The horse is a powerful symbol of the West. Easterners rode around in carriages, but Cowboys and (red) Indians preferred the freedom of a horse (also there was a certain lack of paved roads like existed in the East). And when something is such an ubiquitous important symbol, it often finds it’s way into art.

These horses are part of a grouping that celebrates a local developer. Someone added a whimsical touch by decorating each horse with a seasonal ribbon tie. It’s very festive and I hope that they do this for all of the major holidays.

This horse head looks to be old, and also looks as though it was formerly attached to something (a body perhaps?). Today it rests in the yard of M’s uncle, acquiring a new layer of weathering.

While this mysterious horse head awaits it’s place as a piece of art in someone’s home. It’s probably still for sale in this swanky antique store.

This riding horse was also in the antique shop, and I fell in love with it (although not with it’s price). Hey, wait a minute, I once had a tennis racquet like the ones under this horse, surely these can’t be an antique! I guess that tourists will buy anything (they hope).

Of all the horses, this is my favorite, and is the sort that I always wanted to have. Pegasus the flying horse is out there somewhere, just waiting to be tamed by a worthy human (or demi-god). Pegasus is not limited by a little thing like roads, and that is the ultimate in freedom.

On my recent trip, I ferreted out the location of an interesting destination.   I had seen an advert for the place on a friend’s website, so I decided that it was a must see.

And what might Novelty Automation be?   Well it’s got coin-operated machines inside, but they are not like regular commercially produced arcade machines.    They are all artist created, satirical machines (the only similarity to arcade machines is that it takes one’s coin).

Right inside the front door was this machine.   You put in the coin, crank the handle, and the spinner above the figures whirls around while the lamb on top shakes it’s head.  And then the decision.

The diorama spins up or down to show the final disposition of the lamb.  I got ‘pet’ which is how I would treat a lamb.   The other diorama has the lamb as the main course for dinner.  (Noooooo).

This artist has made a variety of machines, I hope that this one was not based on personal experience.

Of all the machines, this one was my favorite.   It is the art critic who will give a yea or nay as to whether something is art (note the plastic cow encased in lucite on the side, obviously it must be art).  I could not resist the challenge and so I put Pteri into the little box on the side of this machine.  Pteri rose up to be judged by this critic, how could he not be impressed?   Well it just goes to show the fickle nature of art criticism, Pteri was declared to be not art.  The judgement was obviously flawed, I assert that any picture (or art) can be improved with the addition of a pterodactyl.

 

One of the advantages of making a statue is that on the whole, a statue is much more durable than a painting.   Paintings need to be forever retouched (painted all over again in the style of the original artist) and fiddled with.   Paintings are rather fragile as well, with just a thin layer of paint over canvas, wood or even paper.   But a statue, well, they are mostly made of bronze and require no more than a light dusting from time to time.   Unless of course they are out of doors, then statues require maintenance from the depredations of pigeons (really, these birds have no respect for art!)  So as these statues are safely ensconced in the Tate, one might think that they would be safe.  But that thought would be wrong.

Whatever this 60’s thing is supposed to represent (possibly the artist has seen the horror movie “The Manster” or “The Thing With Two Heads), I’m sure the artist never envisioned that a pterodactyl might attack it.

And I’m afraid that in this stare down, Pteri wins.

Snakes aren’t much of a challenge for Pteri, especially when the snake is already being strangled.   Too bad for you, snake, now you have two problems.

And of course unconditional surrender is always accepted, and some are wise enough to take this course.

This girl seems to be rather nice, and it is a relief from all this terrorizing to spend a quiet moment  just resting.

Then it’s back to work.  This statue has no chance against a pterodactyl attack, or does he?   Safely protected in a plexiglass box, it’s obvious that someone, somewhere anticipated this eventuality.  So Pteri had had enough fun for one day, and it was on to the next challenge.

I don’t know if there is any particular part of creating art that could be said to be the hardest part, it’s all hard, just in different ways.

I suppose the first hard part is having inspiration.   Some people fill endless sketchbooks with ideas, and then struggle to decide which one is worthy to finish.   But I typically have a single notion of what I might want to create, then the next step is to figure out how to do it.

Of course the model is the late Miss P.

And because I always work in fabric, I need to have a bunch of choices to try out.  Does the fabric play together nicely, or do they clash?   And the eternal question ‘Do I have enough fabric?’ (the answer is always ‘No”.)

And I also needed fusible web, sharp scissors and, wait a minute, how did Pteri sneak into the pile?

So here it is, the finished product.   I had an amazing (to me) amount of trouble with this piece, many things that could go wrong did go wrong.   I cut pieces out backwards, the fusible stuck to everything but the fabric, I actually sewed two important finished bits together and had to re-cut them at the last minute.  It was due at a show by 4:00 pm and I delivered it at 3:37 (so it was 23 minutes early, thank goodness that the traffic wasn’t bad).  And then the best bit, it was juried into the show.

I think the entire experience can be summed up in this quote from my e-friend Shreve “It’s when I’m under pressure that I realize what a great procrastinator I really am.”