Prep work

Since the carousel has been taken down for the season, the horses are all tucked into their winter crates.  The newly painted ones are in their usual storage shed waiting for the spring.  The horses who still need work are all in the maintenance building waiting their turn.

Here's the Pony Express and Fairy Princess horses, before crating.

 

Julia was home for a few days (see her post below to meet the horse she painted!), and we spent a little time prepping some of the horses for painting.  All of them need to be sanded to remove any flaking paint and smooth rough edges, washed off, and primed.  Since we didn't have a lot of time that morning, we didn't bother asking the guys to take them out of their crates for priming, but it was great to get some of the sanding and washing done while the weather was still OK to hose them off outside.  Definitely not the most glamorous part of this project, it's a dusty and greasy job, but it needs to be done.

Looks like they are at the starting gate!

Insert Darth Vader breathing noises.

 A few of the horses are going to require some more extensive repair, where the aluminum has really chipped and pitted.  We're probably going to use something like Bondo, and I for one am excited to give that a try.

Look for us during the month of November at the CAP Artspace on the Ithaca Commons!  We will be moving two horses in the front room by the windows, and I will work on them a few days a week.

Word is that our fundraising is going well, keeping pace with the painting.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated to make this possible.  Speaking of fundraising, we will soon have T-shirts available for sale/donation, and will be sure to let you know as soon as those arrive.  Many, many thanks to PSP Unlimited for printing our shirts!

-Christi

The Circus Horse

Our 12th horse! Home for a weekend, I got to paint! If anything could cure a case of missing Ithaca, it was the perfect fall day by the lake this Friday, and a horse that needed some new colors. My before picture came out a little bright, but the horse was a black and white spotted horse to begin with. I turned her into a pinto circus horse, inspired by the stripes on the awning of the carousel. You could say this horse is a small tribute to the carousel itself. Here she is, nestled cozily in the workshop after the weather turned a little colder.    -Julia

She's wearing a tiara!

So we've been a little quiet for the last few weeks, as I've been very busy attending to the rest of my freelance business...but I'm happy to introduce you to the latest of our horses! 

I'm calling this the Fairy Princess pony, a straightforward and unabashedly feminine tribute to pink and lavender and tiaras and sparkly things.  And of course she's a sweet palomino, since all the cool fairy princesses ride palominos.  I have four nieces, and they all went through a phase when everything in their chiffon-and-satin wardrobe was in this color range, they absolutely lived for sequins and sparkles, and their career goal was to be either a princess or a fairy... but preferably both.  The two young girls in my life have both started to reject the idea of pink, but truly love sparkles and still adamantly claim they have seen fairies in the woods behind our house.  This horse is dedicated to the tiny girls who are princesses of their worlds, and can still pull off wearing a tutu and wings to the grocery store.

I had the pleasure of painting this horse in the window at Handwork, our local artisan cooperative right in the center of Ithaca, for the first two weeks in October.  This was a great spot on Martin Luther King Jr St. (State St.), with wonderful light and many kind and interested passersby.  Many thanks for Handwork for hosting us for this project!

-Christi

At Handwork this week

Just a quick update: I wanted to let you know that I'm painting the next horse in the window at Handwork in downtown Ithaca.  Stop by the window on Martin Luther King Jr St and watch the Fairy Princess horse come to life.  She's a pretty palomino, and I'm indulging in all of the classic little girl favorite colors, pink, purple and lavender with tiaras and sparkles.  One of my friends told me that when she was little, she always looked for the girliest horse on the carousel to ride, and they were hard to find.  More photos to follow in the early part of next week.

-Christi

Sleeping under the stars with the Pony Express

I'm happy to say that we are one third of the way through painting the horses!  I'm also happy to report that the fundraising is almost keeping pace with our painting progress.  Many thanks to the many kind people who have donated to our work so far!  If you feel led to contribute, you can do so here.

Our tenth horse is one of the two horses who have historically had names on their saddles.  You saw the Wells-Fargo horse a few entries ago, and this little beauty has been the Pony Express pony through her last few painted incarnations.  Here she is before her facelift:

So when I think about the Pony Express, I have a pretty romantic notion of brave riders and strong ponies dashing across the plains, camping out under the stars in the wild prairies, dodging storms and skirting mountains.  So of course she had to be a pinto pony, definitely what comes to my mind when I think about the early American plains.  (I'm hoping this pony can hang out near the Native American war horse, they'd have a lot to talk about.)  I also really wanted to give this horse a quilt for a saddle blanket, for a couple of reasons.  My mom is a quilter, and I grew up steeped in the lore of the traditional American quilt, pieced together by brave pioneer women using the fabric scraps and worn-out clothes they had to keep their families warm.  And not just a practical boring-but-serviceable blanket, but a beautiful patterned expressive quilt.  I can imagine that a Pony Express mail carrier might take a quilt with him on his trips, made with love by someone at home.  So this horse is dedicated to my mom the quilter, who sent me with a handmade quilt and a lot of love when I went out into the world.

Here she is:

I never really took to the sewing machine like the rest of the women in my family, so this might be the only quilt I will get to design.

Here's two bonus photos of me working on this horse down at lovely Stewart Park on one of those fine mid-September days that make Ithaca so delightful.  Thanks to Rick Manning from the Friends of Stewart Park for these photos!

-Christi

Pretty as a Peacock

Another horse is DONE!  Julia started this one from the outside circle of the carousel before she headed out to school, and I finished up the saddle and decorations.  She's a peacock (well, a peaHEN technically).

 Here's a detail, with the top of the carousel in the background.

 It's really hard to get good photos of the horses' faces, they always look really freaked out with their open mouths from this angle.  But they really have a better and more friendly personality than this.

 

The inside.

The outside.

 Detailed look at the feathers.  I used royal blue to represent peacock heads and necks, then the saddle is based on the transitional feathers between the birds' back and tail. 

-Christi

On the radio!

I was fortunate enough to get an interview on WHCU with Lee Rayburn this past week.  It's archived at
http://whcuradio.com/morning-newswatch/audio-help-repaint-the-carousel/

I think I only said "ummmm" a couple of times.