really beautiful, positively correct standing English Thoroughbred-type that just pulls my heartstrings.  But it was the potential Western application in the back of my mind, I think, that truly explains my attraction.

It was at last year's BreyerFest, 2022, that Heather Moreton let me make off with one of her splendiforous braided-bridle-&-breastcollar sets.  I promised then to photograph it upon a suitable horse.  Ooops,....  A whole year went by, the promise simmering on the back burner, but I hadn't.  Somehow, when I saw Stromness, I knew the time had come to fulfill.

The price for this horse struck me as amazingly reasonable, considering it had to be cast upon request and shipped from Ireland.  Here is a link to her page:  Stromness.  This beautiful resin was a lovely exception to my usual argument that no one buys horses immediately after BreyerFest and indeed they are burned out.  Hah!!  That didn't apply to me this year,.. I was instead inspired,...

When I finally opened her and sat down to a photo session, it was as close as I ever get these days to preparing for a show.  Fun!!   I had a large selection of saddles to choose from.  Given the delicacy of the bridle, and its color, I wanted a plain warm brown saddle with some kind of braidwork on it.  The strange thing was I didn't think my own two famous TSII braided saddles would do.  The braidwork on both the Elk (TSII #432) and the Peach Rose is dense and colorful, of a different texture and feel than Heather's work -- bouyant, almost clamorously loud, rather than restrained, light but tight.  This bridle featured openwork.  I didn't have anything with openwork, but after a thorough search I decided to use my 2004 Kathy Wiggins set, which had a solid-set braided edge.  No other piece I possess has this.  I liked the textural contrast, and the colors matched.

Thereupon followed an hours-long session of polishing!  Also, I wasn't happy with the cinch of Kathy's saddle;  I borrowed another cinch from a completely different saddle, a Toots Geyer.  In addition to this carefree substituting I pinched a blanket from a third saddle.  That one happened to be one of my own saddles.  I cannot claim to have "made" this blanket;  I merely chose the denim-like fabric and added on some corner tassels in the deeps of time.  This blanket dates from the late 1990s.  I love its asymmetry (the right and left sides are different).

Who says an English Thoroughbred doesn't look good in Western!  The alertness and pose lends itself to so much.  The Western snaffle does a good deal to bridge the difference.   My deep apologies for not quite lining up the mouthpiece with the lips though --!

Alas, the bridle ears are a tad too big for this horse.  And I really shouldn't've let the cheek strap cover so much braidwork on the sides.  Eh, no show entry is truly foolproof.  I had way too much fun assembling all this, and that's what should count.

Her pose lends itself to heroic views.  Forest ranger's horse?

I love her expression.  I'm naming her after a character in a Molly Keane novel (Easter from Mad Puppetstown).

This truly is a horse with promise.  There is so much here.  'Stalwart' comes to mind.  She would look good in harness,... and, of course, English gear.

An additional piece of tack I purchased from Heather (Desert Night Creations) in 2022 is this mecate.  I didn't have a bosal that would match it at all, so for now it remains in the bag.

What beautiful work.  It is a privilege and a pleasure to collect this art from my dear friend.

It has become my habit to announce other news at the ends of my blog posts, so here goes.  Work on my next book continues, but it is vastly slowed by taking three weeks of September and 2 weeks of October for family trips.  (Not to mention all January.)  It is clear to me now 'twill not be done by the November 6 Guide publication anniversary.  My husband knew this all along, but I'm just making faces and rolling on.  Only this week has it become clear to me I should place the Braided Buttons chapter ahead of the First Interlude, which treats subjects like Connectors, Braided Rings, Hobbles and Peet's Romal Reins.  These subjects are not part of (or are only partly of) the 8 pieces of headgear the book was originally meant to cover.  I suppose it's mission creep.  I've envisioned including such subjects for so long that I'm putting them in anyway, and thus the book is growing larger as time passes.  Right now we're at 24 drawn Plates plus the 2 from the Guide;  I don't know the page count but it's serious, and there are 66 photos just for the first 3 pieces.  And yet I believe I'm merely at a half-way mark.

There will a pause in programming while we travel the high plains; but we will return!  As ever,

Thanks for your patience.

New Hat Finished

 This is another 'started out as a few pix that should've gone on FB but didn't' posts, for whatever reason, possibly pride.  There will be at least one shot on my FB, but here you get to see the full glory of all three.  As of tonight my next hat is finished.  Somewhat to my surprise, it does not get feathers -- unlike almost every hat I've ever had.  It doesn't seem to need them.  See for yourself:  It's enough in itself.

When we last saw this hat it looked like this:

That was the 20th of August.  Since then I've scrambled and struggled and scraped together time to work on the hatband.  Not only are we preparing for a long trip, I was working on a book (still not done), cleaning the whole house, mending pajamas (Dad's), seasoning a new wok (still not done), dealing with a squamous cell on my cheek (healing well, praises be), painting the storage shed, selling two resincasts and playing with my new Stromness, amoung many other things.  It was fun brushing up on my knowledge of braiding real rawhide.  This is one of those projects where the artist thinks it was done fast and simply and not so perfectly and everybody else thinks it looks fine.  

Tonight I did the last big button, third from right.  Instead of the previous large herringbone with 5 rings (I think), I did a button I like to claim I invented, a 9P 7B Fan in a 1-3-3-1 pattern.  This Fan button will be in my next book.

It's harder to do than it looks.  A close up:

My best buddy took these portrait shots in the tack room, otherwise known as the tack shop or pony room.

Note the new stampede strings.

Little floppy brim there, but on the whole, I'm happy!

Towards a New Hat

 

This was going to be a 3-pic FB post, but it kind of ran away with me.  Still, these are mere snapshots in the middle of a process which I'm thinking will be rather long.  Let's start with a few memorable looks at my old hat, Coondoondah 13.  The below portraits were shot at Cranberry Bog, north-central PA, on July 31, by George.

 (They do a good job of showing I really was ankle-deep in the bog.  Wear swamp shoes!)

As it happens, these two pictures are the last photographs taken while my thirteenth hat was still in use and whole.  All my hats have been named Coondoondah, an Australian aborigine word meaning 'hat.'  All the ones since about 1990 have had silver and rawhide on them.  The first one to have silver conchos, which were given to me by my grandmother, was stolen in December of 2002 (the only one I've lost in such fashion).  But I was able to find more silver at the Tucson Gem Show.

Hats do wear out, especially when you don't clean them regularly, or treat their leather every year.  Also, when they get rained on and don't get re-oiled.  For the last year or so, this particular hat had been getting older and dirtier and I was so busy I didn't have time to clean it, until it reached a stage where cleaning would have destroyed it.  This close up doesn't show it, but this hat is on its last legs.

Here's a couple shots that do show it.  These were taken in the shop as evidence of which buttons were used, and the spacing of them, on the hatband.  In this first shot you can see the old stampede string of braided leather, black with age.  Yes, it broke, triggering all this.

Note, above, the missing concho on the left.  Note, below, the condition of the rawhide:  stained, shrunken and in some cases actually broken.

 Fortunately, a replacement hat was waiting.

The above shot shows the "shoelace" string that the Tilley company originally supplied the hat with (for a tie-down strap, or stampede string).  I've already cut half of it up to make small strips which will become the new keepers for the hatband.

I started out not particularly happy that Tilley had discontinued my beloved white hat color.  My favorite could not be replaced directly.  So we went with the next best choice, an off-khaki sort of color, almost olive.  When I sewed together the "shoelace" strips (above) and installed them as keepers, I started to really like this hat.  The keepers lend a classiness that the old white elastic ones just didn't have (themselves put on by me).

And then I started braiding new buttons.  Why am I not surprised that my skill is very rusty?!  But it is a great pleasure to re-learn them...  The new conchos -- I bought three Navajo ones to replace my lost one -- are bigger and have better shanks, and they have interesting new designs on them.

Coondoondah 14 is off to a good start.