Muddy Monday: The View From A Hill

As promised, here is the other half of the story on the little "Horse on the Hill" stoneware by Maureen Love. The first (harrowing) part of his restoration adventure can be read here.

The "Before", with original repair by Maureen, as it came from her estate.

Building up a replacement leg with epoxy, on a wire.

After the initial putty building layer was set up, I added bits over months, any time I'd have just a little bit leftover from a project or a resin fill, that was still of workable consistency. Slowly, the limbs filled out. The part that was hardest to make a sculptural decision for was where the grass blows over a leg.

Hole in the chest is a pinhole in the glaze, not the clay.

Since this is the only known casting, and there are no known photos of what the original design looked like, I was left to guess. I just extended the trajectories of the waving grass, and tried to maintain the same length and style.

The glaze on this stoneware has a very evident crawl, leaving some clay color showing through in a range of browns and terracotta reds. Since the gray part of the glaze is on top, I did the underpainting of the repairs all in browns and reds, by hand-brushing. After this dried, I applied a rather thick layer of gray mix, twisting and poking the brush (a 10/0) with a feathering motion. This imitated the way the gray glaze left gaps of red showing through. Where the gray glaze pooled in dents and details, I extended it onto the rebuilt areas. While the glaze crawl appears random at first glance, it follows laws of liquid surface tension and gravity. A random paint application would look out of place, so I had to follow the same "rules".

Left: Before

Right: After

(my photo colors are exactly the same)

While the glaze had its issues, between the pinholes and the crawling, it has a lovely faux stone look and feel. The owner was very pleased with my work, and has since given him (or her) to me as gift. I am very excited to add him to my collection, and view him on his hill, every day. This horse, and its base, remind me a great deal of the "mystery" horses Maureen originally sculpted for Bill Lenaberger, which were produced by Lane Ceramics and Marcia of California. It fits my collection, being so keen on research about those forgotten horses by Maureen.

With gratitude to collector Jo Ellen Arnold, for sharing this little treasure with me!

Muddy Monday: Reunited in Clay

Is fifty-five years too long to wait for a "boyfriend"? 

As covered in this earlier post, my research indicates that the real mare used for Hagen-Renaker's Roan Lady model had only one recorded mate. This stallion was two-time World Champion, Go Boy's Shadow, and for reasons already discussed, I aimed to sculpt a portrait of him.

I wanted to sculpt him in Trad size (1/9th scale) for the purpose of a resin run that is in scale with my other 2013 resin editions. At the same time, I wanted him to be around mid-DW or classic size (1/12th scale-ish), so that he stood just 1/8th of an inch taller than HR's Roan Lady. The goal was that the ceramics could be plausibly displayed together. After all, Zara has Amir, Sheba has Ferseyn, Erin has Two Bits...

First, I poured a waste mold on the original sculpture, salvaged after the resin edition silicone mold was made by my husband. I had to glue an ear back on, but otherwise went straight into it. 

Original epoxy sculpt clayed up and ready for the first plaster pour.
Waste molds don't have to be big and fancy.

Here comes the plaster!

Many pours later, this is what the cleaned mold looks on the inside, 

several pieces removed for photo.

Left: first generation bisque
Right: 8 3/4" tall original epoxy sculpt, after plaster molding trauma

The previous post about this sculpture mentioned pouring a rubber master. This plan changed. My husband helps with the rubber pouring, but he was swamped with his own work. To stay on schedule, I went forward with a technique that is tested and true, but might be a bit horrifying to ceramic fanciers. It involves destruction! 

I have to pour a "waste" or "clean-out" casting in each mold, to remove any mold soap residue my sponge may have missed, after I pull the original out. This clean-out casting was quite riddled with plaster and soap gunk, and to glaze him would have been folly. I don't want any of that to cause a resist while airbrushing or firing the piece! So, if it is to be used at all, it has only one reliable state: being unglazed bisque. The great thing about bisque is that it loves mold soap. It just yums it right up. A clean-out bisque casting is just the thing to mold off of, when you want to shrink the sculpt down a generation and retain all that first-shot mold detail.

Soaping up the first gen bisque for the next gen plaster moldmaking.
The two dark gray patches are epoxy, filling the vent in belly and a divot on face.

The bisque awaits its final plaster piece pour.

Rather than mold the second generation off a soft rubber, I molded directly off of the first generation bisque out of the waste mold. Its lovely, clean surface was just saturated with mold soap, and even water mist droplets beaded up on it. As each poured piece of plaster cures, it does a little expansion-contraction dance, pressing against the hard bisque that lacks the "give" of a rubber master. If the planes and parting lines have been planned correctly, the two main outer halves, and most of the small pieces, will come away from the bisque in perfect shape, without coaxing. However, the inner leg pieces of a mold with a parallel-legs stance and/or a belly piece between the thighs (like this sculpt) are pressing against two bisque surfaces, locked in place. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and this holds true for the bisque.

Strategic bisque breaking yields a clean release, with no damage to the plaster.

So, now I have a perfect second generation mold; in fact, it's much better than the waste mold. I made a mistake on a waste mold piece (chest) that I did not repeat on the second mold, which saves me some greenware cleaning grief.

How do the greenware casting measure up to each other? Here they are, dry and raw.

Next, I poured a clean-out casting as before, but this time, in the smaller mold. This casting wasn't perfect, and I could have very easily tossed him away, but I really wanted a black portrait model of my own. Badly. I cleaned every bit of plaster and soap off of him (he was much cleaner than the first guy), ran him through a first bisque, and started the airbrush stages of underglazing him a realistic sunburnt black. In the raw underglaze stage, the color rubs off like pastels on your hands, or any surface where it rests. I use the softest things I can find to handle him, and I try not to sneeze, talk, or cough. Any of that can permanently stain him with moisture drops!

Raw underglazes.

After the bisque fire, his color sharpened up. I then decorated his eyes and details by hand. I love hooves with detail, and it takes some tricks to give them the optic effect of layers of hoof wall.

Bisque underglazes.

Final height: 7 3/8" tall.

Top left: In his prime, showing snip and sock on this side.

Top right: in retirement, showing sunburnt black

Lower Left: in prime, showing other side of sock

Lower Right: completed portrait of retired horse

Real horse images used with permission of webmaster Judy Handel.

Then, I had to spray on satin glaze. Satin hates black underglaze, or vice versa. They don't play well together. It either is a drought, where the black sucks up every bit of glaze and leaves a dry surface, or it's a flood. Then, the glaze looks opaque white or gray, obscuring the true color below. Anxiety over how it would look kept me from sleeping.

I had worried enough to sate the kiln gods, I guess, because he came out as I'd hoped. Many collectors find black horses boring, but you'd be surprised how many colors and layers went into this black. I was so smitten, I took him outside for photographs in his "native environment", a pasture of Tennessee.

This sums up what I wanted to do, and now I am satisfied. I will now make a few of these for sale, in different colors. It will be less painful to part with each one because I have my Go Boy's Shadow. Roan Lady has him, too.

It is fascinating to compare the masculine short back with the mare-long back.

The masculine shoulder and neck is contrasted with the feminine.

The feminine face against the "hard" stallion face.

Overall, he lost 1 3/8", but he gained a whole Lady.

Gratitude to everyone who wrote to me (publicly and privately) about the TWH series of posts, and to those who gave me encouragement in person and on the phone. I'm looking forward to seeing more representations of Heritage TWH in collections and in the model show ring. The availability of this particular sculpture is:

Unpainted trad-size resin (link to ad)
Small trad-size ceramic
Roan Lady-size ceramic

Left to right: original sculpt, small trad-size ceramic, RL-size ceramic with braided forelock customization.

I am the only source producing all of these, at Lucas Francis Studio. You may private message/email me for more information on the ceramics; the resin has all its information in that ad. Thank you for following the progress!

Muddy Monday: Clinky Classic

This month's Muddy Monday posts have been all about exhibiting ceramic horses in competitions, and today, I will talk about my show. Out of the dozens of North American Model Horse Shows Association-sanctioned competitions hosted around the country each year, only a handful are ceramic specialty shows. This means that most, if not all, entries at the show must be a kiln-fired product, in whole or part. One KY show includes cold cast porcelains in the entries, as they contain porcelain powder in their resin mix, and they are produced by the show's main sponsor. For the most part, a ceramic specialty show has a focus on fired, glazed horse art. By virtue of the collectors it attracts, the gathering creates a safe, yet social "cocoon" environment for handling and sharing these fragile artworks, in person. The public, as in unregistered or unbadged persons, are not allowed at these events.

I host one ceramic specialty show, known as "Clinky Classic". Instead of being an annual show, it is held every two to four years. The first one was hosted in Louisville, KY by Anna Tackett, in 2004. She asked me to provide a fleshed-out classlist that would suit the ceramics produced at that time, taking into consideration the many artist runs and the paucity of certain manufactured breeds. Back then, NAMHSA required a core classlist, specific breed classes that had to be included in the show. This worked well for general shows with other makes of models, but in a ceramic show, some classes were empty because few or none had been made, yet! I also designed the trophy and medallion awards for that show, the first time I had sculpted matching awards in this manner. 

All the medallions for the very first Clinky Classic.

The show has grown to award even more!

The show graphic was adapted from the medallion and created by Heather Malone. As time passed, Anna became less involved in the hobby, and allowed me to become the show's new hostess. NAMHSA eventually dropped the core classlist requirement, which freed the show to focus on what was actually in collector hands at the time. The numbers of entries per class, and the class splits/additions that judges needed to make on the fly, dictate what the next show's classlist will be. Thus, the show evolves as the collecting world grows and trends change. I continue Anna's traditional flat ribbon color choices, to this day, in honor of what she started for our hobby. I also create a brand new design graphic each year, along with matching trophy and medallion sculpts.

Left to right: 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012 medallion designs

The tremendous effort and time required to produce the basic awards for the show is the main reason why Clinky Classic is held so infrequently. Other reasons, like real life getting in the way, and changes in hall availability, have contributed to this schedule. The next Clinky is scheduled for November 1st and 2nd 2014. By Fall 2013, preparation had already begun.

2014 show logo.
Each show logo has the theme horse superimposed on a 14-point star.

The 2014 show theme is the Renaissance, and the horse breed chosen for the awards is the Spanish Norman. This breed is a modern recreation of the historic war horse, a horse used for heavy armor combat and games. 

Original unbaked Super Sculpey medallion.

To make production ceramic molds, the medallion image side gets the first pour of plaster. It is later removed with compressed air, to preserve the sculpt. If the medallion remains undamaged from molding, I can pour more plaster halves on it. This cuts out the trouble of making a rubber positive for molding. I got six pours off of the raw Sculpey original. I use raw Sculpey for two good reasons: raw has more flexibility and pops out of the plaster pours easily; sculpey releases toxic fumes while baking, which adhere to the insides of your oven and home or studio, so I never bake it. It is only inert when kept at room temp.

Each now-empty plaster half gets filled with wet earthenware clay, in which I inscribe the copyright notice. This is now the exposed backside or verso of the medallion. I try to use the same clay fill each time, so the signature looks the same from casting to casting. This time, I had to make two fills with signatures. 

On each plaster, I carved "buttons" to key the new half to the first. Next, I add a tube of clay for the pourhole and wall up the plaster to pour the second half.

When I remove the clay tubes and start to peel the cardboard walls off, the molds look like this.

These are the first Breed Champion and reserve medallion tests for 2014. The Clinky Classic glaze color breakdown is as follows:

Blue: Breed champion

Peach: Breed reserve champion

Harlequin Blue field, Peach horse: Gender champion

Peach field, Blue horse: Gender reserve

Purple: Collectibility or Workmanship champion

Green: Collectibility or Workmanship reserve

Maroon: Performance champion

Salmon: Performance reserve

When judges do callbacks for the Overall of each main division, only horses that have won at least one medallion may return to the ring. Medallions from the fun "challenge" classes are not considered for the overall judging. Each Overall champion and reserve gets a ceramic trophy horse. The 2014 trophy model sculpt was finished in November of 2013. This is well ahead of schedule, as for most years, I sculpt the trophy model only 5 or 6 months ahead of the show. Unlike most trophy models, he is full trad size. In previous years, Clinky trophies were large mini and up to classic adult size. This year, I am pulling out all the stops with a HUGE trophy model.

This is a portrait of "Star Of Orion", 2007 Spanish Norman high point winner.

Because this show caters to the tastes of ceramic collectors, I provide ceramic trophies in the official award colors for the factory-finished models. As with the medallions, Breed gets blue and peach glaze, and Collectability/Workmanship gets purple and green. People who collect factory tend to want glazed items. The vibrant art glazes make them suitable as home decor, not just models. 

The 2012 Clinky theme was the ancient Chinese Emperor's Dancing Horse, and the trophies even got sashes and wine cups! 

The trophies were finished with the official show glazes, but applied in drippy sancai style, like Chinese ceramics.

However, the Custom Glaze Breed division gets a special treat, just for their fancy; CMG Breed Champion and Reserve trophies are undecorated bisque. This means they can send the bisque to their favorite glazer, and have a new custom show ceramic. Most shows provide rosettes or certificates to champions, but few shows these days actually award new show horses for the main divisions.

Lower right: carefully wrapped bisque trophies, on the Custom Glaze champion callbacks table.

This show truly attracts wonderful ceramic art!

A great deal of planning goes into the theme and awards for each Clinky, let alone the labor for creating the awards. In the past, ceramist Marge Para volunteered her time and slip to make half of the medallions for each Clinky show. This year, I am going to try and do it all myself! Normally, Marge and I also donate medallion sculpt and production labor to the Kentucky show, Breakables at BreyerFest, but since I have taken this year off from Breakables duty, I can do more for my own show.

In addition to the regular classes, this show makes room for challenge classes. These are opportunities for ceramic artists and manufacturers to provide awards for the best of their own product in showcase classes. Unlike shows that are funded by auction and raffle donations, CC has evolved to turn every donation into award opportunities with no further demand for money from the entrants. Cash donations are put directly into buying more satin ribbons. Ceramic item donations are assigned to their appropriate challenges or Collectibility classes. 

This CMG "Farewell" foal was donated to CC3 by Laurilyn Burson and Joan Berkwitz.

It was the prize for the first place in the Made With Love challenge.

Judges are very carefully selected for each division. I am even picky about standby judges, and try to assign them to their strengths. This year, I would like to bring in some highly-qualified exhibitors taking on the role of judge, and "import" judges from distant parts of this country. This show offers one of, if not the most, competitive model horse judge compensation packages in this country.

Clinky Classic offers optional catered meals from local small businesses, and several fast food places are nearby. The ordering, pick up, buffet set up, and clean up are all done by my dauntless husband, Paul Francis. He usually enlists an exhibitor's husband or two to help him, as it is a big job. Without his efforts, the show would not be able to keep such a comfortable pace and happy exhibitors.

At this time of year, I am ironing out class list changes and adding a new Overglazed Custom division to the show. I am about to make the ceramic mold for the trophies, which will take me three to five 12-hour days. Soon, I will submit all my materials for NAMHSA membership and then open for entries. Until then, you can follow the show prep progress on the Clinky Classic Facebook page. This where I preview photos of the awards and donations to challenge classes. You can view all the results photos from the 2012 show at that link, under Albums.

One important thing I have learned from hosting this show is that my job during show weekend is primarily about results. I can do a bit of light judging, but mostly I need to be available for questions, introducing people, and taking results photographs. For a specialty show like this, it can't be emphasized enough: someone needs to take photos. My weekend job ends on Monday night, after I have submitted the first round of text show results to the exhibitors for proofreading. After about a week or two, I submit the final draft to NAMHSA, for their official records. This last step is necessary to activate all the cards that were won that weekend. The entire show process, when you produce all the awards yourself, takes a full year. I do it, again and again, because it is just so darn much fun.

If you would like to enter a ceramic show, or host your own, I am happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Muddy Monday: A Walk In The Mud

As a resident of Tennessee and a professional equine artist, I get struck by the shrapnel of hate-bombs directed towards this state's native horse breed. I dodge the landmines of local horse people. The social and news media drive non-horse and AR people into such a froth that they have difficulty separating the Horse from what is done (to the Horse) in the name of Fashion. The Horse did not ask to have these things done to him. His only fault is being such a forgiving and compliant being, that this could even go on, at all. I've run into a few serious horse people who fail to grasp the distinction, and there is a tendency to throw the bay out with the bathwater. Or the black, dun, gray, chestnut, roan...

To see the breed before humans really took it to extremes, all one has to do is look at great old paintings, early photos, and sculpture (like last week's blog feature, Hagen-Renaker's Roan Lady). Why go to extremes, in the first place? One reason, although not the only one, is financial. The horse with the flashiest, most visually-arresting movement (in other breeds, it is flashiest color or most extreme skull shape) wins, by any means necessary. A World Championship meant lots of breeding money in a state, and a whole region, that had been economically depressed for a very long time. This is the sort of business that doesn't require higher education in the day-to-days, with the exception of needing veterinary services. Financial ambition, limited education opportunities, agricultural setting, and a state with weak or non-specific laws about animal welfare all contributed to the perfect storm of Fashion superseding Comfort. Some laws have been added, others amended. 

Today, enforcement is imperfect, as seen in the statewide "leash law"; every owner except three or four of us on my entire street let their dogs roam, without so much as a warning. Again, this goes back to the agricultural and hunting traditions that defy or circumvent paper laws: if the owner can prove that the dog is currently engaged in hunting or herding, it is exempt. Sadly, breaking from the history of soft enforcement will take an enormous coordinated effort, time, and an attitude shift. For example, our county animal shelter has made huge strides in the past seven years, including rescuing horses, not just small mammals and poultry/fowl. If I told you of the amount of difficulty, the number of concerned citizens and volunteers, the hours of meetings and labor, and listed just a few of the community events that it took to turn this single shelter around, your head would spin. If that's what it took to make one TN county shelter state and federal law compliant, I have some small perspective on what it will take to completely eradicate the statewide soring of Tennessee Walkers. To be honest, it doesn't feel like enough people reside here to vote and enforce it into extinction.

What Fashion and Greed have done to the Tennessee Walking Horse is not the Horse's fault. Please, stop blaming the victim. The TWH was originally a beautiful and handy all-around riding horse, sound with ample physical substance. They had bone. They had chests. They grew abundant manes and tails and didn't need wigs. They could live long lives. They had natural movement that made them famous, before anything was augmented or artificial.

I've seen educated horse people take stands on social media, but a photo or a shared link does not touch what I feel and experience. Most of these well-meaning people have the comfort of distance. A few of them turned their venom to the mistreatment of this breed, rather isolated to this region, but were silent about Thoroughbred racehorses, Arabians, Quarter Horses, or any other breed with even worse death, misuse, and inflicted injury/drug/soring/surgical records. Unlike most of those vocal folks, I live here. It affects my entertainment choices, my business, and my relationships with locals. I do not attend real horse shows here, for fear of what I'll see. Non-horse people, upon learning what I do for a living, attempt smalltalk, and ask if I will be going to the World Championships for inspiration this year. I have to gauge my response carefully, because you never know who is related to someone in that industry; this is a state where the pride is strong and a little dangerous. 

So, like any artist in the midst of a turmoil they sense around them, I needed to make a statement that no one else could make for me. I was going to make a natural TWH portrait. At ease. No parked-out stretch. I needed a vintage subject for the sculpture. The modern two-legs-out -of-one-hole log-head Fashion was not going to cut it. This needed to say, "Do you remember when they looked like this?"

There are people still breeding for this old type. They call such horses "Heritage" Tennessee Walkers. Here is one of the last breeding farms for this type, in our country.

While researching the blog post about Roan Lady's real life identity, I ran across retirement photos of her only mate, Go Boy's Shadow. While he was a two-time World Champion, and was show-shod in the early era of the Fashion, he was kept natural for most of his life. 

At age 23, photos taken in 1975 by Mary Ellen Areaux.

Photos used with permission of Walkers West webmaster Judy Handel.

At the stud farm, he was barefoot, had a natural tail set, and looked better at age 23 than most of today's representatives of this breed look in their prime. Even in an early publicity photo (see below), he had one hind leg casually forward and under him, as if already defying the future Fashion. This was my portrait horse. "This guy", is what I needed to say.

I tried sketching him in a few different ways. To get a feeling for the conformation of a portrait, I sometimes trace a show-prime photo, and stare at it a while. Then, I freehand a drawing, then stare at both to see what meshes. I then trace my own drawing over, about three more times, adjusting model size while examining his retirement photos, because I am trying to teach myself to shed perception vs. what the horse actually had grown into. His underline had dropped, his head carriage had risen, and his hips had rounded.

Then, I made the armature by laying it directly on the drawing. I have grown into a very untraditional sculpting method of finishing the horse entirely in sections, rather than working round and round in many, many stages. This method developed when I made models out of Aves Apoxie, instead of the plastalina, Chavant P-40.

In epoxy putty, I condense it to just three main steps: sculpting, sanding, veining. This is not how I was trained, and I do not recommend it to anyone. I can't explain why I can do it, other than my brain does organize/identify/process things differently. This method will only lead to frustration and mismatched body parts, if you are a beginning sculptor.

The real horse had a very large shoulder and neck, so when he matured, his deepened waist balanced him out nicely. I loved his diamond-shaped nostril flare in his older photos, so I went with that look.

In his retirement photo, he stands proudly with his forelegs under him, sort of like the Hagen-Renaker 6" Style Two Amir (whose real identity is the subject of a future blog post). 

His natural tail reached to his ergots, in the old photo. I sculpted a light breeze blowing his tail, mane, and forelock. 

This angle shows the soft undulations of his crest skin and muscle, and his handsome face.

The unpainted resin edition is only a single mold run. This means after about 30, the mold is aged. Sometimes, the rubber holds up for more. However long it lasts, we will not make another mold to make more resins. Thirty-odd resins of a natural TWH can't come close to outweighing the model horse world's Big Lick mold majority, but it will take lots of efforts like this to slowly change attitudes. Orders are open for this unpainted resin model. While I normally allow customization of my resins, I do not allow Big Lick conversions on this resin. I purposefully chose leg poses and pastern angles that would make such a conversion an enormous headache, if attempted.

The big question is, "Will he be ceramic?" Yes, I have scaled him to shrink down to Roan Lady's size in ceramic, so they can be displayed together. Happily, the original survived the resin molding process, so I cleaned the mold release off, and I will make his plaster directly on the original. The first plaster mold is the waste mold. This will be used to pour a rubber master. The rubber is what the future production plaster molds will be poured against. As the plaster dries, there is a degree of shrinkage. The rubber has so little shrinkage as to be inconsequential. But, the next generation of plaster, off that rubber, will reduce. Then, when the clay casting dries out, it shrinks more... and even more, in the bisque firing. The final product should stand just a hair taller than the average Roan Lady model. 

The ceramics will be announced as they are finished and available. A Walk in the mud never felt more freeing and purposeful.

On the subject of the breed and its use, it feels good to replace a small bit of the hate, frustration, and aggression with beauty. Despite what the formal art schools tell us, Art that makes the viewer consider issues, and where we are going as human beings, doesn't have to be ugly or unrealistic to give topics some abrasive therapy. On that note, I have some sanding to do...