Without A Leg to Stand On

This entry is little better off than that; for all of the data presented, most of the conclusions remain speculation. The theories rest on collectors’ and ceramists’ interpretations of the unique item, and just a couple pieces of documentation. This is another case in which answers only led to more questions. Like my previous articles on The Mystery Horses of Maureen Love, this single mystery horse investigation yielded more than expected.

This story begins with a minuscule and innocuous chip of pottery, belying its significance in Hagen-Renaker history. This HR horse was missing all four legs, only 1.25" high from ears to the longest foreleg nub. He was the only one of his kind in the archives. When Joanie Berkwitz and Kathleen Rose were working in the archives, photographing for 1989’s The Hagen-Renaker Handbook, and cleaning up the shelves, Maxine Renaker gave Joanie this piece to restore. She later told her to keep it. Ultimately, this twist of fate saved him from the HR dustbin.[i] Years later, when her collecting interests shifted, Joanie rehomed him with me. I mistakenly called him the Mini Mini “drafter”, even though he is not one. He just seemed so round and jolly, like a bobtail fellow you’d see pulling a sleigh. The only things I knew about him were his origin and that he was known as a test.





It has been suggested by another collector that he may not be a test, but maybe a factory goof, an employee custom, or a custom by Maureen. I call him a test in this article, as that is what he was termed in the archives and by the original owner. I will try to detail each opinion and show the documentation about this horse so you, the reader, may form your own conclusions.

Those new to collecting HR may be wondering, “What is a Mini Mini?” That’s the old call name of the smallest horse molds in the HR Miniatures line (although, not their oldest names). The Mini Mini horses are currently represented by a family of molds, the “Small Stallion”, “Small Mare”, and “Small Colt”. This article will refer to them as the “Mini Mini family”. They have been good sellers for HR over the decades, and have been produced in matte and glossy, and several different colors. You may view the current finish here, just scroll down.

How exactly does this odd bobtail test relate to the family horses and foal? One theory is that this test’s mold is a reworked version of either the current Mini Mini “Small Colt” or the “Small Stallion”.

Collector Nancy Falzone shares her opinion that this dapple gray horse is “… a test or a factory employee piece and is a version of the A 451 stallion (the stock numbers on the 1958 list say differently but it is A 451) as his size is right.”

Unlike the colt, this fellow's head is turned slightly, and his tail is set lower and does not point upwards. It is a bobtail. His legs are almost in the right place, but the test bobtail is adult Mini Mini size. He would be 1.5” tall, if he had his legs under him. This is, as Nancy mentions, the same height as the Mini Mini family stallion. Unlike the stallion, his head is turned, his opposite legs are together, and his pourhole is on the opposite side. In this scale, that’s a lot of troubling with tiny, fragile wax legs, when starting from scratch would be easier (from my perspective as a sculptor). A resculpt would have been done on a wax casting of whichever horse came first, if that happened.

The sculpture style of the bobtail is so distinctive, even his proportions are different from the more realistic family Mini Mini’s. His muzzle and limbs taper sharply. His body segments are round and ball-like, not as much horse-shaped. This supports the opposing theory that he was from a completely original sculpture- waste molded, tested, but never put into production. There is strong agreement among collectors that Maureen Love designed this horse. The style of the horse is much closer to her “Modern Horse”, “Retro” (aka, the Black Bisque Horse mold), and wall plaque designs for HR, than it is to her realistic Mini Mini family.

Then, there is his color. He is the only known dapple gray on a Mini Mini horse. HR has produced larger Miniatures in dapple gray, some with splattered darker spots over white body, others with sanded or rubbed-off lighter dapples. The decoration technique to achieve his color is subject to more than one opinion, as is almost everything about this horse. Written long before Joanie became a ceramist herself, her Glass Menagerie article on this piece suggested that he was decorated by splattered or flicked white dots on top of his gray tinted-slip body. She says today:

“… My early description of the glazing on the horse is off (he's not grey slip)… To me, his dapples look floaty and too white, and slightly translucent... much more in line with being applied. They may have been applied by dotting with a brush instead of splattering, but I doubt that they were wax resist. I would expect a much stronger dark area around each one if that were the case. Also some color inside of the dot. And the dot would not look milky, it would look very white.”

I agree that he is not cast in gray slip, because after reading the GM article, I checked that with the moistening method, as described earlier in my blog. The exposed slip on his leg breaks is white. Some of his nubs had glue residue, but the clean bisque surface did not turn gray when moistened. This means he was poured in white slip; his gray color was only a thin, sprayed underglaze coating over his white body. Further evidence of sprayed gray can be seen in the directional shading on his eyes, wrinkles, etc.

I have a different idea about how those round dapples could have been made. There are darker rings around some of his white dapples. This happens when sprayed underglaze pools around a latex or wax-resisted dot. The resist method on a white slip body will yield white dapples after a bisque firing and some light rubbing. The dots were applied individually with a tool, not splattered, because the dapples are rather uniform and no long, thin splats are present. This means resist (or white underglaze paint) was applied perpendicular to each contour. His opposite side also has many incompletely white dapples, yet their hard outlines are visible. This can occur when the resist is applied too thin, isn’t rubbed from the bisque before final glazing, or otherwise does not complete its job. I have personally experienced this on occasion. The suspended pigment just settled right down after the resist burned out in the kiln, and it adhered to the horse. It may even be a combination of techniques, using white underglaze to try and cover the adhered, failed dapples? This color is not seen on later horses of any HR mold. The risks and labor are too high for such a small product, and one of modest profit margin. The "points" of the horse, including the mane, bobtail, and muzzle, are sprayed with black underglaze. He has a clear gloss glaze on top of it all, and this has crackled with age.

When I began investigating this horse for my blog, I started by looking for a missing mold number in the HR collector books. I found a gap in the Miniatures line mold number sequence, and that number happened to be 450, just before the well-known Mini Mini family’s numbers 451, 452, and 453. This blank spot earlier in the sequence confused me because it conflicted with the information I had at that time. I was recently told that there is a 1960’s HR sales list, after the initial Mini Mini family release, showing a line drawing of him, and about the aforementioned Glass Menagerie newsletter, written by Joanie.[ii] I was a mere fledgling collector during the publishing era of GM, not a subscriber, and had never seen this article. She recommended that I ask collector Nancy Falzone for more information. Nancy not only found the GM article, but also dug up the original Mold Book page scan and the original first appearance of this horse as a line drawing on a Fall 1958 sales list.


Sales list scan courtesy Nancy Falzone.

No two collectors I’ve been in touch with have the same take on this. Here's my interpretation of the documents, which is not the only possible one.

The test is named, “Horse #2”, as illustrated on the sales sheet. It’s his mold, right down to his turned head and funny tail. But who are those other horses around him? They are clearly not members of the known examples of the Mini Mini family of Fall 1958 and most of the seasons between Fall 1964 and the present.

One thing collectors agree on is that the other two in that 1958 sales sheet segment don’t exist in the pantheon of HR models. They also have bobtails. Their poses are quite different. I was saddened that I'd never seen them, as I love their style. Collectors are missing out on something neat here.

It is most likely that one of each bobtail existed, at least in the original sculpture stage, in order for the sales sheet drawings to be made at all. This point is made in the GM article. Since this dapple gray casting of Horse #2 exists, at the very least, a waste mold was made from his original sculpture. Why were they not put into further production? I don’t know. When an order was placed for any of these three bobtail drawings on the lists, the factory shipped out the Mini Mini family members instead. The Mold Book evidence also backs this up. It is known among collectors that not all sales list drawings accurately represented the product that shipped. As of this writing, no collectors have reported finding any of these bobtails, beyond this single #2 test. If bobtails ever shipped out, at least one more should have turned up after all these years, in this era of eBay.

The images below are artist conceptions of what the bobtails could have looked like, translated to 3D from the line drawings, and based on the known #2 test. The glaze finish is a loose recreation of the known #2 test, as a rushed factory employee might do. It is unlikely that this color was used beyond the one test, as it is too time-consuming for production. When you are out hunting, keep your eyes peeled for these in the matte Monrovia brown, like the first season of the Mini Mini family[iii], not dapple gray. To reiterate, these images are not of existing HRs, just imagined “what-ifs” to inspire collectors and help identify any that may be “out in the wide world”. If you own an authentic HR Mini Mini that looks like these, please share your photos, so we can all learn more.



Observations on Style and Production

The line drawing of Horse #1 has a Spanish profile, in a three-points-of-balance approximation of a collected trot. His tail bob is somewhat elongated, compared to the other two. The image below tried to replicate the exact angles of the drawing; it was not “prettied up”.





Horse #2 is shown as a reconstruction with lower limbs, so he might finally stand proud, alongside his siblings. He does not have a gender in his sculpture, I just got into the habit of referring to it as a "he". Since there are no known examples with the legs attached, the dark hoof decoration is an extrapolation based on the decoration “points” of the known Mini Mini family, in their many production colors.

Horse #3 represented a challenge to translate into a three-dimensional piece that would look like it pulled from a two-piece mold. The known #2 test pulled from a two-piece mold, as evidenced by his mold lines, and such tiny pieces of pottery would require the minimum of mold pieces. The more pieces to each mold, the wider the seams can get, and there is no room for widening on such a small scale! The illustration shows that #3 has a longer torso than the other two drawings. It also has a long hip, and is overall smaller and svelte, possibly indicating a mare. The neck is sharply turned back on itself, with the muzzle on the shoulder, as if scratching an itch. This sort of natural animal gesture is one of my favorite things about Maureen’s work.





All three designs were adult horses, and had carved and/or contoured style lines breaking up their body segments. All had their ears back, unlike the family. In the adult trio, the manes had far more detail than the tails, with test #2’s tail only sporting two or three lines on each side. Completely unlike the family, all three bobtails have concave eyes, or sockets. Pigment pools in them to make them look darker than the rest of the face. It reads well on such tiny horses. It would certainly reduce or eliminate painting mistakes, as they need no decorator’s touch beyond the overspray of the body shading.

If these are the three horses in the Fall 1958 sales sheet with the 451, 452, 453 designation, when do the accurate line drawings of the actual produced family first appear? I don’t have that answer. The MG article indicates that these same bobtail drawings were absent in Spring 1959, the season following debut. The same stylized adult horse drawings appear on the Fall 1964 sales list, but this time with the names “Stallion”, “Mare”, and “Foal”. Nancy relates:

“The same sketches as 1958 follow clear through the Monrovia Spring 1966 time fame & into San Dimas, but I doubt very much that they were actually [shipping] bob tail models. I am almost positive in fact they were never bob tailed & those Spring 1964 mini minis were what you see now. HR did that all the time with their sketches with wrong ones pictured or just carried the same sketch even though [the] model changed.”



Mold Book scan courtesy Nancy Falzone.

The handwriting on 452 looks like it could have ink run through from a previous page, so the best guess I have:

"452 D-1 Horse [Head down] go w/ s. c. B-1"

It's clear that the Mold Book entry for 452 is not talking about bobtail #2 (sales list mold number 452), because his head is not down. It is impossible to confuse him with the prancing, head-down mare of the known family. The Mold Book describes the Mini Mini family as being introduced 7 (July) of '58. It looks like the bobtails got their sales list portraits, but the family beat them to the Mold Book.

With the other two bobtail horses in limbo, I don't think we can fairly say this #2 test is mold number 450. Here is another point on which everyone agrees- it would be pure speculation to ascribe it. They must have all been sculpted, we just don't know which, if any of them, might have been "Reserved" that mold number slot. One could assume this single example of Horse #2 was intended to be 450 because he was the only bobtail example known from the archives, until something else shows up. I personally feel that the three bobtails did not "survive" even a market research phase (such as gift show orders) long enough to be recorded in the official Mold Book. They were bumped off by the three Mini Mini family molds, born right on their heels, and given their sales list mold numbers.

Was a block and case, let alone production molds, ever made on any of the three bobtail models? If only one of the three designs made it to a block and case, and no data here promises that, and it was proven to be Horse #2, only then could I agree with the designation of 450. That's the sort of question only someone at HR could answer by digging through mold inventory and opening the one marked 450, if it exists. Again, I really don't think the three bobtails made it past the waste mold stage. Glazing a test color on a waste mold test casting is common enough. It’s quick and economical for the production potter. That would explain how my one came to be.

I would feel comfortable calling the bobtail trio, "the alternate Mini Mini horse group". My opinion is that my lonely #2 was a test to determine some aspect of intended production, either the decoration or the casting or both. After all, he was one of the very first three horses made in this size, so his molding and casting would have been a bit of a learning curve with such dainty legs! Until other genuine examples of this trio are found, I suspect that he is a waste mold casting of a design that never made it into the Mold Book. It is easy and tempting to plop him into that blank #450 slot, but I really try to see what is there, not get carried away with tidying up a loose end. I must keep my own legs under me.



Gratitude to the collectors who made this journey possible!

*The HR Mold Book is the factory’s log of all molds produced. It is not to be confused with the manuals, guides, handbooks, and assorted texts published about HR.


Berkwitz, Joan. “Unsolved Mystery”. The Glass Menagerie June 1991: three unnumbered pages.
Falzone, Nancy. Personal communications. January 2011.
Hagen-Renaker, Inc. Unpublished Mold Book.
Hagen-Renaker, Inc. Sales sheet. Fall 1958.
Roller, Gayle. Hagen-Renaker: A Charlton Standard Guide. Third Edition. The Charlton Press: Palm Harbor, FL, 2003.

Footnotes:

[i] Berkwitz, Joan. Personal communication. February 10, 2011.


[ii] Berkwitz, Joan. Personal communication. January 4, 2011.


[iii] Roller, Gayle. Hagen-Renaker: A Charlton Standard Guide. Third Edition. The Charlton Press: Palm Harbor, FL, 2003.

Update on the Mystery Horses

Since the initial Mystery Horses post, I've continued to dig up the information. Here are corrections and tasty new trivia to compliment the previous post. Fun stuff happens when you do your own legwork! Photos are by me, often taken "in the wild", unless otherwise noted.

Here is a Lane Puma Planter, mold base inscribed for the copyright year of 1960. Note that the airbrushed technique, palette, and finish are similar to the supposedly "Mexican" factory finish on the Lane Running Horse.






The Puma's finish and complete base together supports the idea that these horses were authentic Lane production pieces, not Mexican knock-offs. The factory's reason for removing the horses' base undersides, and changing the decoration to "natural", is up for speculation.
Updated 1/18/12: The Natural colourway has been found on the earlier, larger first version of this horse mold,  independent of the mold edit.

Here are better photographs of the OF Lane Rearing Facing Left horse, courtesy of collector Arlene Soderlund:





An odd piece turned up on eBay, and is the subject of mild disagreement among ceramic horse collectors. This horse planter is thought to be a Lane piece; it was produced in both this color and a shaded black. The mold has such an oddly familiar look to it. Do you see it? It looks like a pottery designer (not Maureen Love) turned her Lane Rearing Facing Left (leg-out) horse horizontal, and hacked at him until he ran. Photo from eBay:


Why on Earth would this composition leap to mind? It would, if you saw your competitor, Beauceware, selling these like hotcakes for the previous decade. Note the differences in the neck, the negative space in the tail, the overall refinement, etc. The Beauceware piece dates from 1952, whereas Maureen sculpted for Lane in the 1960's.

I would not call this a Maureen Love sculpture anymore; it is "derived from", at best, and that is generous.

A reminder about values on these Mystery Horses: see the earlier post. They are only worth what other collectors are willing to pay. Chances are, if you do find one, you'll grow so fond of its quirky self that you'll hesitate to sell it.

Under the Hobby Molds heading of the previous Mystery entry, both of these styles of Facing Left Rearing "Leg Out" horse are hobby molds.
Update 1/18/12: They were both also manufactured in OF finishes! 



They were produced by two different manufacturers. The white bisque on the left is considered the more authentic of the two because it matches the Lane model.
Update 1/18/12: The white bisque one does not exactly match the first version of the Lane 239 mold. The P-159 has added fine hair detail in the mane and tail.

It was made by Provincial Molds. This horse comes out of a two-part mold, but the left hind leg is an add-on, poured in the margin. It is mold #P-159, although another online source calls it "PO159". It also had an accessory mold for a unicorn horn and Pegasus wings, #P-159A. Please note that the other items, including the horse's accessories, were not designed by Maureen Love. Vintage Provincial mold catalog image:



I am still seeking information on how and when Provincial acquired this mold copyright from Lane. It is possible that this was done without Lane's knowledge. There was a lot of "bastardization" between pottery companies. Note that Provincial's P-434 above looks an awful (pun intended) lot like the Kimple #2950 hobby mold.

This brings us to the other version hobby mold. The brown glaze is not an OF finish, it is a hobbyist-glazed one-off from the second version.
Update 1/18/12: Wrong, it is an OF finish. This mold was both OF and available to hobbyists.

In this sense, hobbyist refers to a hobby mold user, not a fancier of the model horse hobby. This mold, by an unknown manufacturer, has a much taller base, more "ferns" added to the support and base, and the left hind leg is not an add-on. As best I can tell from the mold seams, it came out of a four-piece mold, and still sacrificed the stallion's genitalia. The overall sculpture is thicker, lacking detail, and there are odd rings around the neck. This gives it an elongated and thickened look. Here is another hobbyist-glazed one-off of this second version:


And, yet another, with a hand for scale against the tall base:



As if just to show us that every answer leads to yet more questions, this mutation turned up online. It looks like the Provincial Molds' P-159 "leg-out" horse's forelegs were altered to a pose matching the Lane Facing Right Rearing horse. It also looks like something unfortunate happened to his jaw. Google coughed this up in Images without a working source page, so credit for this photo is unknown at this time.
Updated 1/18/12: This is OF mold #1156.



For those interested in the monumental-sized Large Rearing Facing Right horse, get ready to do a little happy dance. He is known as the Bil-Mar #524 Large Rearing Horse. This enormous hobby mold is still in production and available to order. This means that it is not as rare as previously estimated by its scarcity "in the wild". However, weighing in at 100lbs and birthing greenware that measures 26.5 x 20" long, this plaster ceramic hobby mold is not for the timid. Convenient to West Coast potters, Macky Molds produces and sells the Bil-Mar #524 Large Rearing Horse. Macky has acquired rights to produce many vintage hobby molds. However, all potters may acquire the same mold brand new, but from a dealer at a discount (plus shipping, no store pick-ups). Here is the adorable Bil-Mar catalog photo of him in an ambitious Appaloosa pattern. He looks so small here!



I can't wait to see what today's custom glaze artists will do with this monster! Although I doubt this is the end of my investigation of the history and identities of the Mystery horses, I do have a happy ending for now. I am acquiring some of these hobby molds to glaze, too!

If you have photographs of any of the mold variants, or a Lane catalog, I'd love to see them and share them in a future installment.

References:

Breakables Yahoogroup. Message #41375. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/breakables/message/41375
Ceramics Network http://www.ceramicsnetwork.com/Provincial2.aspx
Macky Molds http://www.mackymolds.com/myweb/Bil-Mar/Bil-Mar%20Index%20Page.htm
Indiana Ceramic Supply http://www.debmark.com/molds/BM/BM.php#start
TV Lamps.net http://www.tvlamps.net/horse_lamps.html

Preserving Ceramic History

I am typing this on a holiday, a rare night off, and it just happens to be New Year's weekend. This time of year tends to put me in a reflective mood about the history of my ceramics, and hopes of the future of the art form. Lately, I have put thought into how to preserve and protect my ceramics from year to year, to decades, and beyond.

I admit it: it has been a hair over four years since I last dusted my collection and personal pottery archives. Many, many people have seen this in the interim, and most have been kind enough to not mention the state of my shelves. It takes four years for me to find both the courage and a block of days to take them out, individually dust, and inventory them. It's not that there are a lot of pieces; most would consider the size of my collection modest. The whole thing is barely equal in number to the major collectors' show strings, let alone their collections. For a little perspective, my entire show string averages five to seven pieces, roughly one per breed division.

The actual ceramic figure dusting is accomplished with cotton gloves and a large micro-fiber towel. The gloves prevent my leaving fingerprints on glossy ceramics. One of these useful towels can dust a small collection before needing to be washed. The shelves require the tough love of glass cleaner and either newsprint or paper towels. You'll get less lint if you clean glass with newsprint, but watch for the ink on your hands- don't touch white bisque right after that!

So... it takes days? really? Yes, because rushing always results in damage. A large chunk of that time is spent dusting each piece carefully, studying it, deciding how to thematically display, and yet accommodate the attrition of sold pieces and the appearance of new finds. Placement in the cabinet for items without bases is side-to-side, with foam pads at each end of the shelf, against the side walls, to brace the entire line in place. This method comes from my days collecting in California, with earthquakes and sonic booms making things interesting. More extreme preservation, such as storing items laying down in drawers, or upright with foam pads between each item, is certainly safe but not very pretty. I look at these items daily for reference and inspiration, so I had to come up with a compromise between safety and visibility. Only items that are firmly glazed to a base get to be displayed in profile. If I do this right, I will be happy with the arrangement for the next four or more years. So far, I have been happier and happier with each iteration.

This year, I have not been happy with the actual cabinet itself. I have watched over the months as the quarter-inch-thick safety glass shelves bowed under the strain of their five-foot stretch. They bounced and jiggled when the studio doors closed; horses literally danced with vibration from the air vacuator system, located two rooms over. The cabinet is safely screwed to the wall studs, but its components were a virtual donkey ride for the artworks. Then there was the issue of the shelf L-brackets, which had already served five decades under much heavier collectibles, with a previous owner. Metal fatigue shears and earthquake tales about these things made my stomach knot. The L-brackets needed to be replaced. They also threw shadows on my pottery, and generally looked ugly. Before:



My husband came up with a plan to drill holes in the solid oak walls, set bolts tightly fitted therein, and then cover the extended ends with hexagonal sleeves. The flat surface of the sleeve where glass rested was topped with a custom-cut piece of adhesive foam padding.



The next issue to be addressed was the shelves' bowing. I had seen how 1/2" thick glass store display shelves were supported in their centers with Plexiglass vertical "X" shapes. My husband designed laying "T" shapes and custom cut these plex supports for the entire cabinet. No more bow, and now all the shelves were solid as rock.

View from top shelf, looking down:



Not only did he fit the cabinet with all these stabilizing parts, but he also installed lighting in the top. The cabinet is not only less stressful to look at, it is easier to see what is inside it!



To label each pottery item, I use paper self-adhesive labels and a paper hole punch to make tiny round dots with identifying numbers. These cannot harm the finish nor the stability of the models. Each sticky dot goes on the bottom of one foot or the base, and corresponds to an inventory list. I include as much data as I know about the provenance of each item. Horrifyingly, shockingly, I do the entire first stage of this process with good, old-fashioned pen and paper. I am aware that there are more high-tech methods (I know I could make bar code stickers, but I don't want to) but I rather like the tedious nature of this method; it gives me more time to visit with each piece. Considering the hangtags I used to make, which were bulky and obscured my view of the sculptures, this dot thing is high tech.

To back up my personal accounts of the provenance of some pieces, I also collect paper ephemera linked to these items. This includes books, articles, printouts of closed online auctions, printed emails from former owners, photographs, even material relating to the (once) living portrait animal.

The unseen, but still important, part of collection protection is insurance. I highly recommend this to all collectors, regardless of location. Collectibles insurance is more readily available now, and some home policies can add on for it. If you do not own your home, get renter's insurance. Be sure to save your invoices when you buy at collector prices. If you watch prices realized of auctions and online sales, print out those of pertinence to the same items you own. The ephemera mentioned above can figure into proving the values of your collectibles. An inventory list, stored in a safe place, plus a copy stored off-site, is absolutely necessary.

Cabinet locks help ease one's mind when lots of guests are milling around or children are loose. You may feel icky about what visitors might think you think of them, but it's really nothing personal. You don't think they are going to run out with something under their coat; you just don't need something toppled over or mishandled out of curiosity. Some collectible ceramic pieces may be so unique or valuable that no parent would pay for the damage, even if little Johnny had just galloped it down to sharp nubs. Save yourself unnecessary strife and loss (and a lecture) and put a temporary lock on when visitors are in town.

Some collectors live in areas where they require home security systems in general, not just for their collections. The good news is that home insurance (assuming you've added a policy for your collection) offers discounted rates where a system is in use.

I want to see these artworks last well into the future, so steps must be taken to help preserve them. I am starting off the New Year with fresh display themes, glistening art, and relief in my heart for the stabilized cabinet. There is even a blank shelf now, waiting to be filled with my new work. What an inspiring way to start the year!

Fresh Prints in Mud

Every so often, what I am working on in my pottery will find its way to this blog. I have such an interesting little fellow in progress right now, that I should share while the sculpting process is active.

This classic size fellow is a commission, meant to be reproduced in both ceramic and resin in the near future. The nuts and bolts of him is steel wire armature, Super Sculpey, and Aves epoxy. I had to sculpt him in hardened media due to the need for two different versions of him. He has to encompass several technical and artistic points. For the client, it is meant to resonate that limber, unrestricted Mustang, and still do double-duty as a familiar, spunky, old-timey Appaloosa (when his rat tail and thin mane option is done). He must balance on a toe tip and two hind hooves, no base. He has to look wild without looking neglected, wild without viciousness, and wild without overstepping the possible.



Beyond his pose, his mane and tail must have enough movement to draw the eye around the composition. The client wanted a very thick mane and tail for the Mustang version. Well, what happens to thick manes and tails out in the pasture? They spiral together, and make visually interesting dreadlocks. I used to have pasture Fjord horses who grew rapturous, full forelocks and dreadlocks in their tails. I loved the contrast in shapes between their trimmed, arched manes and the abundance of the rest of their hair! The client and I spent days just in discussing, sketching drafts, and in-person direction while sculpting... just the hair! I am in the "less is more" camp when it comes to hair in horse sculpture. I feel that the hairdo can completely change or distract from the message of the animal. To push me outside of what I'd normally do, it took intensive, albeit good-natured, art directing. On top of that, I had to keep double-checking that my horse's body still had integrity, independent of his 'do.



Looking at the outline and negative space around his mane, it reminds me of Van Gogh sunflowers.

Once the hair was done, I went back and improved the horse. I started this sculpt earlier this year. He spent a short summer vacation with the client for hands-on review. This was a great rest for my eye. When he came home, I saw so much to alter. His face, which I had earlier felt was ideal for his message, needed work in gender characteristics, Spanish stock traits, and overall tightening of the flesh. He was too "lippy" before, as if he had more draft in his background than Spanish. Cute gave way to realism.



I am now battling my perception of pose versus camera angles. Because his head is coming towards the camera, it looks too large in this photo. However, it is measured exactly in proportion with his bones. He is also in a very athletic pose, sliding to a halt, rolling back, maybe even a flying lead change. Every muscle he has is tensed and his sacro-lumbar joint is flexed, tummy tucked. This compression of form, this mass of flesh changing and lobbing through space, had me second-guessing his back length. Any longer, and he'll have foal-bearing back length, considering how his spine is engaged. Cameras are both a curse and an indispensable tool.

I really enjoyed making his bare feet. I pulled up files from memory to make them. My Fjord's vet also trimmed their feet, as they were a barefoot breed and he liked working with them. The first time, he explained the bare foot technique, taken from observing feral Mustang hooves. The client wanted good solid hooves, no cracks, rings, or disease, so I put my Fjords' hooves on this sculpt.

I dug up some Mustang action photo references for each quarter of his body. What I really love about crunchy poses like this are the flesh wrinkles and rolls. Those stifles are buried in his sides! Even the fleshy stretchmarks on his lower rear say, "Action!"



Here is his unfinished side. The major head reworks made his throat crack under the pressure. I have to redo that whole area of this side, anyways. It looks smooth like my finished sculpts, true. This is considered a bad habit among commercial sculptors. I used to get hassled a lot in my apprenticeships for always "working clean" in the midst of sculpting. I can't bear smears and pills while I'm evaluating and actively working surfaces. I use a shorthand on my hard-media sculpts to remind myself of what to fix. It is very easy to get wrapped up in one area and forget things that bothered my eye earlier. My notation on his gaskin means, "cut here and shorten" (hatches mean, "remove media"). It looks like a lot to take away, but re-attachment of a leg means more bonding material between, so it won't actually be terribly short on completion.

One thing I like about both sides of his body is how his muscles ripple together; it's all low-relief, no gouges.



I have been battling with horse chest shapes for years. It's one of those conformation features that are highly subjective among horse people, and also varies dramatically by breed, age, and body condition. Photo references alone for this area can be perfectly useless, depending on lighting and how the animal is swinging its elbows. This time, I went back to a favorite anatomy book with unshaded line drawings and paired those with Mustang photos. There was much reworking, cutting, and sanding, but eventually, the synthesis occurred.



Getting back on the subject of mud... I am a collector of ceramics, and my collection works for its keep. I regularly pull vintage Maureen Love pieces out of the cabinet for reference while sculpting my own work. There is so much to learn about drafting sculpts for molding, just in looking at castings of her work. For this sculpt, I referred to Daisy, Maverick, and Sun Cortez. These pieces also give me a preview of how surfaces shrink and rise under the glaze. I consider the ceramics that have gone before to be a launchpad to the next level. We artists must keep pushing beyond what we previously thought possible.

Studying vintage ceramics has also taught me how to cope with the changes my sculptures go through when interpreted to slipcast forms. The hollow and solid parts of the castings shrink at different rates, which very subtly alters the look from the original. I can't wait to see how this sculpt will look in its ceramic version, with a detailed glaze finish. The colors are dazzling in my mind's eye!

A Short, Curly Tale

While in Ohio for the Pug dog national specialty show last week, we took a little time to visit the area antique malls. I was immediately drawn to a booth with vintage ceramics. As I walked in, the booth owner happened to be there, and she asked what I was looking for... I mentioned California pottery, and then we started talking HR. At the other end of her booth, she had displays of current HR miniatures and Specialties. We knew the same factory people, the factory history, and yet she was not active on the net nor in the collector community. It was a refreshing surprise to meet a fellow collector while traveling.

She said, "I believe that they are the best American [ceramics] for the the price."

I agree!

Now, I am in town for the country's largest Pug show... I have just met an HR fan from way back... and I look at the display to my right, and there are two matching HR Pug miniature variants! Of course, I brought them home to share a shelf with my regular ones. Here is the official HR site's current image of their dogs (what they should look like).

Model # A-3316 Mama Pug, sculpted by Kathleen Ellis
The lighter model would be called an "apricot fawn" in the Pug fancy. The factory term is "tan". This model was purchased the season the mold premiered, Spring 2000. This is what they should all look like.

The variant dark model, purchased in OH, would be called "smutty fawn" in the fancy. It is considered a fault in the breed; the clear fawn is a correct color. On the plus side, this one has plenty of contrast, so the face mask and mold details are visible.





Butts show the true slip color underneath. Both are poured in the tan slip.




Model # A-3317 Baby Pug, sculpted by Kathleen Ellis
The lighter one was purchased at the same time, from the same dealer, as the lighter Mama. The baby would be called just fawn (no apricot shading), with a little saddle of smutty shading on the back. It is not a true "trace" (dorsal stripe) because it is so wide. This saddle does occur in real Pugs. A distinct, narrow trace is one of the breed standard markings in fawns.

The darker variant puppy also appears to be poured in slighter darker batch of the tan slip, as it is even darker in slip color than its corresponding Mama. Tinted slip batches are known to vary in other HRs. The pencil numeral "5" on the cards of the darker ones is the dealer's mall booth number, not of factory significance.






In terms of horse collecting, these two variants are so starkly different that one would be called buckskin and the other a dark bay. I do not know if she has more variant Pugs in stock. I seem to have lost her personal business card on my travels, but this is the antique mall's contact information. Ask for Nancy of booth number 5.

Edit May 2013: I found Nancy's business card. Her business is "Echo's Past" Antiques and Collectibles, Nancy Ventker.


And that is my short, curly Pug tale. Happy collecting!

A Tale of Two Zaras

A few years ago, I was exhibiting at a local model horse show. I love shows because you can see sculptures up close and examine them beyond any photographic detail. A couple of feet from my table, I spied a very dark Hagen-Renaker large 9" Zara. I asked the owner if I could pick her up and take a closer look, which she allowed with a smile. Even though I make ceramic horses for a living, I don't assume I can just pick up anyone's stuff!

The owner admitted she was disappointed that the horse that she purchased as a San Marcos Gloss Palomino off eBay turned out to be so very dark and not at all palomino. The eBay seller was, in fact, a Renaker family member, selling many San Marcos pieces, but not very familiar with them.

Text from the original auction page: "This is a beautiful HR Designer's Workshop gloss-finish palomino ZARA horse, measuring 9" x 10 1/2". It's in pristine mint condition. My grandparents are Maxine and John Renaker, founders of Hagen-Renaker ceramics. I have pieces from the Spring line of Designer's Workshop (1983), made in San Marcos, CA. (I have no miniatures.) I will list a few more horses and farm animals in the coming months. Please feel free to write me with any questions at all."

The buyer was particularly fond of palomino models, and was hoping for just a slightly darker palomino variation, based on the auction images. In person, the piece was clearly a flaxen liver chestnut, with pale yellow mane and tail. Her markings also did not match other Palomino Zaras. Odder still, this was not the retooled 1980's mold of normal San Marcos Zaras. This was the old Monrovia/San Dimas mold. The clear overglaze was long-crackled like other San Marcos clear-overglazed horses I'd seen. An old mold, poured in brown slip, that fell in a San Marcos vat of gloss dipping glaze? Very few of the old mold Zaras were poured in the brown slip, and they are the very rare and desirable bays (aka, "browns", but have black mane/tail). I mentioned these issues to the owner, and she was surprised at just how many traits were odd.

The owner asked how I could tell if it was cast in the brown slip. I said the pour chill lines told me it was, but undeniable proof would be to scratch or sand through the black underglaze on the dry-footed bottom of a hoof. If the clay is dark brown when wetted, it was poured in brown slip. She later reported that she tried it, and it was in fact brown slip. All normal Palomino Zaras were poured in a pale yellow slip.

Her scratch test on a hoof, dry in this pic:



She posted this after our chat:
"Anyway, I wanted to see if anyone might have any
ideas on this Zara that I acquired from Alexis Brazel (crushtapes) last
fall. As many of you may have watched the eBay auctions where I bought her,
Alexis is the granddaughter of the Renaker's and was selling a lot of older
HR's that had been boxed and stored for 20 years direct from the San Marcos
factory shelves at the time.

This mare is a chocolate brown and has a cream colored mane, tail, blaze,
and sock. She has tri-colored eyes. According to another collector, she is
has Monrovia mold detail with a different era paintjob. I know nothing about
the mold differences between each Monrovia and the others, but was told this
mare has the upper eyelid detail and the small neck wrinkles seen in the
Monrovia pieces and not the later pieces. From the looks on her belly, she
has a filled pour hole."

A little later, I was working on a portrait of her real horse. A happy ending for everyone: she got a palomino she wanted, and the "definitely not palomino" Zara came to live with me. I have seen a few HR tests in my time, and it became clear that this was a test. Even the initial signature of the test decorator for San Marcos was there, carved into the foot.



The scenario would have made sense; potters waste nothing. Got a leftover body from the San Dimas era? Just opening a new factory division in San Marcos? Want a new color to run on the previously issued 9" family? Molds take time to retool, pour, and dry. While you wait, test with what you have on hand, start taking orders, and get to work!

I later purchased a palomino regular run Zara, that I am told has markers of the earliest ones. Compared side-by-side, they are vastly different. Could this really be the test for the palomino run? Was it older than 1983? It just didn't fit that last piece of the puzzle.



Showing tri-eyes detail on both, mold differences. Both are from San Marcos.



In December of 2008, I hosted an all-ceramic horse competition at my studio. Two exhibitors arrived a little early to unload their show boxes. They took a look at my collection, and naturally, horses started coming out. Jo Ellen Arnold pulled an amazingly detailed old Zara out of her tote. This piece was poured in brown slip, decorated liver chestnut, and was at one time photographed in the Hagen-Renaker factory archives. The best date I can find for a brown slip Zara is 1968. Collectors thus consider it a factory test, although it appears to have been decorated by the original sculptor, Maureen Love. Excited, I pulled my weird Zara out of the cabinet, and comparisons began. They had the same white markings! The liver sisters were reunited, although separated in glaze age by decades.

Photos by Keith Bean:



The 1983 (going by the auction description) gloss has typical San Marcos gloss long crackle. The 1968(?) test is old matte glaze.





Purely speculation, but it may be that Jim saw the original Zara in the archives between 1980-1983 (it went into private collector hands around 1989) and styled his own San Marcos test after it. The San Marcos liver chestnut was not decorated by Maureen. It has overall less attention to decoration detail, overspray on mane/tail, little to no body shading, and it has the SM factory test decorator's mark. As no other liver chestnut Zaras are known, this color clearly was not selected for production.

References:
Arnold, Jo Ellen. Personal communication.
Roller, Gayle. Hagen-Renaker: A Charlton Standard Guide. Third Edition. The Charlton Press: Palm Harbor, FL, 2003.

The Mystery Horses of Maureen Love

For several years, I heard about two OF horse ceramics, sculpted by Maureen, that were not produced by herself nor by Hagen-Renaker. No one could identify the age nor the manufacturer, and no one had photos (this is long before camera mobile phones). Until the advent of the internet, sightings were related from collector to collector, like spooky campfire stories. They were the "cryptomolds". In the past six months, I have learned a lot about them. It's not just two sculptures, it's five: plus there are mold variations of them all. Note: I am posting these in the interest of collector education, as I am not affiliated with any of these sources and do not have ads on this blog.

Lane and Company (1950-early sixties)/ Sunkist Ceramics (sold in 1963, reverted to original name by 1965) / Lane Ceramics (a division of Condecor, trademark died in 1974)

Please note that this is not the Lane furniture company. It is best known among collectors for its TV lamps and functional pottery. This company changed names several times in its short run. It also may have changed locations within Los Angeles County, from Van Nuys to Los Angeles, and back to Van Nuys. They are thought to have been both producer and distributor of other factories' items. This might explain why the same molds are in Marcia of California pottery's sales lists.

This is the base of their first horse TV lamp, not sculpted by Maureen, which is very similar to the inscriptions on the bases of these horse statues.



Maureen was laid off from Hagen-Renaker during their 1960-1962 hiatus, and it is known that she free-lance sculpted for other potteries. The Running Horse Mold was identified by her as one of her free-lance sculptures, although it is possible she did sculptures for Marcia of California before and after this period. These potteries were all a manageable drive down the freeway from each other; it would not have been a big deal to transport large originals or waste molds to the factory.

The smallest of these models are "Traditional" size.

Running Horse, factory finish by Marcia of California pottery, possibly distributed by Lane and Company Ceramics 
base underside inscription: (c) Calif. USA A-9
CA factory size not known, approx. 8 3/4" x 12" long
Colors: white clay with purple airbrush shading, green airbrushed grass, and overglaze gold hand painting on eyes, nostrils, body sections, hooves, and accenting grass swathes. Also came in same deco but with charcoal gray body shading on white clay. The third known color is plain solid white with no detail painting, just clear iridescent overglaze.

White iridescent from Goodwill Online


Base of white iridescent


Charcoal gray shaded version shown came from collection of Karen Grimm.

***

Facing Right Rearing Extra Branch Mold, OF Lane and Company Ceramics
base underside inscription: (c) H-1 Calif. USA
13" tall (Thoroughbred type)
Colors: Yellow mustard translucent glaze with overglaze gold hand painting on eyes, nostrils, mane, tail, body sections, hooves, and accenting grass swathes. There is no green on the grass base, the art glaze covers all.

Base of this OF mold variant and a view of the extra branch between the forelegs


Shown with the "Leg Out" Rearing hobby mold, to emphasize the disparaging sizes and that they are NOT a true pair.



Head breed type


Facing Right Rearing Modified Mold, OF Lane and Company Ceramics
base underside inscription: (c) H-1 Calif. USA
13" tall (Thoroughbred type)
Only color seen so far is a deep auburn translucent art glaze with same gold deco as above. There is no green on the grass base, the art glaze covers all.

Example shown came from Karen Grimm's collection.

***

Facing Left Rearing (I call it the "Leg Out" rearing mold), OF Lane and Company Ceramics
base underside inscription: CALIF USA 239
14 1/4" tall x 14" long (Arabian type)
Only color known so far is white clay with purple airbrush shading, green airbrushed grass, and overglaze gold hand painting on eyes, nostrils, body sections, hooves, and accenting grass swathes.

Link to a Google image:



It is not beyond reason that all of the Lane molds could be ordered in any of those colourways. Let's keep an eye out for the unexpected!

No-gold accents "Natural" 
It is my speculation that these may have been distributed by Lane, based on their own molds, but made less expensively to remain competitive with the Japanese ceramics flooding into the market at the time. No Lane stickers or boxes have been associated with these horses to date. One collector related a sighting with a "Lane" hangtag, for sale at a Lane Furniture retailer. The name is purely coincidental. Horses glazed by this factory tended to have pendulous excess glaze on their chins and bellies.
Edit 1/24/11: These are actually Marcia of California OF's, see update here.

Running Horse
8 3/4" x 12" long
No inscription, a 5/8" rind or lip underneath, hollow base

Color: white claybody with yellow, rust, and dark brown airbrush shading, no detail painting, and green shading on grass base. Glossy.

Yellow and dark brown shading (personal collection)


Rusty shading (photo courtesy Simrat Khalsa)


Facing Left Rearing (Leg Out) : no inscription, a 5/8" rind or lip underneath, hollow base that has been sculpted taller and with more intricate foliage; the leg is molded in place; head is add-on; 17" tall.

Color: glossy translucent mahogany brown, no detail painting
Shown here with the hobby mold variant to show differences.


Hobby molds
These were plaster molds any consumer could purchase and use to pour their own ceramics to decorate at home. As such, these mold variants can be found in any finish, as glazed, cold-painted, or white bisque. Other than unfinished white bisque examples, these would all be classified as "Customs" in the model horse hobby.

Running Horse Hobby Mold has more grass, sculpted in a solid mass between hind legs, up to groin. No inscription, just a 5/8" rind or lip underneath, hollow base. From Goodwill Online:



Facing Left Rearing (Leg Out)
No inscription, a 5/8" rind or lip underneath, hollow base (shorter than "Mexico's") and its left hind leg is an add-on at the hip; head is molded solid with rest of figure; 16" tall, shown above with Mexico OF brown variant.

***

Large Facing Right Rearing : no inscription, a 5/8" rind or lip underneath, hollow base
25" tall (Morgan type) Bil-Mar pottery hobby mold
This was once thought to be a mechanical enlargement of the 13" tall Rearing Right Horse, but it is a completely different sculpture. The breed type is different, the head is a different sculpture, as is the angle of neck, stifle structure (still correct), and the grass covers more area to counterbalance its heavy forehand. Everything about it is Maureen-esque, and her signature Morgan face is obvious.

Although I did not glaze this one, I identified the glaze as a commercial hobby glaze, Duncan's Antique Brass Art Glaze #SY553. It has the same crawl and detail-obliterating traits.



Shown here with the Running Horse OF and the HR OF Draft in harness for size reference.



Differences in the foliage/grass of the Facing Right Rearing sculptures



Values on these models have been equally hard to pinpoint. My personal experience has been in the $9-14 range for the regular sized OFs. I heard just this week of collectors of Maureen's work paying between $37-80 each for the smaller molds at auction. The rarest models are the older factory finished ones, with the Marcia of California solid white iridescent having the greatest appeal for collectors with a leaning for decorators. The most naturalistic ones are the shaded "Natural" colored running horses, and I see these the most frequently of all of the models (OF and CM combined). Of the CM molds, the large rearing horse is considered the rarest, simply because it required an experienced hobbyist to cast, assemble, and handle it. Then, it needed a very large kiln to fire to maturity! I have only seen one other example, and it was a cold-painted faux woodgrain finish.

If you have photos of variations on these models and would like to share the data, please feel free to email me. I plan to write a follow-up post on this topic, as information has been turning up at a remarkable rate.



References:
http://www.ebay.com
http://www.tvlamps.net/lane_lamps.html
http://www.lanecookiejars.com/about_lane.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/breakables/message/40193
Kelly, Nancy. Horse, Bird, and Wildlife Figures of Maureen Love: Hagen-Renaker and Beyond. Page 8. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.: Atglen, PA, 2003.
Roller, Gayle. Hagen-Renaker: A Charlton Standard Guide. Third Edition. The Charlton Press: Palm Harbor, FL, 2003.