Yesterday I had a visit from a longtime friend and model horse community member, Susan Young. She comes out for a day once a year when here in Colorado to visit her family, who live in Boulder. We spend a couple hours getting caught up on our lives and do some creative show-and-tell. Sue makes exquisite scale-model tack for model horses. If you aren’t familiar with her work you should be, and here’s a link to her Timaru Star II Blog.

Since Sue specializes in miniature horse “accessories”, while she was here I wanted to pick her brain about a little project I have in the works. In a previous blog post I mentioned the customized large “Boreas” Percheron china that I fired this past week into bisque. It is ready to be glazed a solid Percheron black. But I designed it to have proper Percheron flights and fans, in the braided mane and tail. So I have to make those. And I wanted to make them from scratch. They can’t be made in ceramic and look realistic. I just couldn’t think of where to find white wire of the right scale. It felt like I had seen it somewhere but I just wasn’t coming up with it. This is what I have to build:

My thanks to Kim Bjorgo-Thorne for the photo!

So I ran this by Sue, who said I should look for electrical wire.  It comes coated in colored plastic. Off I went to Home Depot, and easily found this:

I knew she would be able to help me!! I only need the white-wire side but now I’ve got enough wire for draft horse flights to last a lifetime! I’ll be making the raffia-stuff from ribbon and sticking each flight down into holes I’ve made in the china horse’s neck..

This leads to the moral of my story, which is something I learn over and over in my arty journey: Don’t be a reclusive artist. Yes, many of us are introverted, solitary types, and I definitely like to work alone. I am not into taking classes where everyone paints together or whatever. I feel very shy/uncomfortable creating art in public. I will always be that way, I am not one of those exhibitionist-artists who crave the limelight! But is IS good to get together with other artists even if it pushes your social comfort zone. Because the cross-pollination of ideas and techniques is so necessary and beneficial to creative growth! I totally admit that I am the textbook “I Know What I Like And I Like What I Know” artist. But I have been putting myself out there and more open to learning new things, new tools, etc. I’m always better for it (even if I have to recover from too much people-time, ha ha).

So get out there and meet up with someone who makes something you admire. That’s my advice for the summer!

As far as I’m concerned, when the daily temperature gets consistently over 70° and I can wear sandals all the time, it’s summer. So here is my summer news.

First off, I am not going to be sitting at a booth in the BreyerFest main covered arena in Lexington in July. The deal just got too complicated with too many people involved. And I learned that the traffic in the arena is so intense that I wasn’t sure that putting out a bunch of ceramic horses without investing in a glass cabinet was going to be a good idea. So I will be roaming around anonymously at BreyerFest on Friday and Saturday rather than parking in one place! I was just getting into making the items for the event. Now I will be selling them via this blog/Facebook instead of reserving them for Kentucky. I had a bad experience with MyAuctionBarn last week with the Gypsy Roundabout, so I will not longer be auctioning anything. It’s set price from now on.

The first one I have completed is a “Caprice” sport horse in earthenware ceramic, finished to a really gorgeous art glaze color I’m calling “jade”. Like all the incredible jade art I got to see in China and Taiwan last month. Because it is earthenware which doesn’t shrink much, it is a large piece—8″ tall—similar to the original resin size. A couple pictures are below, and I’m asking $300 postage paid. There were only two Caprice chinas made in earthenware so far. Caprice is the oldest of my sculptures in ceramic and I keep thinking the mold is going to give out. But so far, aside from having to clean up more stuff in the greenware, it’s not tanked yet.

Today I’ve got two “Roundabout” cobs in the kiln for a bisque fire, along with a large “Boreas” Percheron. If you responded to my recent Facebook post asking for a firm count of those who definitely wanted to get a Roundabout china, I’ll be contacting you to see if you’d like one of the ones in the kiln. I can start glazing it next week. The Roundabout mold is almost spent and I don’t think I’m going to ask for a new one to be made. Right now I’ve got 7 names on the list and I’m not sure if I can make even 7 more. But if you will want one in the coming year I need to know now.

The Boreas currently firing has been resculpted to have proper Percheron show braiding in the mane and tail. I had to move the mane from the left side to the right, and resculpt the tail. I hope he fires into bisque OK! I have one person holding an “option” on this guy but if they decide not to go for him, I’ll glaze him and offer him up for sale. He’s screaming to be solid black but that would be kind of uninteresting to paint! Here’s a photo of the resculpting in progress, where I’ve moved the mane and roughed in the braid line on the crest:

Regarding the “Juniper” Gypsy edition, 6 out of the 10 bone china pieces are in the mail and I’m still waiting for them to arrive on these shores. The rest will be mailed in the next couple days. Once I’ve approved them all (and we don’t need to make any more due to damage or whatever) then the molds will be shipped here from England. So I guess I won’t get those until sometime in July. I plan to dive right into glazing the bone chinas as soon as they arrive.

Well that is enough news for now! Thanks for following me.

Karen

Email Karen

I’ve just listed this heavily customized earthenware china “Roundabout” to auction on the MyAuctionBarn site. The final color is silver dapple bay, gloss finish; one of the finest examples of my dappling technique in ceramic glazes to date. Truly one-of-a-kind! The starting price is $300 and there’s a BuyItNow option for $750.00. Postage paid to anywhere. The auction ends on Saturday. Email me if you have any questions or want to see more pictures. Please read the auction terms carefully before bidding.

Here is the Direct Link to the Auction.

Thank you very much!
Email Karen

Welcome Spring!
I was traveling most of April. Here’s one of the places where we were…!

The Great Wall of China

And it seems like much of the winter I was not working very hard. (Lots of ways to play when living in a ski resort town!) But now I’ve got GOALS! I’m sharing a vendor booth in the main Covered Arena at the Kentucky Horse Park during BreyerFest, this July. I am mostly doing this to have a convenient “home base” to hang out in right in the center of the action for the three days of the model horse madness that is BreyerFest. But I’m getting the booth also to put my work out there and seen, which is always a good thing, even if I am in retirement mode more or less. (Not working too hard.)

Anyway, to the Goals. I want to have examples of all my various sculptures that are still available in ceramic. I will be busy from now, making all those pieces. All of them will be for sale. Because I think it’s silly to keep them back and out of the hands of my good customers—just to sell in Kentucky—what I’ve decided to do is this: when I’ve got a BF-bound piece finished, I’ll post it here and to my Facebook page for sale first-come, first-served. If you’re the buyer and want to pick it up in person in Kentucky, great. It will be reserved for you there. If you are the buyer and are NOT going to be in KY, great, I will still take it to KY for display, and then ship it to you when I get back. (Or maybe a friend could pick it up for you in KY?) If a piece is not pre-reserved, someone can buy it on the spot for cash at BreyerFest. If I can get wi-fi in the Horse Park, I’ll let you log in to PayPal at the booth and pay that way, too.

Here is the list of what I HOPE I will get done for BreyerFest:

CAPRICE Warmblood, earthenware art glazed color (soft blue)

OPTIME Arabian, earthenware custom glazed color (TBD)

OPTIME Arabian, earthenware art glazed color (TBD)

HALFLING BOREAS Percheron, 2 pieces, earthenware art glazed color (TBD)

HALFLING BOREAS Percheron, 2 pieces, earthenware custom glaze color (TBD)

BOREAS Percheron, earthenware custom glaze color (TBD)

ROUNDABOUT British Show Cob, earthenware, 2 pieces, custom glaze colors, dappled grey

Possibles:

JUNIPER Gypsy Vanner, earthenware (only if I get the molds from the UK in the next monrh or so)

Custom glazed Arabian Head tiles

I will probably fail to get all these done (after all, now it is almost SUMMER in the Rockies, more ways to PLAY!) but I will try.

In closing, below are photos of what else I’ve been working on recently. This is a claybody customized Roundabout cob, now a Gypsy Cob. It is remaining in my own collection for now, but I may yet offer him for sale. Customizing greenware is fraught with danger; it was really difficult to add all that clay to the legs, sculpt it, and not have them fall off at some point! I was hardly breathing during the 2 days it took to complete him. I’m glazing him this week to a silver dapple with high sabino whites.

P.S.: I am sorry I don’t update this website as often as I should. I confess that all the action is on my Facebook studio page these days. FB makes it SO easy and effective to write and post photos quickly, and I am posting a lot of in-progress photos and other news there. I am reaching far more people via FB than this blog, now. All the “cool kids” are on Facebook these days and I encourage you to get on over there and “like” my page. That way you’ll really get the up-to-the-minute news.

Email Karen

Roundabout resin painted by Sheila Bishop

I’ve got two unpainted Roundabout British Show Cob resins sitting here in the studio. These were my extra copies in case I needed additional masters for china production, etc. I don’t think I’ll need them so they are available. $175.00 postage paid. There were only 33 resins cast and there won’t be any more made!

Email Karen if interested!