In With The Bad, Out With The Good

The day started with my usual Clinky Classic show prep at this time of year, a whole mess of slipcasting. In between topping off the levels of liquid clay in the molds, I pick up disconnected areas of my messy studio. I've made it a goal to clear a section each day, until it's totally clean except for a pre-show dusting. While I was cleaning, I took a hard look at all the off-topic things in the cabinets of my studio. This is the clutter I can't throw away because it is composed of meaningful artworks, even if they are not the focus of what I collect, anymore.There are entire sub-collections that I haven't added to in a decade or more, but that would make my fellow collectors so happy. Also, if I am going to move into the family farm house soon, why pack, move, and unpack items I scarcely look at, when I can pack and rehome items, and make room? As the molds drained the excess slip, I started dusting these items, taking sales photos, and advertising them online.

Sometimes, you can look at a cabinet and know immediately when it is time for the contents to find new homes. It's not always a drastic downsizing, maybe a little shift, or a realization that a fellow collector could enjoy it now as I have, in the past. As undying fired earth, it is part of a continuum that extends before and after me; as a mortal curator, I feel better when I go with that flow of "where things need to go". Not in the sense of putting things away, of course. Look how long it's taking me to clean this studio!

Uploading photos and writing ads necessitates being in the office, on my computer. I hate everything about that: the chair, computers in general, lighting, and the smell of the air. I am not an office person. Still, to get things done, I sit here and get through it as fast as I can. I usually compose this blog with pen and paper, then input it all on the computer as fast as possible. The office is not my native environment.

Suddenly, around 3pm, a series of Facebook private messages came zinging through, as I worked. All of them were confusing, jumbled multi-horse photos with no text. Just broken vintage HRs and Japanese imports, and their parts, randomly placed in flats. 

Photos courtesy Jennifer Dodd

The messages were without text because there are no words.

I just typed back, "goodness bless their broken selves
                             Did you save them all?
                             I'd even look under that tapestry for legs"

What collector is prepared to see that? I couldn't tell much from the images, just that some were damaged Monrovia era Hagen-Renakers. Since I do restorations for hire, I assumed it was a purchase that the owner wanted restored. 

But, they were not yet purchased!

The sender, Jennifer Dodd, is a china collector friend who stumbled upon this estate auction's ad, and had to investigate. This is what the auctioneers' ad showed to prospective bidders:

Ceramic horses that survived nearly 60 years were freshly broken after this photo was taken.

Jennifer wrote: 

                         "They destroyed and threw away at least three.                           Don't even have trash anymore. Crusader, Honora, small Zara                          Said they broke to dust. I want to cry"

Yeah, me, too.

Auction companies are notorious for manhandling breakable items. To bear witness to this via photographs, let alone in person, can make one physically ill. There is no respect, it's just a job to the auction staff. 

As you can imagine, Jennifer is now feeling queasy, upon seeing the reality after the auctioneers split them into lots. She messaged me in blind hope that I would happen to be online and see the message, and help her guess values for bidding. 

It was sheer luck that I was doing sales ads at that moment, and my FB was signed in.

I wrote: 

                      "Save who you can. Don't worry about what you can't help.

              it's the rescue mantra"

Then a crazy thing happened. Jen asked me if I wanted to bid on anything. 

Well, it's no secret by now that I like mold detail and that I only collect certain molds. This keeps me focused and methodical about acquisitions. Something about building the congas (rows of the same sculpture in different colors) is very fun to me. There's a puzzle, a challenge, and it's not a checklist of numbers. When you are a collector of variants and factory goofs and customs, there are no checklists. You never know what will compose your conga!

I told her which molds I was after in the photos, but that I did not want to step on her own purchases. After all, she was sharing this with me, and doing the work! She even sent me closeup photos of the lots:

 When I saw that photo, I replied, "The Abdullah has throat wrinkles, that's nice." She had said his detail was moderate. His throat made me wonder if he was better, beneath all the dirt.

When they are so dirty and broken, it's hard to put values on them. Some horses will be fine after cleaning, but it's a gamble with crackled glaze on white horses. Nicotine, mildew, oils, and unidentified filth can be pressed or washed down into the crackle, staining the bisque body beneath. If the previous owner "bathed" their ceramics at any time, there may be deep stains that won't be evident until the outer dirt is removed.

Roan Lady happens to be one of the molds I conga. Maybe I should say, "a mold I aim to conga". It's been a slow build, and I've had many a missed connection. My husband even tried to secretly buy one like this at BreyerFest one year, as a surprise Christmas present, but a sharp collector beat him to it. The years haven't deterred me, I remain a fan. I even sculpted her real-life mate and made him in ceramic. This sad little white Monrovia Roan Lady was breaking my heart, with her apparent gray mildew and mysterious yellow debris. Her broken leg didn't worry me, but her potential stains did. I told Jennifer how much I was in for, and hoped for the best. The last I heard was a little after 4pm, when she was waiting on that lot. She would let me know if she won that lot, and would drop it off at my studio, after the auction.

Hours crept by, with no message, text, nor phone call. I have been to auctions. I know how it feels when I lose the lots I wanted: I don't particularly feel chatty. I kept working, demolding wet clay horses, and assumed that she had a bad auction day and went home. I made my dinner, worked some more, and put it out of mind.

At almost 8:30pm, she called while on the road... her phone had died, so she couldn't reach me sooner, but she had won the lot! Roan Lady was in the backseat. She was on her way to the studio, and wanted to stop and drop RL off.

I was gathering some restoration/cleaning gear when I heard the car pull up. She had arrived so soon, I had to check that it wasn't a trespasser! There may have been a little flying by way of car... maybe someone was a little excited from the auction. And rightly so...

She started unpacking her lots: some vintage Breyers, metal horses, and most of the china lot. Part of it had been shared with her friend that attended the auction that day. Everything present had the same mildew/dust combination, in varying amounts. Someone had collected Horse Shaped Objects for many years, and loved them enough to attempt mending their original damage. On old breaks on Man O' War, they used either wood finisher's crayon or Crayolas to match his color. Someone tried. They cared.

Jennifer urged me to take "before" photos of the main HRs in the lot, as I started showing her the alcohol cleaning process. On the right, is how they were after the auctioneers added damage to them. Left, just clean and glued, no putty or paint!

This is one of those "greenish-blue" underglaze variants. 

He also sports a muzzle that looks dipped in black, but it's sprayed.

He is so detailed, he has lip wrinkles! 

All the orange crayon is off, and he has his pride back.

His breaks had the most chips.

Not bad for a rescue!

They turned out to be even more detailed, once they were cleaned and mended. It's nice to find a Monrovia Roan Lady with face veining! The stickers are all pristine, and there is an added bonus:

Roan Lady retains her original retail price sticker! Five whole dollars. I cleaned around it, because that's cool history.

We sat cleaning and mending horses until almost one o'clock in the morning. There's nothing quite like the sense of purpose when rescuing old pottery art. Jennifer learned the cleaning process, from alcohol to glue removal, and assisted with gluing the mends with the accelerant. She did a couple ceramic imports on her own, and they turned out to be adorable treasures! Looks like she's ready to take on the epoxy putty, next time.

The continuum carries forward, and some unknown person's beloved horses are now getting fixed and loved again. Sadness gets turned into a positive. I was happy to also find a loving home for an earlier restored rescue horse that didn't fit in my collection themes. By next week, all my ads will be done and more ceramics will have new, appreciative homes. 


Many thanks to Jennifer Dodd for bringing this all about, and to her intrepid auction buddy Jessica Mashburn for helping her keep it together all afternoon. What an amazing surprise!

Enough Horse for Two Portraits

Today's subject earns the large format I call a "Feature Post", as opposed to the smaller "Muddy Monday" bites. The subject is Ferseyn, an Arabian stallion of no small influence in the breed. To break it down briefly for the generation who doesn't recognize him, he was Khemosabi+++'s grandsire, on his father's side. I will not roll out with a discussion of his pedigree and all the descendants, which has been covered by others more qualified. This post is about the Ferseyn sculpture you know, and the one you may not know as Ferseyn.

The Ferseyn you are familiar with has had no small influence on collectors of both ceramic and plastic horses. He was designed by Maureen Love, and introduced by Hagen-Renaker in matte white and rose gray, from Fall 1958 through Spring 1959. 

Bisque casting from Maureen's waste mold of Ferseyn.

Photos courtesy Tracy Wells. Size graphic added by author.

Although the Monrovia Ferseyn is tipped slightly to the forehand's background, 

the size difference is still discernible.

The matte white had very little gray shading in Monrovia; it is mostly restricted to the face, mane/tail, a breath on the knees, occasionally on the neck, and always on the hooves. Despite being the eldest, Monrovia white Ferseyn seems to be the most common of this mold's vintage ceramic iterations.

NAN 1999 Auction lot; Monrovia white Ferseyn, which sold for $600.

Ah, gone are the days of those high values... 

Photo courtesy J. Kira Hamilton.

The Monrovia white gray and rose gray.

Photo courtesy Ed Alcorn, The Hagen-Renaker Online Museum.

Ferseyn's return in San Dimas gained new colors and variations. He was produced in steel gray, doeskin, and white. A variant, "dove gray", looks very much like a doeskin with a different slip (base) color, much as this blog previously discussed about Roan Lady. 

San Dimas doeskin.

Photos courtesy Sally Clow.

San Dimas doeskin.

Photo courtesy Ed Alcorn

San Dimas dove gray, steel/ash gray, and white with pink nose.

Photo courtesy Ed Alcorn

Roan Lady in two different slip colors.

Models courtesy Jo Ellen Arnold.

As if this similarity between doeskin and dove gray wasn't enough to confuse us, there is another double-identity colourway on San Dimas Ferseyn. Growing up, I had always heard the dark grays referred to as "steel gray", but even in Southern California, there was a collector calling it "ash gray". Ash gray is the term used all over the USA, too. It appears that ash gray is simply steel gray, with significantly less body shading. The odd thing is, for such a small group of horses, no two ash gray are decorated alike. Some have black legs, some have black up to the body, some have naked or just lightly shaded legs. 

Nancy Kelly writes:

I believe I purchased [ash gray Ferseyn] and [ash gray] Sheba in 1970. Ellen Hitchens was selling them directly. I must have found out about them in her club newsletter. We didn't have web or email then. :) She called the pair "ash gray". I just looked at the sales lists on the Purple Mountain website and I don't see a reference to them in the DW sales lists. A mystery!

As for me, the blogger, I'm starting to think ash and steel are the same thing, just different collector nomenclature based on either where you were located geographically, or on the amount of underglaze body shading. What do you think?

Ed calls this "steel gray".

Photo courtesy Ed Alcorn

Karen Grimm called this "ash gray".

Photo courtesy Black Horse Ranch/Peter Grimm

Karen Grimm also called this test Wrangler "ash gray".

Clearly, they have completely different slip and underglaze shading colors.

Photo courtesy Black Horse Ranch/Peter Grimm

Nancy calls this "ash gray".

Photo courtesy Nancy Kelly

Ash gray or steel gray?

But, we're not done examining San Dimas colors! The white gray in San Dimas has at least three variations known: the dark nose, the pink nose, and the transition. The dark nose is like the Monrovia grays, having a dark muzzle, indeed. Note the body shading on this example. I have also seen dark-nose white San Dimas Ferseyn with no shading anywhere but on his muzzle and hooves.

Model courtesy Elizabeth Bouras.

The Monrovia vs. San Dimas are easy to distinguish, by the differences in mold detail and the eye decoration: San Dimas has sharp mold detail, and a black-and-rust eye, while Monrovia has a lash eye or full tri-eye (pupil, iris, and sclera). The dark nose is more true to the real horse. The real Ferseyn did not have a solid pink muzzle; in old age, he had very little mottling, but nothing like the San Dimas pink nose.

The original stud ad says this photo was taken when Ferseyn was 21 years old.

No pink nose. Lots of round butt, like the sculpture, though!

For years, people thought the pink nose San Dimas was the rarest of the white grays, but it seems that the dark nose San Dimas white gray (if not a misidentified Monrovia) is actually more scarce. I've been seeking one, for years.

Pink nose, as shown on the cover of the first edition Hagen-Renaker Handbook:

And the exact cover model today, with a little less tacky-wax from his performance showing days:

This piece was previously owned by two of the book's authors, in succession.

He has been with me for 19 years.

The pink is sprayed up from below the chin, with a bit of dark gray sprayed downwards from the top of the muzzle. Pink nose Ferseyn tends to have gray shading all the way up the leg, and, sometimes, into the body.

Typical San Dimas rust and black eye deco.

Another famous-in-the-hobby pink-nose Ferseyn, "Memnon".

He was successfully campaigned in model shows by his former owner, Julie Harris.

Owned by Jo Ellen Arnold, restoration and photos by Sue Thiessen.

This fellow has a typical San Dimas sticker.

An extremely "pink" nose example that I photographed at a show, years ago.
This might just be another angle of the famed "Memnon".

The transition San Dimas white gray is uncommon, and this is the first one I have seen. While I was purchasing him, I actually thought he was an ordinary pink nose, from his photo. He has the leg shading, mold detail, and pink nose of San Dimas, but he also has Monrovia-like eye decoration and an old Monrovia round sticker. Note that the slip color is even whiter than the later San Dimas. He's more like the bright white slip of a Monrovia Ferseyn.

Left: normal San Dimas pink nose, right: transition Monrovia-San Dimas pink nose.

By way of contrast, here is another Monrovia white gray, sporting his age-appropriate sticker. Note the whiteness of the legs and body. Older slip batch for this guy, and the transition one?

Photo courtesy Cindy Neuhaus

The Ferseyn mold was reborn when Breyer leased rights to produce Ferseyn in plastic; he was then known as the "Classic Arabian Stallion", from 1973-2005. Many, many more plastics were made than HR versions of him, so most plastic collectors know the mold as the CAS, and aren't aware that he ever had a proper name. If you are curious about how this design looks in other colors, view this page. Many customs have been made off of the plastics, and at least one bronze fine artist recast him, as "her own". Ferseyn is a pleasing, round, balanced sculpture, and the appeal is timeless.

Getting back to the muddy topic... I think Ferseyn achieves his grandest representation in an enlargement, as the mount for the Hagen-Renaker "Bedouin", mold # B-642. Made from Fall 1956 - Spring 1958, yet still a rare piece, and very hard to find with an intact, original rifle. 

This Bedouin horse is the darker variation, with heavy body shading.

Photo courtesy Val Tudor.

Another dark one.

Photo courtesy Ed Alcorn

Variant without body shading.

Shown in mid-restoration. Gray on the rider's shoulder is epoxy putty. 

In a past post, I showed the Wagon Wheel Ranch ad, featuring Maureen Love's stoneware portraits of several Arabian horses. In the middle background of the ad photo, is this unique earthenware custom glaze HR Bedouin, on a white horse. His robe is also a different color than the regular issue. While the exact whereabouts of this custom glaze are unknown to me, I am assured by a friend that the piece still exists, safely treasured in a private collection.

In 2004, Hagen-Renaker reissued the Ferseyn mold in ceramic, in several glossy colors, with decoration that made them distinctive from the older ceramics. The reissues can be ordered today, direct from the pottery.



What if I told you that these Ferseyn models aren't the only Ferseyn portraits in the Hagen-Renaker DW ceramic line? In her sketchbook covers' indices, Maureen identified these sketches, and several more, as Ferseyn. Although the sketchbooks were split up as individual artworks for sale, after Maureen's passing, Dawn Sinkovich photographed each page and sketchbook cover index, in order. Because of this act of preservation of Maureen's original format order, we can go back and research who was the subject of which drawing, in many cases!

Used with permission from Share The Love.

Oh, boy! You know what this means... let's talk about the Hagen-Renaker DW Arabian stallion, "Abdullah".

Original order form.

This sculpture has two mold versions in ceramic. The first, the "large" Arabian, standing, is 6.25" tall, and was produced in white matte from Spring 1956- Spring 1957. The small version, at 6" tall, was produced in both white gray and a flaxen chestnut, from Spring 1968- Spring 1969. 

Model courtesy Janet Hicks.

Ed's measured 6.375" for large, and 5.875" for small.

The bay on the far right is a test color.

Photo courtesy Ed Alcorn, The Hagen-Renaker Online Museum.

Of course, this blog isn't going to examine a boring old white one! 

Photos courtesy Sue Thiessen.

This fellow is considered a factory test. He looks almost identical to the test shown as the entry for the mold, in the HR Handbook 2nd and 3rd editions. That test's photo is an old, black-and-white promotional or advertising photograph. This one differs from the book's example in having more tail shading and less jaw shading. His color appears to shift with different lighting, so here are several images of the same test.

The photo above shows how close he is to the one in the Handbook.

Photos courtesy Sue Thiessen.

Yet another change in his coat color.

And of course, because this is Muddy Hoofprints, I'm not just going to show you just one unusual example. 

This is "Crown Jewel", an Abdullah custom glazed by the sculptor, Maureen Love. 

Sometimes, Maureen glazed markings and colors 

that were not of the sculpted portrait horse (her Cutter leaps to mind).

The real Ferseyn didn't have a solid pink nose.

Photo courtesy Joan Berkwitz.

Maureen identified this sketch as Ferseyn, on the cover index of its sketchbook.

Used with permission from Share The Love.

His owner, Joan Berkwitz, wrote this article about him, a few years back. When I asked her which mold version he was, she had to measure him, because it had never come up! Unlike the factory-produced Abdullah, this custom stands almost a full quarter inch taller than the Large regular run. Joan guest blogs about the difference:

I've always been sure that Crown Jewel came from Maureen's waste mold, but the measurements confirm that. Maureen would complete her sculpture in clay, and then a mold would be made from that clay. That mold would then be used to cast a wax, and she would clean up the wax. The wax was used to make the master production mold. Hence, the first was a 'waste' mold, only used for casting the wax. Crown Jewel was slipcast before or after the wax. I sort of suspect that it was after the wax, which would explain some of his odd glaze resist areas.

The reason that we can be sure about it is because of his size. Clay shrinks when it dries and fires.The wax that was cast from the waste mold would shrink a tiny bit as it cooled, and then after Maureen chased it (cleaned it up and intensified the detail) it would be used to produce the Master mold. That Master would have been made from a very dense plaster like Hydrostone, and a rubber, either called Black Tuffy, or something similar. The old rubbers decayed fairly rapidly and were probably the reason that there was a second generation of even smaller Abdullahs.

When that Master mold was no longer usable, and HR wanted to produce more Abdullahs, they would probably have cast a bisque one, made another waste mold, made another wax, and had Maureen clean it. Because it was made from a bisque, that mold would already have been smaller. Castings from that mold would be smaller still. That is why there are two sizes, and why Crown Jewel is about .25" taller than the first production generation, and .50" taller than the second generation production.

Just shy of 6.5".

Photos courtesy Joan Berkwitz.

Like Crown Jewel, the bisque Ferseyn at the beginning of this post came from Maureen's waste molds that pre-date the HR molds, for their respective designs. They both are very special, as they are the closest surviving castings to Maureen's hand. While a few waxes of her other designs have been preserved, I recall that Maureen melted down a Ferseyn wax to recycle it for future sculptures, in the early 1990's. (This still turns my stomach.) I do not know the status of either version of the Abdullah waxes.

Maureen identified this sketch as Ferseyn, on the cover index of its sketchbook.

Used with permission from Share The Love.

No doubt about it, Ferseyn has stood the test of time in both living and sculptural forms. I don't think there is a regular (non-specialty) model horse show in this country that hasn't had at least one casting of him compete in it, from the mid-1970's to today. The Abdullahs are not as numerous, but they certainly make the scene at the specialty all-ceramic horse shows. It is a powerful horse that takes more than one portrait to do him justice, and a powerful pair of sculptures to have endured the decades!




ENORMOUS GRATITUDE to the people who helped make this blog post so rich and full of visual treats: Joan Berkwitz, Jo Ellen Arnold, Nancy Kelly, Dawn Sinkovich, Ed Alcorn, Janet Hicks, Sue Thiessen, Sally Clow, Tracy Wells, (Jackie) Kira Hamilton, Karen and Peter Grimm, Elizabeth Bouras and Paula O'Keefe, Val Tudor, Cindy Neuhaus, and of course, the one who designed it all, Maureen Love.


References:

Benuish, Alison, ed. Hagen-Renaker Research Materials: 1949- Present. N. pag. Salisbury, MD: WMHC, 1995.  

Berkwitz, Joan. pers. comm. 1/10/2014

Ferseyn stud ad image with age data:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23462550@N00/149710586/in/photostream/ 

The Maureen Love Estate Auctions

Identify Your Breyer. com

Kelly, Nancy. Pers. comm. 1/10-13/2014.

Roller, Gayle. Hagen-Renaker: A Charlton Standard Catalogue. Third Edition. Pp. x-xiii, 71-73. The Charlton Press: Palm Harbor, FL, 2003.

Sinkovich, Dawn. Pers. comm. 1/9-28/2014.