Potpourri

So, the wonderful Breyer History Diva blog supplied me with a list of this year's Breyerfest Special Runs (as in, those that are attainable--not raffle horses, or auction horses!) and where I usually find myself wanting one or two, this year, I want FOUR.  I either need to buy 2 tickets, or be prepared to spend on the secondary market.

What's tickling my fancy?

Under the Sea, a clear blue plastic Bluegrass Bandit.  I have a disturbing love for blue horses, and the translucent ones.  I do not think I care a whit about the mermaids.

Jasmine, the Weather Girl.  I am going to conga the crap out of this mold, I can feel it.  I'm already looking for a nice, simple repaint on one.

Hansel and Gretel, a mom and foal pair of Black Forest ponies by Birgitte Eberl.  In Classic scale.

Spun Gold, an as yet unnamed mold in 3 unnamed "Gambler's Choice" colors.  I missed out on the last Gambler's Choice at BFest and I sort of regret that, as I love the idea.  If its a Mesteno, I will reconsider this.

Going to be a rough year in Kentucky for me, thank goodness I won't have the madness of NAN before me, with the tempting treats in the tack and props area that crop up in NAN years.

In other news, I have been working on catalogging my colletion for a while now, and have FINALLY gotten to the point where I have a hard count on the OF Breyer plastic end of the world:

Traditional scale: 386
Classic scale: 66
Little Bits: 25
Stablemates 88

Total: 565 !!!  I had no idea it was THAT many--I've been putting the number of horses in my collection around 7-800 for several years now.  Looks like that needs to be adjusted UP.  Wonder if I've broken 4 digits yet??

Now onto the Stones, OF china, customs, Artist-resins (painted and not), tack, props....oh and getting it all photographed and uploaded to the Collecting Blog. But at least the Plastic Breyers are all tucked in their own spredsheets.

Finally, last weekend, Dave and I cleaned the basement.  During this, I found many amusing photographs (like those vet school pictures from 1993)  Here's one I wanted to share:

This would have been taken at the fall version of the Kaatskill Classic, 1994.  My first overall championship, earned by my Misty's Twilight "Freudian Slip."  This was my killer show horse in those days, when I was still a hardcore OF performance shower.  The CM overall was won by Rick Clark, but I forget that particular horse--its a custom he did.  Rick did these neat horses that he painted in car paints. It was damn near impossible to rub that paint.  I have one that is a bright red Running Black Beauty--I mean, he is candy apple red.  Does anyone know what's become of Rick?

Collection Contemplation

I am feeling a little blue about the live show universe at the moment, for a couple reasons that I can't discuss right now.  I am planning a trip to BOYCC and that now appears to be in jeopardy for reasons I am less than thrilled with, and in general, the attitude out there has just not been great.  So, I thought that maybe its time for a post that goes back to why I love this hobby so much I am willing to get involved with it at its ickiest national levels.

I have a large OF Breyer collection.  It is not, despite my husband's belief, the largest group of OF Breyers ever.  I doubt its even top 50 in the northeast.  Its not chock full of old goodies, but I do have every horse from my childhood collection, and happily for them, I took to thinking of them as a collection in my early teens, so many are in nice shape.  In the early 80's I was already starting to try and organize them in notebooks or on index cards, tracking both their Collectible Object Qualities and their Horse In My Imagination ones.  I was still under 100 horses at this point, even counting the non Breyer models that I had (have).

Back in those days, I lived in north Jersey and buying horses involved a trip to the Rockaway Mall.  There were 2 toy stores in the mall, KayBee Toys, who  kept an example of each horse in stock unboxed on a shelf so you could pick them up and look them over before selecting a new in box horse.  They would sell the shelf example if that was the last one they had (how I got my #62 Saddlebred Weanling, the first horse I purchased knowing it was already discontinued.)  There was also Michael's Things For Fun, a more sedate toy store than KayBee.  They had a quarter of an aisle dedicated to Breyers, tan and brown picture boxes facing forward, and a good selection to pick over.  There was also a Child World close by, and this was my Breyer Horse Nirvana--in my memory, there was a WALL of Breyers, floor to ceiling!  Every model ever!  I feel like I spent hours standing in front of that wall trying to decide between horses.  The one battle I recall was agonizing over a Bay Shetland Pony and a Honey Sorrel Shire...and I still do not have a single Shire in my collection!!

On the day I am thinking about now though, I was unable to convince my mother that I needed a trip to Child World, and KayBee was picked over, so I was in Michael's pondering what to get, and on this fine fall afternoon circa 1983, I decided to lay my hard earned five bucks on a dapple grey Proud Arabian Stallion.  It took a long time for me to arrive on this choice, and selected the sealed box carefully.  I was not allowed to open my horses until I got in the car, and I remember sitting in the front seat of our grey Cordova, breaking open the plastic sealing the box and taking the lid off....and seeing a horse that did not look like the tall grey horse on the picture box.

WHAT!

I was SERIOUSLY taken aback by what was before my eyes.  This horse had a black mane, tail and legs.  The picture on the box DID NOT.  What sort of nonsense was this.  I was disappointed for a while, but eventually this horse, who ended up with the name Roger Moore (there was a serious James Bond thing going on at home, and the horses got some unfortunate names via osmosis) became a favorite.

When I began to meet with other hobbyists, I learned that my PAS was something unusual.  I took him to my first real live show ever in 1991, and a complete stranger walked up to me as I unboxed my show horses and offered me a hundred dollars for him.  Which, at the time, was an insane sum to me for a plastic horse. I said no. Several times.  Stranger told me to let her know if I changed my mind.  Still haven't.

I still take him out time to time--he's got very nice haloed/peacock spots that do not show up in that photo.  And as wonked out as he is anatomically (he really looks more like a giraffe than a horse)  he still holds a place in my heart, and he is still "herd leader" in my imagination.

Weather Girls

My intention for this bog was to be about showing for showers.  Unfortunately, my work schedule and the local show schedule can't quite seem to get it together :(  Between this, and my current hobby activities (I am president of NAMHSA, and it seems that when I get near the Board of Directors, sparks have to fly.  Prior to that, I helped to run NAN last summer.) this poor blog has suffered quite a bit.

I do more model horse pondering than I probably should on my personal blog, so last night it occurred to me that maybe I should push that here,as that was one of the original intents.  So here we go.

Despite being entrenched in the showing end of the hobby, I find I have been amazingly out of touch with the collector end.  Thank goodness Breyer sends me email, or I may have missed out on the Weather Girls. I participated in the Treasure Hunt the first year it was done, because I HAD to have a pegasus.  What perked my interest this year was the idea of a "Rainbow."   I have no idea what this is going to be, but seeing as how the other three horses' colors are suggested by their names, I am really hoping for some color freakshow.  Yes, its true.  I show the highly realistic, but dangle a blue horse before  me (stars, lighting up, making sounds all earn bonus points) and I become putty.

Anyway, I think they are nice.  They are smaller than the picture I had in my head, but I suspect that f I started measuring, they would be like 14 hand Arabs instead of the giant, supersize Arabs were are used to in "1/9" scale.  I like their trot, though its really a moment of suspension, which may foil any performance plans that are trying to hatch out (I so totally want to turn this into a show hack or some other such performance event I know next to nothing about)  They all stand.  Hooray.  I like the colors--the palomino is deep and metallic.  The dark grey is a deep, steely thing.  The pinto, being dapple grey and tobiano is slightly over the top for my personal taste, but its a complicated thing that is well done.

And I want one of these in bay.  And chestnut.  Suppose I must wait.

I am intrigued with the idea that these are "going into the vault" for a few years.  This will make the run a bit more valuable in the short term, as I imagine some of these are going to be purchased to make customs.  They are kinda sorta special runs, given that they are in that limbo between a true SR and a RR--a "regular run" produced for a limited time. Its possible they may be more uncommon than some "real" SRs.  Any time customizers want to lay their hands on an OF that is perceived as "special" that makes people sort of panic about them.  I figure each on that gets a coat of primer makes the one on my shelf that much more desirable/rare :)

I also got an Enchanted Forest in this shipment, as I already adore Newsworthy, and doing him in bay, hello!  And then he got added into the line and almost instantly discontinued.  Huh?  Anyway, he is cute, but mine has box rubs on his flank and elbow. Disappointing--its been a very long time since I had a horse with box damage, and my other 2 Newsies (white and silver) were fine.

Who else has them and what do you think?

The Amateur Owner

Sorry to abandon you all there.  NAN got in my way.

Moving on...in the past few weeks, I've been having sort of half on, half off discussions with many people about The Future Of The Hobby.  This tends to get people wringing their hands about youth showing, and I'll get there eventually, but I personally do not think that kids are necessarily The Future of the Hobby.

In the typical Natural History of the model horse hobbyist, you bought Breyers like crazy when you were a teenager (assuming boys and/or real horses did not take over) and when you got to college age, you Grew Up, sold your plastic ponies and joined the real world until you hit your 30s where you had money and time again, and hey, remember those Breyers?

Now, the natural history of the model horse hobbyist has undergone some dramatic changes in the past decade or so:

- it is less common for a person truly entrenched in the hobby to truly leave, or even take a hiatus on the scale that we used to.  College kids stay on board via the internet.
- it is easier to find local connections to encourage the obsession, thanks, again, to the internet.
- hobby activity is more stratified than it used to be, even though we fail to recognize this.  It leads to conflict among factions with different goals, as those different goals are rarely recognized.  Take showing at Nationals as an example--people whose goal is to show and win at Nationals is different than someone who gets a ticket and feels that the show should be as inexpensive as a local show.  We don't rate our shows based on goals or experience (I don't know that we TRULY have a base large enough to set up an A rate show circuit, but maybe its time to dink around with that idea)

In Region 10, we are starting to talk about Novice shows, and youth shows, and the amateur owner (AO) division.  I'm planning on getting into Novice and Youth in later posts, so for now, let's consider the AO.

I can recall showing my "roll my own" horses 15 years ago when New England Spring Expo had its AO division.  It was never very large, but it was often quite tough, and past AO entrants included people like Carlee Balling and Jen Timm (now Al-Biek.)  This was at about the same time that the Resin Revolution was in full swing, and you could have a body that you could slap any color you wanted to in fairly short order.  For a while, all my horses were my own work.  They were nice, but I don't have the talent or time to really be top notch, and I did flirt with the idea of selling my stuff (there are 2 of my horses out there--one was for sale at least recently, and I may go see if I can buy him back.  I know the other is in a black hole home.) in the end I decided I was not interested in that.

At the time, if your own work won an open grand championship, or a champ at NAN, you were booted from the division.  At the time, this was a smart rule, as it gave way for the next batch of up and comers.  Except NESE was the only show really offering an AO division, and it mostly died when NESE stopped.  I think NEMHC may have done AO for a while, but I don't think they have such a division now.

The AO idea did not really pick up outside of the region.  For a while, there was hearty debate on Haynet (yes, that used to happen) about how to split up custom and resin horses at shows, and most of the world felt that a Simple Custom division would suit the needs of people who wanted to paint their own...except it didn't.  A Simple Custom painted by Sarah Mink wasn't the same thing as one painted by me, even on my best day in the studio.  I sort of slid to buying other people's stuff once I went out of AO for a few reasons: there was no incentive for me to continue showing my own stuff in halter, as my stuff was now only going against stuff done by professional artists.  I had less time and more money to me, and this meant I could buy better things than I could produce.  I turned my creative mojo to performance set ups, which could be dreamed up and mentally worked on in places I could not wrestle with a visual problem. 

And here I am 15 years later, and I've gotten to the point where I am so picky about the resin blank I buy, I am not about to go and put my own paintbrush to it.  I suspect a lot of my other former AO's are in the same boat.

Now we DO have a new crop of people who are where I was 15 years ago, and the AO division has cropped up again at Windrush.  In a brief conversation with Kate (and feel free to chime in, Kate)  she feels that perhaps the accomplishment requirement should be dropped form the AO designation, and just leave it as a place for people who do not sell at all.  Back in the day, you often did morph into a sales force once you had stuff that consistently won, but obviously we've become more diverse than that now.  And I think it would work now, especially since everyone on earth makes medallions which are inexpensive and easy spots to practice without making a huge commitment, or having the anxiety that you might be "ruining" a perfectly nice resin.  People seem a bit more willing to torch up a plastic for the same reasons.

In terms of hobby growth, it really makes more sense to encourage the AO over youth or even novice.  The AO is a person who is invested enough in the hobby to not only show, but to create horses.  These are the people who are already supporting the hobby, at least on a local level, and really, model horse showing truly is all local level.  This is the person who is more likely to stay invested in the hobby and go to future shows, or even hold their own, and this is a person who should be encouraged to stay by giving them a spot to show their work against the work of others who are more or less on the same level.  Is it possible that a high caliber person who chooses not to sell might take over?  Sure, but I think that we are still a small enough community that, on a case by case basis, this person could be taken aside and asked to refrain from AO, assuming they don't take themselves out.  If it gets to be epidemic, then we need to think of a new set of standards, or perhaps, another division.

I do plan on discussing the issues of the Novice and Youth shower too, and I promise it will be in a more timely manner.

Distractions!

I actually did have An Important Post in the works, but its not done yet.  Mondays are my day to run errands, so I'm not really home to spend any QT with the computer.  I had planned on some.  And then the mailman brought me a Distraction.

If you are into performance, especially the DIY aspect of it, you really, really need to subscribe to Model Horse Performance.  I know, when I first heard about it, I was like "Well, I love the idea of a hobby produced publication, and yes, I am hardcore performance, but is a mag really sustainable?"  And then I ordered a sample issue, and it has so much potential.  They have a challenge every issue for tack/prop makers.  They have how to articles--the issue I got today included oak tag with patterns for an English saddle and a pad, as well as instructions for making both the English saddle, and a quilted saddle pad.  I can see that I'll be trying to make a few saddle pads in my future--its an easy looking project, its cheap, and it will be useful.  There is an ongoing series about how to carve saddles.  When I read the first issue, I felt like I could probably give it a whirl.  If nothing else, this magazine just gets me excited about doing stuff, and really, this hobby always needs things to get people excited and get them thinking.

Oh yes, lots of performance photo porn too.  It works for both the newb and the seasoned performance geek.  So go subscribe, or at least, pick up a sample issue!

My Important Post will probably bob up later in the week.  Lost is premiering tomorrow, so I can ssure you, I won't be around!

Housework!

I'm still working on getting a regular schedule for blog posts.  I think I'll be doing 1-2 a week, unless things warrant more posts.  Like BFest.  I have the blog set so I can post from my phone, though I bet those will be pretty short posts, but I can do photos.  The idea is I can live blog from a show.  Or BFest.  Or NAN.  No need for an internet connection.  Other than actual events, I probably won't post regularly on weekends.

If anyone out there does have something they'd like to post about beyond a comment, I am totally open to having guest bloggers.  Just hit up my email, or if you don't know that, leave me a note in the comments and we'll hook up.  Comments all go to my email for approval, so if you want to post contact info there and not have me publish the comment, I can do that.

I hope you enjoy my nonexistant Photoshop Skillz with my new logo above.  For some reason, I could not get text to appear on my image in PS (and FWIW, this is about the only thing I've USED PS for in the past, so I have no idea what I did to screw that up.  The image was in 2 layers that I merged.  I presume things went off the rails from there.)  I'd prefer the horses facing the other way, but I think I may get used to them. 

Well, that's all I got right now.  I think the next big show in the more or less area is the 30th MAR in March.  I would have loved to go but I am already trying to get off work that weekend to attend a wedding.  I know Beth and Ann usually go, anyone currently planning to head south for MAR?  Or are you all going to Marci's Draft/Pony show?

Speaking of specialization...

Well, my original intent was to dig up some photos to post today, but I overslept this morning, so that wasn't happening. And then I checked my email on break and this is what I found in my inbox from both Pour Horse and Velasquez Artistry:

Pour Horse Pottery, Velasquez Artistry & a myriad of other artists are most pleased that we will be bringing back BOYC in May of 2011! Yes, this is going to be BOYC, bigger and better than ever. So big in fact, we are giving it another letter- it will be BOYCC- the "Bring Out Your Chinas Convention!" BOYCC will run on a different format than your traditional show. We will have speakers, workshops and demos interspersed throughout the days, as well as a banquet dinner or two, and lots of other goodies and surprises. It will be a shiny weekend of ceramic immersion!


In order to help us prepare for BOYCC '11, we are planning a benefit day *this year* ! We are happy to announce, "Mud Day" 2010! This will be a more casual get-together for pottery pony fans; filled with games, food, a speaker and a workshop, but it will feature a little show- a "Teeny-Tiny Shiny Show," if you will! The date is set for Saturday, May 29th this year. More info can be found below. Class list & registration will be up & running soon!


Mud Day 2010:
http://www.velasquezartistry.com/boycc1

Well, damn.

I doubt I can make Mud Day at this point (we're already planning a CA trip later this summer) but look at BOYCC in 2011!!  Speakers, workshops, demos!  Like an ACTUAL convention.  I think I might plan to go out to that (I presume there will be separate registrations for the show and the stuff--if not, there should be!) since I doubt I'd ever fly with chinas.  Though I did figure out a way I might be able to get my half dozen CM Glazes into a duffle as carry on.  So maybe.

Its so exciting to be a live show enthusiast.  Really.  People moaning for the good old days are missing out.

So anyway.  Hopefully photos next Wednesday.  If I get my act together the way I hope.