Muddy Monday: The Legacy of Marranas

As one of the large (traditional size) Arabian sculptures that was not reproduced by Hagen-Renaker, the Maureen Love Originals stoneware portrait of "Marranas" is sometimes overlooked or forgotten in the collecting world. He is quite a large and striking sculpture in person. He has two optimum viewing angles: the right side and the 3/4 view front left. Maureen sculpted unique characterization in his face. He appears to be jutting his mandible forward, or else has a wee underbite.

Model courtesy Dawn Sinkovich, photos by author.

If you examine several of the portrait chestnut stonewares, you will notice the markings and mane and tail color vary slightly, from model to model.

Marranas portrait MLO stoneware, courtesy Elizabeth Bouras.

Marranas MLO stoneware, a melted second, courtesy Dawn Sinkovich.

In 2002, Maureen branched out from her Made With Love partnership with Laurilyn Burson to reissue several of her old molds in storage, including a handful of Marranas. These were produced by Laurilyn, and offered in custom glaze (unique) colors, in gloss. Less than nine "Molds From Maureen's Garage" Marranas models exist, and probably far less (I only know of three). One was offered through their Calendar sales promotion.

A used calendar page, showing a MFMG Marranas.

Laurilyn said the Marranas was particularly tricky to cast. This is no wonder, as he comes out of a two piece mold!

Maureen's own original Marranas mold.

The real Marranas 6721 sired twenty-seven registered foals, of which 18 were fillies. Although 3 of his foals have no color recorded, 14 were chestnut, like their sire. Five of his get were kept as intact stallions. 

It was difficult to dig up much on the real Marranas. This is the only known public photo of him in life.

Pedigree:

http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/marranas

Photo source: http://www.ablackhorse.com/board/index.php?/topic/1211-performance-plus-movers-and-shakers/page-6

The estate of Maureen Love has licensed a new art replica line, called Share The Love, which is debuting with the Marranas mold. Because of this blog, and my ceramics production experience, I was contacted to be the sub-contractor for select ceramic pieces. The Marranas I am producing under license is smaller than the originals, and quite distinct in finish from the earlier works of Maureen and Laurilyn. They are glazed in my own style, so as not to confuse or mislead collectors into thinking they are originals by Maureen's own hand.

Test dapple fiery chestnut

Custom glaze dapple rose gray.

I agree, he is very tricky to cast! I hope to do her memory honor with this work. It feels like another art journey has come full circle. Words fail me as to how much inner struggle and problem-solving went into this endeavor. I have never spent so much time analyzing every single line of one of her sculptures like I did on this mold. I was terrified that a horse this large would tear in half from a two piece mold, but they don't.

At the Breakables at Breyerfest ceramic horse show this week, a Maureen Love Lives On challenge class has been initiated and sponsored by Share the Love. Two of the donated awards are plaques cast from hand-pressings from the original aged plaster mold of Marranas. For the client, I chose two vintage 1960's art glazes that I thought would have appealed to Maureen.

Marranas' legacy lives on, not just in his real descendants, but in fresh muddy hoofprints.




Thank you to Sally Clow for the progeny information, to Liz Bouras for access to her collection, to Maggie Barkovitz for adding another challenge class, and to Dawn Sinkovich for the opportunity.